The Canon

This class is a synthesis. Almost none of the ideas here are mine; they are the best of what product people, entrepreneurs, designers, and thinkers have worked out over decades, organized under one framework (AIRE) and put to work building real products with AI. This page names the sources, says where each idea lives in the course, and, because the field is changing, flags what AI has changed and what it has not.

If you build on someone’s idea, credit them. That is both honest and how you learn whose work to go read next.

What AI changes, and what it does not

A lot of product wisdom was written when building software was slow, expensive, and specialized. Some of that guidance is now dated. Three shifts matter most.

• Building got cheap, so the bottleneck moved. The hard part used to be can we build it?; now it is should we build it, and are we building the right thing? Discovery and validation matter more now, because it has never been easier to build the wrong thing quickly. “Write a detailed spec, then build” is giving way to “build a rough thing to think with.” (Chapter 5 says this directly.)
• One person can now do the whole stack. Frameworks written for cross-functional teams, hand-offs between PM, design, and engineering, still teach the right thinking, but you now fill every role yourself. Read them for the judgment and set aside the assumptions about team structure.
• AI can generate plausible-but-fake validation. It will readily generate a persona, simulate an interview, and tell you your idea is great. That makes the old discipline, real people, real past behavior, more valuable. AI can generate hypotheses quickly; only real people can confirm or refute them.

What has not changed: humans still have jobs to be done, still feel the same pains, still decide with the elephant and justify with the rider, still trust people before products. Taste, judgment, and the choice of what is worth building matter more than they did, because everyone can now build cheaply.

Foundations and mindset

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Product management as a craft; outcomes over output; discovery vs. delivery	Marty Cagan, Inspired / Empowered (SVPG) (Cagan 2017; Cagan and Jones 2020)	Ch 1; Ch 8	The discovery/delivery split endures; the “empowered team” is now often a team of one plus AI
Escaping the build trap (shipping features ≠ delivering value)	Melissa Perri, Escaping the Build Trap (2018) (Perri 2018)	Ch 8	Greater risk now: cheap building makes the build trap easier to fall into
The Lean Startup: build-measure-learn, validated learning, pivot	Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (2011) (Ries 2011)	Ch 5; Ch 9	Build cost fell sharply; the loop still holds but “measure and learn” is now the expensive part
Customer Development: “get out of the building”	Steve Blank, The Four Steps to the Epiphany (2005) (Blank 2005)	Ch 3–4	AI can augment research; it cannot replace real customer contact
The five discovery skills (Q/O/N/E → Associating)	Dyer, Gregersen & Christensen, “The Innovator’s DNA,” HBR (2009) (J. H. Dyer et al. 2009)	Ch 2	Durable; these are the behaviors, not the tools

Strategy (choosing the Aim)

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Strategy is choosing what not to do	Michael Porter (Porter 1996)	Product Strategy	Matters more: when anyone can build anything, the choice is the advantage
Where to play / how to win	Roger Martin & A.G. Lafley, Playing to Win (2013) (Lafley and Martin 2013)	Product Strategy	Durable
Moats and durable advantage	Hamilton Helmer, 7 Powers (2016) (Helmer 2016)	Product Strategy	More important now: when copying is cheap, a moat is the main source of lasting advantage
Disruptive vs. sustaining innovation; low-end and new-market footholds	Clayton Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma (1997); Christensen, Raynor & McDonald, “What Is Disruptive Innovation?” HBR (2015) (Christensen 1997; Christensen et al. 2015)	Product Strategy	Cheap building lowers the cost of a low-end or new-market entry; an incumbent adding AI features for its existing customers is usually sustaining innovation
DHM (delight, hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing)	Gibson Biddle (Biddle 2018)	Product Strategy	Durable
Product vision	Marty Cagan, Inspired (Cagan 2017)	Product Strategy; Ch 1	Durable
Aiming well; virtue as the mean	Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 1925)	Product Morality	Durable

Discover

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Jobs-to-be-Done (“hire” a product for a job)	Clayton Christensen, Competing Against Luck (2016); Tony Ulwick (Christensen et al. 2016; Ulwick 2005)	Ch 2–3, Ch 9	Durable
The Mom Test: ask about past behavior, not hypotheticals	Rob Fitzpatrick, The Mom Test (2013) (Fitzpatrick 2013)	Ch 3	More important now: it filters the plausible fakes AI can generate
Continuous discovery; the Opportunity Solution Tree	Teresa Torres, Continuous Discovery Habits (2021) (Torres 2021)	Ch 3–4	Durable
Disciplined discovery: diverge/converge, five kinds of pain, the Access Test	Nile Hatch, Expeditionary Innovation (Hatch, n.d.)	Ch 2–4	Durable
Importance vs. satisfaction; the product-market-fit pyramid	Dan Olsen, The Lean Product Playbook (2015) (Olsen 2015)	Ch 2, Ch 5	Durable
Discovery as truth-seeking (belief vs. truth, evidence)	Scott Murff, building on Ray Dalio, Principles (2017) (Dalio 2017)	Ch 3	Durable

Build

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Minimum Viable Product	Ries / Blank (lean lineage) (Ries 2011; Blank 2005)	Ch 5	The “minimum” is cheaper than ever; “viable” is the problem, hence MAP below
Minimum Awesome Product	Furr & Dyer, The Innovator’s Method (2014) (Furr and Dyer 2014)	Ch 5	More relevant now: cheap building means you can afford “awesome at one thing”
User stories with acceptance criteria	Kent Beck / Mike Cohn (Agile/XP) (Beck 1999; Cohn 2004)	Ch 5	Now also the instructions you give your AI; write them well
Prioritization: MoSCoW, ICE, the $100 Test	Dai Clegg (MoSCoW); Sean Ellis (ICE); Hatch ($100 Test) (Clegg and Barker 1994; Hatch, n.d.)	Ch 5	Durable; matters more as building more is easy
Test demand before building: smoke test, Wizard of Oz	Lean-startup lineage, assembled by Hatch (Hatch, n.d.)	Ch 5	Still the cheapest test, even when building is cheap
Usability: affordances and signifiers	Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (1988) (Norman 2013)	Ch 6	AI generates usable-looking UIs fast; judging real usability matters more
“Don’t make me think”	Steve Krug, Don’t Make Me Think (2000) (Krug 2014)	Ch 6	Durable
The Double Diamond: discover, define, develop, deliver	UK Design Council (developed 2003, shared publicly 2004)	Design Fundamentals	More relevant now: the first solution arrives in minutes, so diverging on the solution has to be deliberate
Fidelity: sketches suggest, renderings confirm	Bill Buxton, Sketching User Experiences (2007) (Buxton 2007)	Design Fundamentals	High fidelity is now cheap; the risk is skipping the low-fidelity questions
Mapping, constraints, feedback, conceptual model; gulfs of execution and evaluation	Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (1988) (Norman 2013)	Design Fundamentals	Durable; an agent sets the conceptual model silently unless you state it
Ten usability heuristics; heuristic evaluation	Jakob Nielsen and Rolf Molich (1990); Nielsen (1994) (Nielsen and Molich 1990; Nielsen 1994)	Design Fundamentals	An agent can be one evaluator; it does not replace users
Information architecture: organization, labeling, navigation, search	Rosenfeld, Morville & Arango, Information Architecture (4th ed., 2015) (Rosenfeld et al. 2015)	Design Fundamentals	Durable
Gestalt grouping	Wertheimer (1923) and successors, reviewed by Wagemans et al. (2012) (Wagemans et al. 2012)	Design Fundamentals	Durable
Fitts’s law; Hick’s law	Paul Fitts (1954); William Hick (1952) and Ray Hyman (1953) (Fitts 1954; Hick 1952; Hyman 1953)	Ch 5; Design Fundamentals	Durable
Cognitive load	John Sweller (1988); Nelson Cowan (2001) (Sweller 1988; Cowan 2001)	Design Fundamentals	Durable
Measure and line length in typography	Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style (1992) (Bringhurst 2015)	Design Fundamentals	Durable
The curse of knowledge; watch real users	usability tradition; Chip & Dan Heath (Heath and Heath 2007)	Ch 6	Durable

Grow the business

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Crossing the chasm; the beachhead market	Geoffrey Moore, Crossing the Chasm (1991) (Moore 1991)	Ch 9	Durable
Traction: choose 1–2 channels (the 19 channels / bullseye)	Weinberg & Mares, Traction (2015) (Weinberg and Mares 2015)	Ch 9	Durable; AI changes execution speed, not the choice
Positioning	April Dunford, Obviously Awesome (2019) (Dunford 2019)	Ch 9	Durable
Pirate Metrics: AARRR (acquisition, activation, retention, referral, revenue)	Dave McClure (2007) (McClure 2007)	Ch 8	Durable
North Star metric	Sean Ellis / Amplitude lineage	Ch 8	Durable
Business Model Canvas	Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010); JTBD refinement by Jeff Dyer (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010)	Ch 10	Durable
Influence: reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, commitment, liking	Robert Cialdini, Influence (1984) (Cialdini 1984)	Ch 9, Ch 12	Durable; use them honestly (see Product Morality)
Innovation Capital and the impression amplifiers	Dyer, Furr & Lefrandt, Innovation Capital (2019) (J. Dyer et al. 2019)	Ch 9, Ch 12	Durable
Habit loops (trigger, action, variable reward, investment)	Nir Eyal, Hooked (2014) (Eyal 2014)	Product Morality	Use the reflection test; do not use it to exploit users

Demo and storytelling

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Sticky ideas: SUCCESs	Chip & Dan Heath, Made to Stick (2007) (Heath and Heath 2007)	Ch 12	Durable
The rider and the elephant	Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis (2006), via Chip & Dan Heath, Switch (2010) (Haidt 2006; Heath and Heath 2010)	Ch 12, Product Morality	Durable
Story structure for persuasion	Nancy Duarte, Resonate (2010) (Duarte 2010)	Ch 12	Durable
The Pyramid Principle (conclusion first)	Barbara Minto (1978) (Minto 1978)	Ch 12	Durable

Thinking and decisions (cross-cutting)

Principle	Source	Where it lives	AI-era note
Two systems: fast/intuitive vs. slow/deliberate; cognitive biases	Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) (Kahneman 2011)	Ch 3, Product Morality	Durable; AI has its own biases too
Resulting: judge the decision, not just the outcome	Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets (2018) (Duke 2018)	Grading philosophy; Ch 8	Durable
Truth-seeking; radical honesty; principles	Ray Dalio, Principles (2017) (Dalio 2017)	Ch 3; grading philosophy	Durable
Virtue as the mean; practical wisdom	Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle 1925)	Product Morality	Durable
“Make something people want”; “do things that don’t scale”	Paul Graham / Y Combinator (Graham 2013)	Ch 2, Ch 9	More true now: building is easy, and making something people want is the hard part

How to use this page

Do not try to read all of it at once. When a chapter borrows an idea, this page tells you whose work it comes from. Pick two or three sources a semester and read them closely. And when you find a principle written before 2023, ask the question this class keeps asking: does that still hold now that building is cheap and everyone has an AI? Sometimes it does and sometimes it does not, and this course teaches you to tell which.

Aristotle. 1925. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross. Oxford University Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=LlRFAAAAYAAJ.

Beck, Kent. 1999. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change. Addison-Wesley. https://books.google.com/books?id=G8EL4H4vf7UC.

Biddle, Gibson. 2018. “The DHM Model: Delighting Customers in Hard-to-Copy, Margin-Enhancing Ways.” https://gibsonbiddle.medium.com/2-the-dhm-model-6ea5dfd80792.

Blank, Steve. 2005. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win. K&S Ranch. https://books.google.com/books?id=j-3zwAEACAAJ.

Bringhurst, Robert. 2015. The Elements of Typographic Style. Version 4.1. Hartley & Marks.

Buxton, Bill. 2007. Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right Design. Morgan Kaufmann.

Cagan, Marty. 2017. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books?id=S8Q_DwAAQBAJ.

Cagan, Marty, and Chris Jones. 2020. Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books?id=rdsMEAAAQBAJ.

Christensen, Clayton M. 1997. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Harvard Business School Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=18OTngEACAAJ.

Christensen, Clayton M., Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan. 2016. Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice. Harper Business. https://books.google.com/books?id=XTZ8jwEACAAJ.

Christensen, Clayton M., Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald. 2015. “What Is Disruptive Innovation?” Harvard Business Review 93 (12): 44–53. https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation.

Cialdini, Robert B. 1984. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. William Morrow. https://books.google.com/books?id=sEzuAAAAMAAJ.

Clegg, Dai, and Richard Barker. 1994. Case Method Fast-Track: A RAD Approach. Addison-Wesley. https://books.google.com/books?id=86ZfQgAACAAJ.

Cohn, Mike. 2004. User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley. https://books.google.com/books?id=DHZP_YL3FxYC.

Cowan, Nelson. 2001. “The Magical Number 4 in Short-Term Memory: A Reconsideration of Mental Storage Capacity.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (1): 87–114. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X01003922.

Dalio, Ray. 2017. Principles: Life and Work. Simon; Schuster. https://books.google.com/books?id=okk1DwAAQBAJ.

Duarte, Nancy. 2010. Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences. John Wiley; Sons. https://books.google.com/books?id=JJsM3Sedy0IC.

Duke, Annie. 2018. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. Portfolio. https://books.google.com/books?id=VcouDwAAQBAJ.

Dunford, April. 2019. Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It. Ambient Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=oI_f0QEACAAJ.

Dyer, Jeff, Nathan Furr, and Curtis Lefrandt. 2019. Innovation Capital: How to Compete and Win Like the World’s Most Innovative Leaders. Harvard Business Review Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=y_tmDwAAQBAJ.

Dyer, Jeffrey H., Hal B. Gregersen, and Clayton M. Christensen. 2009. “The Innovator’s DNA.” Harvard Business Review 87 (12): 60–67. https://hbr.org/2009/12/the-innovators-dna.

Eyal, Nir. 2014. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Portfolio/Penguin. https://books.google.com/books?id=dsz5AwAAQBAJ.

Fitts, Paul M. 1954. “The Information Capacity of the Human Motor System in Controlling the Amplitude of Movement.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 47 (6): 381–91. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055392.

Fitzpatrick, Rob. 2013. The Mom Test: How to Talk to Customers and Learn If Your Business Is a Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying to You. CreateSpace. https://books.google.com/books?id=Z5nYDwAAQBAJ.

Furr, Nathan, and Jeff Dyer. 2014. The Innovator’s Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization. Harvard Business Review Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=pn_aAwAAQBAJ.

Graham, Paul. 2013. “Do Things That Don’t Scale.” https://paulgraham.com/ds.html.

Haidt, Jonathan. 2006. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Basic Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=Tz4wVAp6qL0C.

Hatch, Nile W. n.d. “Expeditionary Innovation.” Brigham Young University. Accessed 2026. https://ei.nilehatch.com/.

Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. 2007. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Random House. https://books.google.com/books?id=Yfp79AAohiMC.

Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. 2010. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Broadway Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=ad5ktG0oe00C.

Helmer, Hamilton. 2016. 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy. Deep Strategy. https://books.google.com/books?id=9p1evgAACAAJ.

Hick, W. E. 1952. “On the Rate of Gain of Information.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 4 (1): 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470215208416600.

Hyman, Ray. 1953. “Stimulus Information as a Determinant of Reaction Time.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 45 (3): 188–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0056940.

Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus; Giroux. https://books.google.com/books?id=TA7Q27RWlj0C.

Krug, Steve. 2014. Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. New Riders. https://books.google.com/books?id=qahpAgAAQBAJ.

Lafley, A. G., and Roger L. Martin. 2013. Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works. Harvard Business Review Press. https://books.google.com/books?id=a5Bcilcnjd0C.

McClure, Dave. 2007. “Startup Metrics for Pirates: AARRR!” https://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/09/startup-metrics.html.

Minto, Barbara. 1978. The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking. Minto International. https://books.google.com/books?id=cgT9AQAACAAJ.

Moore, Geoffrey A. 1991. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. HarperBusiness. https://books.google.com/books?id=HkieQgAACAAJ.

Nielsen, Jakob. 1994. “Enhancing the Explanatory Power of Usability Heuristics.” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’94) (New York, NY, USA), 152–58. https://doi.org/10.1145/191666.191729.

Nielsen, Jakob, and Rolf Molich. 1990. “Heuristic Evaluation of User Interfaces.” Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’90) (New York, NY, USA), 249–56. https://doi.org/10.1145/97243.97281.

Norman, Don. 2013. The Design of Everyday Things. Revised and Expanded. Basic Books. https://books.google.com/books?id=nVQPAAAAQBAJ.

Olsen, Dan. 2015. The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback. John Wiley & Sons. https://books.google.com/books?id=j5rgCAAAQBAJ.

Osterwalder, Alexander, and Yves Pigneur. 2010. Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Wiley. https://books.google.com/books?id=f86o0AEACAAJ.

Perri, Melissa. 2018. Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value. O’Reilly Media. https://books.google.com/books?id=buJ1DwAAQBAJ.

Porter, Michael E. 1996. “What Is Strategy?” Harvard Business Review 74 (6): 61–78. https://hbr.org/1996/11/what-is-strategy.

Ries, Eric. 2011. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. Crown Business. https://books.google.com/books?id=tvfyz-4JILwC.

Rosenfeld, Louis, Peter Morville, and Jorge Arango. 2015. Information Architecture: For the Web and Beyond. 4th ed. O’Reilly Media.

Sweller, John. 1988. “Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning.” Cognitive Science 12 (2): 257–85. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4.

Torres, Teresa. 2021. Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products That Create Customer Value and Business Value. Product Talk LLC. https://books.google.com/books?id=Wb4yEAAAQBAJ.

Ulwick, Anthony W. 2005. What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services. McGraw-Hill. https://books.google.com/books?id=7sUgngEACAAJ.

Wagemans, Johan, James H. Elder, Michael Kubovy, et al. 2012. “A Century of Gestalt Psychology in Visual Perception: I. Perceptual Grouping and Figure-Ground Organization.” Psychological Bulletin 138 (6): 1172–217. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029333.

Weinberg, Gabriel, and Justin Mares. 2015. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth. Portfolio. https://books.google.com/books?id=oD7ZCwAAQBAJ.