Weekly Product Hits: Why OKRs Fail, It's All Invented, Product Hackathons
Product Hits: November 17, 2025Every week, I share three great product resources from a variety of perspectives. Let's dive in! Why OKRs Fail by Radhika Dutt Radhika Dutt, Chief Product Officer at Moveprice, explains that OKRs often fail because they compensate for a lack of clear vision, pushing teams toward short-term wins and metric gaming instead of genuine progress. Dutt urges PMs to replace goal-setting with vision-driven strategy instead; in other words, PMs should treat initiatives as hypotheses rather than goals, and they should focus on learning instead of hitting targets. It’s all invented by Kate Leto Kate Leto, Head of Product at Moo, explains how the stories we tell ourselves shape how we lead. She shows how people often fall into roles like hero, victim, or villain, and how those narratives influence team dynamics. Leto encourages PMs to treat mindset shifts like product experiments by identifying the story they default to, testing a new one, and practicing a version that creates better collaboration and outcomes. Product Hackathons by Noa Ganot Noa Ganot, Founder of Infinify, argues that hackathons only create real value when teams focus on the right problem, not on rapid prototyping. Ganot shows that defining the problem space, aligning on context, and writing clear product briefs before anyone writes code leads to outcomes that actually influence strategy. Behind the ScenesHey there, it’s Clement! I joined a hackathon recently, where I decided to build something pretty unglamorous: a sprint forecaster. The tool enabled engineering managers to pull together rough six-month plans in minutes, instead of wrestling with spreadsheets for hours. They could plug in shifting priorities, new dependencies, and team changes, then immediately see how timelines moved. Why did I do this? Well, for months, I had heard the same complaint:
People were frustrated, but the conversations stayed abstract. Everyone felt the pain, yet no one could see a different way of working. The hackathon gave us all the ability to try something else, and to consider novel approaches. Notably, no one expected perfect solutions, just a working sketch of an alternate future. Once the forecaster existed, even in rough form, the tone of future discussions shifted. Instead of debating whether longer-range planning was “realistic,” people started asking better questions:
The prototype didn’t solve planning forever. But it turned a vague complaint into something we could poke, stress-test, and improve. Prototypes are not just a way to validate designs. They are a way to persuade people that a different way of operating is possible. If you’re stuck in a circular debate at work, consider building a tiny version of the future you want your team to see! It doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to be real enough that people stop arguing in theory and start reacting to something concrete. That shift alone can be worth the time you spend hacking. With love, Let's do more together!
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Product Teacher
In-depth essays and thought-provoking reads for product managers.
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