https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing Essays on payments, AI operating models and product leadership. en-us https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/what-the-agentic-operating-model-produced https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/what-the-agentic-operating-model-produced Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai Numbers from a fintech of more than a hundred people running on this model. Lead time from 90 days to five for 85% of work, multiple releases a day with zero production incidents in the last year, revenue doubled and customers tripled at 45 to 50 percent unit margin while the team grew from 40 to 110. Here is what the numbers mean and what they don't. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-tools-change-the-process-hardens https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-tools-change-the-process-hardens Wed, 07 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai Claude Code runs the pipeline, Cursor and Codex sit in the editor, and a weekly multi-model vetting and scoring process decides which model each agent uses for each job regardless of vendor. None of that is the model. The operating model is the thing that gets stronger every time the tools underneath it change. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/greenfield-and-brownfield https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/greenfield-and-brownfield Tue, 06 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai The operating model runs in two configurations. Greenfield starts from an empty repository and writes the standards as it writes the code. Brownfield starts inside a product already in production, where the agents must learn the codebase, its rules and its failure history before they may propose anything. The phases and gates are identical; what changes is what has to be known before the first one opens. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/twenty-two-agents-and-what-each-may-touch https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/twenty-two-agents-and-what-each-may-touch Mon, 05 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai The agents in our operating model are not a swarm. Each is a short file that says what it does, what it may write, which verdicts it owns and what it loads before it starts. Here is the roster by group, why the domain experts never write code, and how the agents get better without being retrained. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-rules-that-make-agentic-engineering-work https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-rules-that-make-agentic-engineering-work Sun, 04 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai Nine rules hold our operating model together, and the important thing about each of them is that software enforces it. From ROI before a line of code, to tests that must fail before they pass, to a pipeline that catches drift instead of discovering it in production. Here they are, with the reason behind each. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/inside-the-iron-pipeline https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/inside-the-iron-pipeline Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai The engineering phase of our operating model runs every change through nine stages and three human gates, each with an owner agent that alone can record its verdict. Here is each stage, who owns it, what it produces, and why the tests are written and locked before a line of production code exists. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/from-idea-to-production-on-agents https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/from-idea-to-production-on-agents Fri, 02 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai Agentic engineering is not code generation with a review at the end. It starts with an idea, turns it into an initiative with ROI, cuts it into epics with outcomes you can measure in flight, builds a working mock you can click, and only then enters the pipeline. Here are the six phases and who moves each one forward. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-problem-agentic-engineering-solves https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/the-problem-agentic-engineering-solves Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai An agent will write the code, write the tests, run them, call it green and tell you it's done. Every step can be wrong. In a regulated business that isn't a bug, it's a consent order. The problem to solve isn't getting agents to do more. It's deciding what has to be true before their work touches money. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/three-gates-ai-agents-cannot-open https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/three-gates-ai-agents-cannot-open Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT ai The useful question isn't how much code an agent can write. It's what has to be true before you'd let its code touch money. Here are the three gates I keep for myself and why no agent can open them. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/why-embedded-payments-stall-inside-banks https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/why-embedded-payments-stall-inside-banks Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT payments Banks keep announcing embedded payments and then quietly shelving them. The one I launched inside a top-20 bank got to $10M in nine months. The difference was three decisions made before the first line of code. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/concept-to-cash-in-five-months https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/concept-to-cash-in-five-months Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT product A wholesale vehicle marketplace went from an idea in January to live in May, with $1B through it in nine months. The product worked. The business came from an analytics number nobody was looking for. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/scale-through-simplicity-trunk-based-delivery https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/scale-through-simplicity-trunk-based-delivery Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:00:00 GMT product Feature branching feels like the productive choice and quietly destroys delivery predictability. The way out is a maturity progression to trunk-based development that forces early integration and fast feedback, and it is worth 10x faster delivery and 90% fewer production issues. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/customer-journey-and-new-idea-evaluation https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/customer-journey-and-new-idea-evaluation Mon, 20 Jun 2022 12:00:00 GMT product A journey map is only useful when it reaches the product strategy, the KPIs and the departments that have to move together. Here is the five-layer approach I use, and the discover-incubate-validate-exploit loop that decides which new ideas get money. https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/beginning-with-the-end-in-mind https://www.leanproductgroup.com/writing/beginning-with-the-end-in-mind Wed, 15 Jun 2022 12:00:00 GMT product Agile killed Big Design Up Front, and most teams never replaced it with anything. Here is the two-page discipline I ask of every product investment before it starts, with the pivot points that let you change direction, double down, or stop before the money is gone.