Click any of the [Launch Prompt in ChatGPT] links below to open the Product Coach GPT with the prompt pre-populated. You can adjust the text as needed before submitting.
For Managers
These prompts help you diagnose system bottlenecks, coach your team, and shift focus from activities to outcomes.
1. Talent Development and Culture
I have a PM on my team who is great at day-to-day execution but struggles with high-level strategy and customer empathy. What coaching questions can I ask them in our next 1:1 to help them think about the bigger picture?
2. Delivery and Execution
My team starts a lot of initiatives but struggles to cross the finish line, resulting in high WIP. How can I coach them on the Kanban principle of 'stop starting, start finishing' and set up lightweight verification loops?
My team doesn't seem to be iterating. They work in sprints, but I'm not seeing small pieces of value go out the door quickly. Too much risk and delays. Where do I start inspecting to see how I can help them?
3. Product Discovery
My team has a habit of diving straight into building without validating assumptions first. How do I help them test ideas quickly and cheaply before writing code (e.g. Opportunity Solution Trees)?
4. Product Leadership and Operating Model
I want to assess if my team is operating as an empowered product team or just a feature factory. What structural changes and diagnostic signs should I focus on to make this transition?
I have a strong suspicion that my team is not efficient or effective because they aren't being fed strong PRD's to the team, and there aren't standards and team agreements in place. How do I inspect if they have good, healthy practices in place or not?
5. Product Strategy
Our roadmap is dominated by rigid, date-driven feature lists. How do I coach my PMs to focus on business outcomes and OKRs instead, and manage high-integrity commitments with stakeholders?
How do I teach my product owner to challenge scope and value with their stakeholder so that we ensure we know what success looks like? I fear our definition of success and value is too vague.
6. Stakeholder Communication and Influence
One of my PMs acts more like an order-taker for stakeholders, letting them dictate the backlog. How do I coach them to build trust and move toward a true missionary partnership?
One of my product managers has a stakeholder that is not engaged enough, and we feel like we are pushing a rope. Should I be the one to fix this, or is that my Product Managers responsibility? In either scenario, please help me figure out what to do.
7. Product Knowledge and Domain SME
My PMs lack deep domain and business context, relying too much on stakeholders for answers. How can I help them systematically build institutional authority and become domain experts?
For Yourself
Use these prompts for self-reflection, planning, and preparing for rounding sessions.
1. Talent Development and Culture
I want to assess my own growth as a product leader. What self-reflection questions can I work through to see if I'm spending enough time coaching my team versus getting bogged down in daily operations?
Ask me some really hard questions to help me assess if I'm an engaged leader. Am I actually guiding my team in how they can work better? Am I inspecting appropriately, yet keeping them empowered? I want you to assess and give me suggestions.
2. Delivery and Execution
I want to audit the delivery velocity and flow of my product area. How do I review our team board from right to left, identify delivery bottlenecks, and set up a healthy 'trust but verify' inspection routine?
Help me determine if I'm helping my teams execute with urgency? Urgency isn't "work faster"... it's about challenging the current path and looking for bad assumptions or decisions in order to optimize or cut something out. Help me assess if I'm doing enough of this for my teams.
3. Product Discovery
I am starting discovery on a major new project with high uncertainty. How do I structure an Opportunity Solution Tree (OST), map out our riskiest assumptions, and run cheap, time-boxed experiments to validate them?
We are going into quarterly planning and I need to do discovery to validate if we will be successful in solving a new problem. I know I shouldn't build all requirements up front, but I do need to do enough to have some confidence that we'll be able to solve the problem. Help me approach this discovery activity so I can suggest our next quarter's work with relative confidence.
4. Product Leadership and Operating Model
I want to audit my own leadership style against John Cutler's 12 signs of a feature factory. How do I identify if I am enabling transformation theater, and how do I build team autonomy through strategic alignment?
Ask me a series of questions to help me deduce if I'm actually acting like a product owner or if I'm still practicing like a business analyst.
5. Product Strategy
I need to translate our high-level strategic objectives into OKRs and outcome-based roadmaps. What is the best way to design outcome-focused milestones that balance predictability with flexibility?
6. Stakeholder Communication and Influence
I need to prepare for a meeting with executive stakeholders who are demanding a feature-heavy roadmap with fixed dates. How do I apply managing up techniques to shift the conversation from outputs to outcomes?
I have stakeholders that are too vague in the definition of success, which means i can't really describe milestones. Can you help make suggestions on how I can structure a conversation with stakeholders so they will appreciate this gap and they want to fix it with me?
7. Product Knowledge and Domain SME
I want to deepen my domain expertise and master our business model constraints. What structured approach can I take to build institutional authority, and how do we better learn from past product failures?
Generated for the Product Growth Program.