The Chef - One of our many faces of product

The Chef: Making Magic With What You’ve Got

 “Let’s take the basics and make magic with what we’ve got.”

In an ideal world, every product team would work with perfect data, pristine roadmaps, infinite time, and unanimous stakeholder alignment.

In the real world?

·      You’re out of budget.

·      Your feedback is contradictory.

·      Your dev team is stretched.

·      And the deadline is Tuesday.

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Product is more like cooking than coding.

We love to pretend product development is an exact science. That if we just write the perfect requirements, we’ll get the perfect outcome.

But great product work rarely comes from following a formula.

It comes from synthesis, taking messy inputs, partial ingredients, and real-world constraints and turning them into something valuable with your skill and training.

The Ingredients on the Table

A product manager rarely gets to choose every ingredient. Instead, we’re handed a basket that might include:

• A stack of user feedback

• Incomplete analytics

• Technical constraints from legacy systems

• A half-sized development team

• A looming deadline

• A stakeholder who “just wants this one thing”

The Chef doesn’t complain.

The Chef gets curious.

“What can we make with this?”

“How do these things work together?”

“Is there a clever substitution we can use?”

It’s not about having everything.

It’s about finding the value in anything.

Recipes, Not Rules

Here’s the secret: Great product managers don’t follow strict rules, they follow principles.

Just like a skilled cook doesn’t need a recipe to make dinner, The Chef in you knows how to:

• Improvise based on what’s available

• Understand balance: value vs. effort, speed vs. scale

• Mix flavours: combining insights, features, or stakeholders

• Taste and adjust: ship, learn, and iterate

• Make trade-offs, both visible & intentional

There’s no time to perfect. You need to ship delicious enough to learn what people really want.

Creativity Under Constraints

Constraints are not a blocker for The Chef. They are fuel.

• Limited time? Focus the flavour.

• Legacy tech? Embrace the constraint as a creative challenge.

• Missing data? Pair feedback with intuition and test quickly.

Some of the best dishes in the world came from scarcity, not abundance. The same is true of many great products. The Chef doesn’t fear the gap between ideal and real. They dance in it.

The Mindset Shift: From Architect to Alchemist

When you’re stuck in architect mode, you wait for blueprints, perfect requirements, and perfect conditions.

But when you activate The Chef within, you:

• Accept ambiguity

• Lean into action

• Trust your instincts

• Embrace iteration

You move from “what’s missing?” to “what’s possible?”

This mindset shift transforms you from a bottleneck to a builder—from overwhelmed to in flow.

How to Channel Your Inner Chef

Want to strengthen this product personality? Try these practices:

1. Run a “what can we do with this?” workshop

Grab your team, lay out the raw ingredients (feedback, metrics, tech constraints), and co-create possible dishes.

2. Use constraints as framing tools

Instead of hiding constraints, state them up front. Use them to sharpen creativity.

3. Prototype with flavour, not finish

Just like a test kitchen, get your ideas in front of users early—before it’s overcooked.

4. Keep a “spice rack” of small UX or copy improvements

Sometimes small tweaks are what elevate the experience. Don’t underestimate them.

5. Celebrate creativity under pressure

Call it out when a teammate “makes magic with what we’ve got.” It reinforces the behaviour.