The role of AI in product development | Ryan J. Salva (VP of Product at GitHub, Copilot)

1. Allocate R&D Capacity

Reserve 5-10% of your team’s capacity for bold, experimental research projects to explore highly uncertain but potentially transformative bets. This ensures continuous innovation beyond incremental improvements.

2. Balance Product Development

Dedicate approximately 25-30% of team capacity to operations for maintaining in-market products and meeting customer expectations, while reserving ~60% for incremental improvements that realize payoff from past larger bets. This balanced approach ensures stability and continuous growth.

3. Startups: Go All In

For startups, be ‘all in’ on a single big bet, adjusting resource allocation significantly. This concentrated focus is crucial for pursuing a high-risk, high-reward ’lottery ticket’ idea.

4. Ring-Fence R&D Teams

Create separate, ring-fenced R&D teams for ‘moonshot’ projects, keeping them distinct from core product development. This provides the necessary space for experimentation without the immediate pressures of operational products.

5. Empower R&D Experimentation

Give R&D teams the freedom to experiment without immediate pressure for monetization or adherence to core product fundamentals like security, privacy, or uptime. This fosters creativity and allows for novel discoveries.

6. Validate R&D Prototypes

Begin testing R&D prototypes with more customers once a clear problem, a novel solution, and a medium-confidence signal of customer value emerge. This helps validate the idea before significant investment.

7. Transition R&D with Researchers

When transitioning an R&D project to a product team, temporarily embed the original researchers into the new squad for a finite period. This facilitates crucial knowledge transfer and seeds the operational team with foundational expertise.

8. Base Researcher Transition

Ensure researchers return to R&D only after a replacement is fully in place, has picked up all necessary skills, and can effectively do the job. This guarantees continuity of expertise and smooth project handover, rather than adhering to arbitrary calendar dates.

9. Grant Product Team Ownership

Empower the product team taking over an R&D project with full ownership and control of the roadmap. This ensures they feel responsible for the product’s future and can respond directly to customer feedback.

10. Integrate Engineering Fundamentals

Introduce engineering fundamentals and cultural change management when transitioning R&D projects to operational product teams. This helps researchers adapt to the demands of maintaining a service and ensures a good mix of skills for long-term product health.

11. Define Horizons by Ambiguity

Define project horizons (e.g., Horizon 1, 2, 3) based on the measure of ambiguity and confidence level, rather than strictly by calendar dates. This allows for a more flexible and realistic approach to long-term planning.

12. Create AI Tool Persona

Develop a persona or framing for AI tools, such as an ‘AI pair programmer,’ to define appropriate behavior and guide product principles. This helps clarify expectations and manage user interactions.

13. Engage Diverse AI Stakeholders

Involve a wide range of stakeholders, including legal, privacy, security champions, and end-users, in conversations about ethical AI product development. This comprehensive approach helps navigate complex challenges and gather varied perspectives.

14. Use Advanced AI Moderation

Leverage advanced AI models for content moderation and sentiment detection, moving beyond crude or simple blocklists. This allows for more nuanced and context-aware filtering of potentially offensive content.

15. Position AI as Augmentation

Clearly position AI tools as augmentation for human work, not as replacements for developers or existing quality assurance processes like static analysis and unit tests. This manages expectations and encourages responsible integration.

16. Foster AI Community Dialogue

Actively foster community dialogue and ownership for AI tools, especially those trained on public data. This transparency and engagement help address concerns and build trust with users.

17. Maintain Healthy AI Skepticism

Cultivate and maintain a healthy skepticism towards any AI tool due to its potential for both significant benefit and harm. This critical mindset encourages accountability and responsible development.

18. Address AI Anxieties

Proactively address user anxieties and skepticism about AI through guided conversations and dialogue. This helps the community understand the technology and its implications.

19. Master AI Prompt Crafting

Invest time in mastering prompt crafting for AI models to ensure they return useful and relevant responses. The quality of output heavily depends on how effectively the model is prompted.

20. Optimize Developer Tool Latency

Optimize developer tools for low latency, aiming for around 200 milliseconds for suggestions or responses. This is crucial for helping developers stay in their ‘flow state’ without interruption.

21. Align Career Motivations

Align your career path with your core motivations, such as helping people create. This personal alignment can lead to greater impact and job satisfaction.

22. Focus on Future Potential

When making significant career or product decisions, focus on the future potential of an opportunity rather than just its current state. This forward-looking perspective can unlock greater growth.

23. Go Where Innovation Thrives

Seek out opportunities and environments where energy, focus, and innovation are concentrated. This strategic move can maximize your impact and exposure to cutting-edge developments.

24. Spend Time with Customers

As a product manager, dedicate significant time to engaging with customers and potential customers. This direct interaction is essential for understanding their needs, concerns, and feedback.

25. Use AI for Faster Learning

Leverage AI tools to accelerate learning new codebases and programming languages. AI can help build mental maps and provide context, making the learning process more efficient.

26. Automate Drudgery with AI

Explore using AI to automate repetitive and tedious tasks, such as summarizing pull requests. This frees up developers to focus on more creative and impactful work.

27. Focus on Creative Problem-Solving

Utilize AI tools to offload rote tasks, allowing you to concentrate on higher-level activities like designing patterns, enhancing user experience, and creative problem-solving. This elevates the quality of your work.

28. Lower Entry Barrier with AI

Leverage AI to lower the barrier to entry for new developers and enable experienced developers to tackle larger, more complex problems. This broadens participation and pushes the boundaries of innovation.

29. Try GitHub Copilot

Take advantage of GitHub Copilot’s 60-day free trial to experience AI-powered code auto-completion. Provide feedback on your experience to help improve the product.

30. Optimize Analytics with Amplitude

Try Amplitude for free to optimize your analytics stack, gain self-service product data, and drive conversions, engagement, growth, and revenue. This helps you understand users and make data-driven decisions.

31. Daily Nutritional Insurance

Incorporate AG1 (Athletic Greens) into your morning routine by mixing one scoop with water daily. This provides a nutritional safety net with 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and adaptogens.

32. Claim AG1 Bonus

Visit athleticgreens.com/Lenny to claim a free one-year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first Athletic Greens purchase. This offers additional health benefits.

33. Read UX & Character Books

Read ‘Make It So’ for inspiration on user experience design from sci-fi, and ‘Brief Interviews with Hideous Men’ for unique character insights. These books offer diverse perspectives for personal and professional growth.

34. Listen to Memory Palace

Listen to ‘The Memory Palace’ podcast for engaging, 20-minute storytelling vignettes, primarily focused on American history. This can provide unique insights and entertainment.

35. Watch Arrival Movie

Watch the movie ‘Arrival,’ which, while ostensibly about aliens, is deeply compelling in its exploration of language and memory. This offers a thought-provoking viewing experience.

36. Interview Question: Teach Me

Use the interview question ‘Teach me something new in one minute’ to assess a candidate’s completeness, complexity, and clarity in conveying information. This reveals their communication and teaching skills.