The New 3Ps: Prototype. Poke. Progress.
Helping PMs stay smart, relevant, human and HIRED — with a little help from AI.
6 minute readIn coaching, we often invite people to step back — to observe their actions with curiosity, letting go of judgement. Eschewing “Was that right?”, we ask “Was that helpful?” It’s a subtle shift, and a powerful one. Because once we disassociate from being “right,” we unlock our ability to learn faster, adapt sooner, and move forward with greater clarity.
This mindset has been ever present for me lately, especially when thinking about product management — and specifically, prototyping.
“What if we could build in a way that lets us test both our solutions and our assumptions?”
What if V1 was an exploration, an opening, a question? A way to ask: Where are the gaps? What might break? What could be better?
This is the space where AI is offering something new.
Across product teams, early experiments are revealing how these tools can radically shorten the distance between an idea and something you can click, test, and improve. With tools like v0.dev, ChatGPT, Replit, Claude, Uizard, and Galileo, product managers are building working MVPs in under an hour, often solo.
They’re feeding PRDs into AI and receiving back interface code, user flows, and backend logic that would traditionally take days to scope and weeks to build. Far from being isolated cases, this is becoming part of daily practice in tech-forward teams.
From Prototype Loop to Prompt Stack
The classic prototyping loop has always involved multiple handoffs - PM to design, to engineering, and back again - with validation arriving weeks after the idea first surfaced. That loop is changing. Today, a well-written prompt can generate:
Interactive UI mockups
Full-stack app prototypes
Simulated user flows with backend logic
Working code ready for deployment
The development cycle is shortening from weeks to minutes.
In December 2024, Lenny Rachitsky highlighted how PMs are combining Figma, ChatGPT, Replit, and Bolt to ship prototypes at record speed. Around the same time, McKinsey’s research showed how generative AI is accelerating software product delivery - improving quality, reducing rework, and expanding the pool of ideas that reach a testable stage.
“The result? Faster feedback loops, clearer communication, and more strategic follow-through.”
Getting value from AI comes from learning how to shape the…er… ‘conversation’ with the tool. This is something that still feels really weird for me. Finding myself ‘chatting’ with an AI tool - even being made to laugh by it on occasion. But anyway, I digress…
Prompting is emerging as a core skill - the new wireframe, the first draft, the sketchpad. Specificity is king here and often, asking the tool to ask you what prompts it wants can be the most productive approach. Which isn’t that weird. Restaurants rarely tell you what you have to have for dinner. They ask you. So it is with AI. If you want to know what it needs, ask it and it will be delighted to oblige.
A strong prompt typically includes:
Goal: No surprises here. Goal first. Always. What is the outcome? For you, for users?
User context: Who are they, what is special or specific about them?
Constraints: Platform, tone, accessibility needs
Functionality: What does the system need to support?
Format: Do you want code, a Figma file, or a testable link?
Example prompt:
Design a mobile-first onboarding flow for a task management app aimed at busy professionals. Include an email/password sign-up screen, a short tutorial, and a dashboard landing page. Use clean UI principles and output React + Tailwind code ready to paste into Vercel.
Now I’ll be honest. I’m not technical and I’m trusting AI that the techie bits above make sense. But hopefully, it gives you a good idea.
Tools like Lovable, ProtoBot, and PromptInfuser are helping product managers take this kind of input and generate production-grade experiences with surprising reliability.
What PMs Are Already Shipping
Today’s PMs are already building working prototypes at three levels of complexity:
Basic:
Sign-up/login screens
Static dashboards
Landing pages with forms
Intermediate:
Multi-step flows with logic
Database connectivity
Responsive UI in frameworks like React or Vue
Advanced (Emerging):
Full-stack apps with real-time features
AI-powered search and recommendations
API integration and payment flows
Research suggests that most PMs are working in the basic-to-intermediate range and that alone is unlocking momentum, clarity, and confidence in decision-making. These are themes that as a coach, I love to see.
Who’s Moving First?
This shift is furthest along in teams that value speed, curiosity, and permission to experiment. Adoption is growing fastest among:
Solo builders and AI-native startups
Product-led scale-ups and agencies
Tech-forward orgs with cross-functional alignment
Elsewhere, especially in regulated industries or environments with strict handoffs between product, design, and engineering, the pace is slower while retaining the same possibilities.
“A culture of exploration is the key that opens the door. A mindset of ‘there is no failure, only feedback and learning’ will walk you through confidently into a flourishing garden.”
What This Means for PMs
Speed is one benefit. Influence is another.
Faster alignment: Working demos speak more clearly than specs or slides.
Stronger testing: Teams can run multiple experiments each week, learning as they go.
Clearer collaboration: Visual, clickable prototypes help teams converge around shared understanding.
Strategic momentum: PMs who can prompt, test, and share working ideas early gain visibility and traction.
Adobe’s internal case studies show that PMs using AI-generated prototypes are often able to progress ideas faster, lighten the load on engineering teams, and move forward with stronger stakeholder buy-in. When thinking about ways to build greater responsibility, influence and engagement into our workday, these sound like a wonderful starting point.
An Invitation to Explore
If you’re working in product as a PM, designer or a leader, now is the time to explore.
Most AI tools offer free tiers or trial periods. You can try, test, discard, and try again, all in the space of an afternoon. Again, resonating wonderfully with that coaching mindset. For teams focused on time to market, strategic alignment, and fail-fast learning, this can be a lightweight way to generate tangible ROI.
Start with a small idea. Build something. See what it teaches you. Then take that learning into your next decision. Speculation, thought, and hypothesis are all abstract. Bringing something to life, seeing it, poking it with a stick will teach far more than any idea ever can, however powerful the idea.
AI is the new talk of the town, it’s on everybody’s mind. Just like any tool, what’s important is embracing it strategically, with a clear purpose and mindset. It’s about learning how to move with more speed, more clarity, and more confidence — and giving your human intuition the space to lead.
Steve Dagless
I am the Founder of Your Roadmap - Coaching & Consulting.
Life, work and business can be so simple. Let me help quieten the noise.
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