In an age of disruption, teams that learn and adapt their plans quickly will thrive. Inspired by the front-loaded lottery thought experiment from Donald Reinertsen‘s book The Principles of Product Development Flow, this session helps participants learn (via a simplified version of the lottery) about the importance of fast feedback in product development, discover optionality and, as Reinertsen says, “truncate unproductive paths quickly.” We'll also apply optionality to create "option maps" that depict more realistic outcome-based road maps and link small, leading indicators to lagging, mission outcomes.

Participants will learn about feedback, specifically to 1. Know what “winning” is (outcomes) and 2. Be able to validate whether we’re “winning” (measure right things), as well as optionality, specifically to be able to cut our losses with the 1. option to say that's enough and 2. option to not even start.

See related blog post at https://mattphilip.wordpress.com/2026/04/01/talk-reinertsens-lottery-and-other-product-management-lessons/