Fractional CPO · Product Consulting

One roadmap.
Every decision.
Company-wide.

AI makes faster delivery possible — and a pressure-tested roadmap makes it real. Every strategy, every initiative, every feature, every decision. That's the operating model we can build together.

For Leadership
Engineering executes. Leadership focuses on what matters.
The questions that always deserved your full attention — what to build, why it matters, when to move — finally get it.
The AI Moment
Faster delivery without alignment isn't progress. It's chaos.
AI makes speed possible. The roadmap is what makes that speed safe — and sustainable.
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Product Operating Model Roadmap Architecture Governance & Decisioning Fractional CPO AI-Driven Product Development Research Integration Org Design Product Operating Model Roadmap Architecture Governance & Decisioning Fractional CPO AI-Driven Product Development Research Integration Org Design

Does your roadmap account for all of this?

AI is going to let your team ship faster than ever. That's not a question anymore. The question is whether your organization is structured to handle it.

If your roadmap doesn't extend beyond the product team, faster delivery won't just miss the mark — it will create chaos across every function simultaneously.

Speed without alignment isn't progress. It's chaos dressed up as velocity. The roadmap is what makes AI's promise safe to act on.

Is marketing ready to position and launch what engineering just shipped?
Or will they find out about it at the all-hands?
Has legal reviewed the regulatory exposure?
AI moves fast. Compliance processes don't always keep up.
Has security done a thorough review before it goes live?
Speed creates surface area. Surface area creates risk.
Do your partners have the infrastructure to support what you just built?
If the answer is unclear, the roadmap isn't company-wide yet.
Does the organization have the capacity to absorb this much change?
Great products can fail because the org isn't ready to move at the speed of AI.

Hard work.
Good work.
Worth it.

Building a company-wide roadmap isn't simple. It requires buy-in across the organization, genuine engagement from every function, and visible support from leadership. That's not a small ask.

But when those things are in place, something shifts. The roadmap stops being a product team artifact and becomes a reflection of the organization's ambition, its constraints, and its reality.

The AI moment is what finally makes this possible. When engineering can move faster, leadership's attention is freed for exactly this kind of foundational work. The conditions are here. The question is whether you use them.

A straight answer

We won't pretend this is easy. Alignment takes real effort. Buy-in has to be earned. But the organizations that do this work now are the ones that will be ready to take full advantage of the promise of AI.

01
Understand before prescribing
We begin with deep listening — how decisions actually get made, where alignment breaks down, and what leadership is really asking for. The diagnosis shapes everything that follows.
02
Build the roadmap into the operating model
The roadmap isn't a deliverable at the end of the engagement. It's the mechanism we build the operating model around — living, pressure-tested, and connected to every team's work.
03
Free leadership to focus on what matters
Engineering executes. Leadership owns the what, why, and when. We design governance and decisioning structures that make that division of focus real and sustainable.
04
Leave you stronger than we found you
The operating model we build together should outlast the engagement. We coach teams, document decisions, and transfer capability — not create dependency.

What's on the other
side of the hard work.

When buy-in is real, when engagement is genuine, and when leadership is behind it — the roadmap transforms into something most organizations have never had.

I
Confidence in the team
When everyone can see the direction and trace their work back to it, the second-guessing stops. Teams move with conviction. Leaders stop re-litigating decisions already made. The organization trusts itself.
II
Clarity on the road ahead
Not false certainty — real clarity. The roadmap reflects actual constraints, real ambitions, and the experiments underway to resolve what's still unknown. Leadership can present it to any board, any partner, any investor and stand behind every word.
III
Authentic alignment
Not alignment that was mandated in a meeting and forgotten by Tuesday. Alignment between leadership and the rest of the company that's earned through transparency, shared context, and a roadmap that reflects everyone's reality — not just the product team's.

The work that
changes everything.

Every engagement is different. But the work tends to cluster around the areas where the gap between where organizations are and where they need to be is widest.

01
Fractional CPO
Senior product leadership without the full-time commitment. We embed with your team, attend the meetings that matter, and provide the strategic direction and day-to-day product oversight that keeps things moving — and moving in the right direction.
Leadership Strategy Coaching
02
Operating Model & Governance
We redesign how product decisions get made — governance structures, decisioning frameworks, and the organizational design that lets teams move faster without losing alignment. Built for AI's pace, not yesterday's cadence.
Governance Org Design Decisioning
03
Roadmap Architecture
We transform the roadmap from a planning document into the single artifact that aligns your entire company. Pressure-tested through research, shaped by if/then experiments, and reliable enough for board presentations — not just product standups.
Roadmapping Alignment Planning
04
Research & UX Process
We build research and UX processes that continuously feed back into the roadmap — so direction is always grounded in what customers actually need. Fast feedback loops that make the roadmap smarter, and the organization more confident, over time.
UX Research Feedback Loops Validation
Chris
Herring
Fractional CPO & Product Consultant
Previously

I've spent over 25 years at the intersection of product, technology, and organizational change — leading teams at some of the world's largest media and consumer companies, and helping startups find their footing.

The best product work I've been part of didn't start with a feature. It started with a question: what does this organization need to believe to build the right thing?

At Warner Bros. Discovery, Viacom, NBCUniversal, and Forbes, I learned that the gap between a good idea and a great product is almost always organizational — how decisions get made, who has clarity, and whether the roadmap actually means something to anyone outside the product team.

I've also seen what happens when an organization gets this right. The confidence it creates is real. The clarity on the road ahead is grounded in something. The alignment between leadership and the rest of the company stops being performed and starts being genuine.

That's the work I do today. Not handing over a deck and leaving — but building the operating model with you, coaching your team through it, and staying until it sticks.

Is your roadmap
working as hard as
it should be?

Most aren't. And the gap between a roadmap that aligns a product team and one that aligns an entire company is smaller than you think — it's mostly a matter of the right operating model, continuously refined.

A 30-minute conversation is usually enough to understand where you are and what would actually move the needle.

Book a Call
30 minutes.
No pitch. Just a conversation.
We'll talk about where your organization is, what the roadmap is currently doing, and whether there's a fit. Zero pressure.
Let's Go →
Usually responds within one business day.