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Product strategy execution for teams in a hurry.

Understand problems before investing in solutions.

Small product teams hire me to figure out what to build and ship it. I’m Chris Hart: product, UX research, and engineering, as a freelance CPTO.

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A painted wall mural reading 'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes' — Marcel Proust.

I've consulted for product teams at

Google Meta Verizon SC Johnson PepsiCo Nordstrom LG

What I work on

My delivery model runs Discovery, Design, and DevOps in parallel, not as phases that hand off. Each is a continuous loop; together they keep decisions close to the user. See the triple diamond.

Three ducks swimming together in formation on water.

How I build knowledge-driven applications

I build products that can show their work. That’s what makes them safe to use where “the model said so” is not good enough.

  • Models parse external facts into a logical data format. Smaller, cheaper models are usually the right fit for embedding; sometimes a plain search index is enough.
  • Rules check the processed data for correctness. Rules are deterministic, so you keep control over liability.
  • People drive the goals and review the output: a step above “human in the loop”, and clear of the “reverse centaur” trap Cory Doctorow coined.

It runs on data engineering pipelines that have powered enterprises for over a decade. Read the AI ethics policy.

Three vintage wall-mounted payphones with curly handset cords.

What engagements look like

Fixed scope

When the problem is well-defined and the answer is mostly known.

Retainer

When you need a steady delivery partner for a quarter or more.

Hourly

When the work is open-ended and you want someone senior on call.

What you get

Working software in your users’ hands, shipped in slices a small team can actually finish. Each slice is end-to-end and testable even if it isn’t built for massive scale yet. Releases go out behind flags or as canaries, so the wrong bet never reaches everyone at once.

A red-handled magnifying glass over a teal dial face.

The triple diamond

Each diamond runs on its own clock, but they overlap and can be layered depending on team capacity. Running them together keeps decisions close to the work product, and the work product close to the user.

Discovery
Continuous customer interviews, an Opportunity Solution Tree, and one primary working hypothesis per week.
Design
Shape a rough, validated solution that fits the appetite before any code is written.
DevOps
Build, ship, observe through a tight loop of CI/CD with integrated analytics and metrics.

The first conversation is short, free, and ends with one of three outcomes: a clear next step, a polite no, or a referral to someone better suited.

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Reach me