Cindy talks with Christian Crumlish, product leader and author Product Management for UX People, about his journey building a product management assistant called Piper Morgan.
What began as a practical experiment quickly exposed something deeper: how systems drift without structure, and why Agentic AI doesn’t work without trust, governance, and human discernment.
At its core, this is a story about what it takes to build with AI—without losing the human.
What was revealed
- What it actually means to create an agent that behaves more like a colleague than a tool
- What an agent learning process looks like in practice—not theory
- Why you can’t shortcut your way to enterprise-ready software
- How building trust with an agent mirrors how we build trust with people
- Why agentic workflows push humans up the stack—into strategy, decision-making, and accountability
- Why existing processes have to be redesigned, not just automated
Chapters
Act I – The life change and genesis of an idea
1:44 Landing a new role after the 18F layoffs
7:29 The idea: an agent as a teammate, not atool
Act II — TheFirst Build
14:28 Buildingthe initial prototype
15:40 Earlysignals—and early misconceptions
16:22 When the system gets it wrong
Act III – Coding mania and eventual drift
20:24 Starting over
22:10 Leaving product discipline behind
23:28 When speed creates drift
Act IV — The Big Reset
25:55 Governance steps in
28:08 Re-architecting the system
31:25 Teaching the agent how to work with its human
33:36 Building trust between human and machine
39:36 What remains when everything accelerates
43:39 The role of the “good bottleneck”
Act V — From Experiment to Viable System
44:24 What organizations can learn from this experiment
47:28 Why workflows must be redesigned—not just automated
48:21 Why experimentation has to be structured, not ad hoc
50:07 How this changes the role of a product leader
About the guest:
Christian Crumlish is Director of Product at Kind and was Director of the Product Chapter at the late, lamented 18F--the former US Government digital consultancy. He brings over two decades of experience in UX design, product management, and information architecture to the challenge of building ethical AI systems.
At Kind, Christian defines the product practices, leads a project for VA.gov, improving the online experience for veterans seeking reviews of their disability benefits, and tracking disability benefits reviews, and explores the possibilities of AI enhanced product management practices.
At 18F, Christian worked on federal digital services including the launch of ClimateCorps.gov and passport modernization efforts for Consular Affairs at the State Department, learning how to navigate complex stakeholder interests while keeping user needs central.
Follow the ongoing progress of Piper Morgan on Medium
Contribute to the build or testing of Piper MorganRead
Christian's Book: Product Management for UX People
View his profile on LinkedIn
