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As product managers, we are wired to solve problems. We spot friction, talk to users, build something better, and repeat. But the truly great PMs? They go further.
They don’t just fix what’s broken today - they see what people will need tomorrow. They build products that feel obvious in hindsight but radically reshape how entire industries operate. Their secret? Pattern recognition.
It might be the most underrated (and underdeveloped) skill in product. And like any skill, it can be developed.
We talk a lot about customer pain and iterative discovery, agile problem-solving, and sure, that stuff matters. But the game-changing ideas - the ones that disrupt industries or reshape user behaviour-don’t usually show up in a usability test or a user interview.
They often come when you start connecting dots across different parts of your experience. They emerge when you notice something familiar in an unfamiliar space. When you start to live in a version of the future that others haven’t noticed yet.
If you're only solving today’s problems, you're building in the present. But breakthrough products are built with a lens into the future.
I saw this firsthand while building Honeybee Benefits, Canada’s first digital-first benefits management platform.
On paper, it looked like a classic B2B pain point. Employer-sponsored health benefits were a mess: clunky admin tools, zero transparency, terrible UX. A no-brainer to fix!
But the real insight didn’t come from the benefits world. It came from our past life in AdTech. Most of our team lived a previous life in advertising tech. Back then, we built systems that matched remnant ad inventory with the right buyer-in real-time, under pressure, at scale. As we looked deeper into the benefits space, something clicked.
Employers were just advertisers in disguise.
Coverage options were ad inventory.
Brokers? The middle layer.
The whole system was just a matching problem. And once we saw it that way, we built the product completely differently with better matching, faster decisions, and smarter infrastructure-just like programmatic ads.
That one shift in perspective helped us design a smarter infrastructure, simplify complex workflows, move faster - eventually becoming one of Canada’s fastest-growing insurance companies.
We’re not the only ones who’ve done this, the best product innovations often come from cross-industry insight:
All of them saw something before it was obvious.
All of them were connecting patterns from somewhere else.
So how do you get better at spotting these patterns?
Pattern recognition isn’t magic. It’s a mindset. A muscle. One that you can build.
If all your inputs come from product thought leaders and your own backlog, you’ll miss some big opportunities. The best ideas often live in totally different industries.
How does logistics in retail map to task prioritization in SaaS?
What can video game design teach you about user onboarding?
How do chefs think about workflow that might apply to your feature set?
Go weird. Read widely. Talk to people in roles that have nothing to do with yours. The broader your exposure and inputs, the more patterns you’ll start to see and the richer your product insights.
That “unrelated” job from five years ago might hold the exact lens you need now.
For us, AdTech felt like ancient history - until it became our blueprint for tackling a complex marketplace problem.
Ask yourself:
Your history is a pattern library. Use it.
Most PMs ask “What’s broken?”
Great PMs ask “What future do I already see that others don’t?”
You’ve got a unique lens: Your career, your interests, your quirks, your side projects - even your hobbies. All of these shape how you interpret problems. That’s your edge. That’s how you build something ahead of the curve. Maybe you coach youth sports and understand team dynamics better than most. Maybe your obsession with weightlifting helps you think about habit formation in a totally different way.
These aren’t just fun facts. They’re raw material for insight.
To build products that feel inevitable in hindsight, you have to zoom out.
Don’t just run discovery. Don’t just ship faster. Explore outside the lines. Cross wires. Ask weird questions. Follow your curiosity. Revisit your own story. Ask: What am I seeing that others aren’t?
That’s how you start spotting the future and that’s where your next big idea is hiding.
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As product managers, we are wired to solve problems. We spot friction, talk to users, build something better, and repeat. But the truly great PMs? They go further.
They don’t just fix what’s broken today - they see what people will need tomorrow. They build products that feel obvious in hindsight but radically reshape how entire industries operate. Their secret? Pattern recognition.
It might be the most underrated (and underdeveloped) skill in product. And like any skill, it can be developed.
We talk a lot about customer pain and iterative discovery, agile problem-solving, and sure, that stuff matters. But the game-changing ideas - the ones that disrupt industries or reshape user behaviour-don’t usually show up in a usability test or a user interview.
They often come when you start connecting dots across different parts of your experience. They emerge when you notice something familiar in an unfamiliar space. When you start to live in a version of the future that others haven’t noticed yet.
If you're only solving today’s problems, you're building in the present. But breakthrough products are built with a lens into the future.
I saw this firsthand while building Honeybee Benefits, Canada’s first digital-first benefits management platform.
On paper, it looked like a classic B2B pain point. Employer-sponsored health benefits were a mess: clunky admin tools, zero transparency, terrible UX. A no-brainer to fix!
But the real insight didn’t come from the benefits world. It came from our past life in AdTech. Most of our team lived a previous life in advertising tech. Back then, we built systems that matched remnant ad inventory with the right buyer-in real-time, under pressure, at scale. As we looked deeper into the benefits space, something clicked.
Employers were just advertisers in disguise.
Coverage options were ad inventory.
Brokers? The middle layer.
The whole system was just a matching problem. And once we saw it that way, we built the product completely differently with better matching, faster decisions, and smarter infrastructure-just like programmatic ads.
That one shift in perspective helped us design a smarter infrastructure, simplify complex workflows, move faster - eventually becoming one of Canada’s fastest-growing insurance companies.
We’re not the only ones who’ve done this, the best product innovations often come from cross-industry insight:
All of them saw something before it was obvious.
All of them were connecting patterns from somewhere else.
So how do you get better at spotting these patterns?
Pattern recognition isn’t magic. It’s a mindset. A muscle. One that you can build.
If all your inputs come from product thought leaders and your own backlog, you’ll miss some big opportunities. The best ideas often live in totally different industries.
How does logistics in retail map to task prioritization in SaaS?
What can video game design teach you about user onboarding?
How do chefs think about workflow that might apply to your feature set?
Go weird. Read widely. Talk to people in roles that have nothing to do with yours. The broader your exposure and inputs, the more patterns you’ll start to see and the richer your product insights.
That “unrelated” job from five years ago might hold the exact lens you need now.
For us, AdTech felt like ancient history - until it became our blueprint for tackling a complex marketplace problem.
Ask yourself:
Your history is a pattern library. Use it.
Most PMs ask “What’s broken?”
Great PMs ask “What future do I already see that others don’t?”
You’ve got a unique lens: Your career, your interests, your quirks, your side projects - even your hobbies. All of these shape how you interpret problems. That’s your edge. That’s how you build something ahead of the curve. Maybe you coach youth sports and understand team dynamics better than most. Maybe your obsession with weightlifting helps you think about habit formation in a totally different way.
These aren’t just fun facts. They’re raw material for insight.
To build products that feel inevitable in hindsight, you have to zoom out.
Don’t just run discovery. Don’t just ship faster. Explore outside the lines. Cross wires. Ask weird questions. Follow your curiosity. Revisit your own story. Ask: What am I seeing that others aren’t?
That’s how you start spotting the future and that’s where your next big idea is hiding.
Toronto Product Management Association (TPMA) is a community focused on development, growth and networking of Product professionals in the Greater Toronto Area.
