Field helps us rethink how we work – and what we're truly responsible for.
We believe in a future where the outcomes of our work are valuable to all – while having a positive impact on society and the environment. That’s why we develop thinking tools, facilitation formats, and learning programs that foster purpose-driven innovation and regeneration.
Our mission: To introduce the Field to 1,000 organizations – enabling more initiatives to succeed with a stronger sense of impact.
As of today (August 2024), we know of 78 organizations that use the Product Field.
Meet the Field creators
Co-creator of the Product Field
Wolfgang is a conceptual engineer, strategic facilitator, and late-coming social activist. After studying philosophy and political sciences, he co-founded software studio mindmatters and Hamburg’s first co-working space, betahaus Hamburg. He first had the idea for what became the Product Field on a train to Berlin.
Based in London since 2018, Wolfgang works as a trainer and facilitator and helps social movements build collective power with the Movement Ecology Collective. He supports teams and organisations to make sense of their situation, create options for strategic action, and make sensible decisions.
Apart from that he’s living with two dogs on a perpetually unfinished houseboat.
Co-creator of the Product Field
Michael is an unapologetic optimist — a feat he has achieved through a high tolerance for ambiguity and the ability to successfully navigate between ambition and ad hoc. He never tires of motivating the people around him to try new things. Because “Gaining insight is work. Work in the form of doing.” — Otl Aicher
Michael has lived in Hamburg since 2003 and works as a coach, workshop facilitator, and consultant for design management. He grew up at the same time the internet did. His skill is programming, his philosophy, design. The essence of his work is guiding others to mutual understanding and sound decisions while maintaining a focus on the user’s perspective. Mutual learning has a major influence on his methods.
Co-creator of the Product Field
KP has been developing digital products for 25+ years: As a product manager at the heart of the action. As a corporate executive providing a safe space for product and engineering teams to take risks and learn. As a product coach on the sidelines. And as a consultant equipped with methodology, experience and a passion for working with people and tackling wicked challenges.
While his enthusiasm is for shaping possible futures, his appreciation and admiration belongs to the achievements of the past.
Since he totally missed being in charge of a product himself, KP just recently returned back to his roots as a product manager at dpa, the infamous German news agency.
Our journey
When we first introduced the Field to the world as the Product Field at the Product Tank Hamburg event in 2015, it had already become an indispensable tool for us. We had created it for our own purposes to get better at product development in the complex environments we were part of.
At the time, we could not have imagined what would happen next:
Mattes Schrader mentioned us in the foreword of his bestseller and became the publisher of our book in German.
KP and Wolfgang spoke three times in a row at SXSW. Their talk How Product Thinking Shapes Our Future was so packed that it triggered the first ever encore session by speakers from Germany.
In 2019, The Product Field Reference Guide even landed on the SXSW bestseller list. That same year, Michael gave the keynote at PushUX. More than 100 people came to an interactive Product Field workshop afterwards.
We saw Product Field maps in Korean, and received applause from Nigeria.
A Way of Thinking That Keeps Resonating
What still moves us most are the aha moments the Field creates. How its visual structure opens up new insights. What it teaches us about the nature of work, craft, products, and services. How these insights can be transferred – and how Field becomes a shared orientation.
The Product Field not only reveals what’s essential for product success – but why it matters.
It makes visible how forces and principles interact in our work. And it helps us shape approaches that fit different situations.
We wanted to share this clarity. That’s how our second book came to life: The Field Guide for Visual Product Thinkers.
Within all of this lies immense practical value – for better collaboration in product development.
With the founding of Product Field Works GmbH, we committed ourselves to bringing this value into the world.
From Product Field to Field
The longer we worked with Field, the clearer it became – what we had already written in our first book:
We understand innovation as a complex adaptive system, designed to maximize the lasting positive impact of innovations on all stakeholders.
It’s about what works – and what truly makes a difference.
Innovation isn’t a project. It’s a complex, adaptive system – dynamic, alive, full of tension.
And it should be oriented toward one thing: a lasting, positive impact on everyone it touches.
This calls for new ways of thinking. New points of reference. A new Field.
With Field, we open up the mindset behind the Product Field – expanding it to teams, organizations, and systems that want to take responsibility. That seek to create real impact. And that don’t rely on recipes, but trust in resonance.
