Empowered Product Teams

The nature of product

Agency vs Ambition

Marty Cagan argues that strong product people need both ambition and agency, and that agency depends on ambition: skills alone won't drive action without a desire to improve. He reflects on how some product people…

INSPIRED in the Generative AI Era

Marty Cagan introduces a re-recorded audio edition of INSPIRED and reflects on how the book has held up since its 2007 and 2017 editions. He argues its focus on underlying principles rather than current process is why…

Founder-Style Leadership

Marty Cagan argues that the public debate over Paul Graham's 'founder mode' essay has largely missed its point. He reframes the idea as a style of leadership rather than a switchable mode, one that combines deep product…

The Moral Case for the Product Model

Marty Cagan argues that beyond the business case for the product model, there is a moral case: empowered teams are happier, more fulfilled, and proud of improving customers' lives or society. He notes that organizations…

Product Predictions 2024

Marty Cagan shares his 2024 product predictions in narrative form, framing each as a hope and a worry rather than a forecast, given his track record of overestimating how quickly change arrives. He covers ten recurring…

Pledge To Executives

Marty Cagan argues that moving from command-and-control leadership to an empowered product model requires changes on both sides: executives must not simply step back, and product teams must engage executives more, not…

Pledge To Stakeholders

Marty Cagan argues that as companies shift from stakeholder-driven feature teams to empowered product teams, the relationship between product teams and stakeholders must change on both sides. Creating a solution…

Types of Product Coaching

Marty Cagan proposes a simple taxonomy for the types of product coaching, since no widely accepted vocabulary exists yet. He distinguishes product-related coaching (delivery, discovery, product leadership, and…

Value and Viability

Marty Cagan examines the adage that product managers get blamed for failure but rarely credited for success, and asks whether that is fair. He explains that on empowered product teams the product manager owns value and…

Lessons from IKEA

Jon Moore, an SVPG partner, argues that the principles behind empowered, outcome-focused product teams are not new and not tech-specific. He points to Ingvar Kamprad's 1976 essay 'Testament of a Furniture Dealer' as…

Inspired and Empowered

Marty Cagan announces the pre-order launch of his new book EMPOWERED, co-written with Chris Jones, and explains how it complements INSPIRED. He argues that many companies can teach product teams strong practices but…

Keys To Successful Transformation

Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan argue that many company transformations to empowered product teams fail because key conditions are missing. They present ten keys, spanning senior leadership support, reframing technology as…

Transformation in Action

Marty Cagan shares a chapter from his book EMPOWERED, written by SVPG partner Jon Moore, describing the digital transformation at The Guardian during a period of industry crisis. Facing collapsing advertising revenue…

Spotify vs. Fitbit

Marty Cagan responds to a critique of the Spotify model of scaled Agile by arguing that the critic overlooks Spotify's business outcomes and Fitbit's decline after adopting the process the critic favored. He contends…

Team Objectives – Commitments

Cagan argues that while most team objectives should be aspirational, some situations require high-integrity commitments: deliverables with dates leaders can rely on, driven by trade shows, contracts, tax deadlines…

Product Team FAQ

Marty Cagan answers reader questions prompted by his earlier article distinguishing product teams from feature and delivery teams. He clarifies that designers and engineers contribute far beyond usability and…

Product vs Feature Teams

Cagan argues that much of the confusion about product management comes from lumping together two very different team types that both get called 'product teams.' He distinguishes delivery teams (essentially re-packaged…

Coaching – Collaboration

Marty Cagan argues that real collaboration in an empowered product team is very different from how many product managers assume they work. It is not consensus, democracy, artifact-producing requirement handoffs, or…

Coaching – Owner vs. Employee

Marty Cagan argues that the best product managers think like owners rather than employees, taking responsibility for outcomes instead of merely completing activities. He draws on Jeff Bezos's shareholder letters to…

How Gong builds product

An interview with Gong's chief product officer on how the company builds product. It covers two-tier annual and quarterly planning, autonomous multi-skill pods organized around problem areas, the decision to skip OKRs…