By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Marty Cagan argues that as startups grow and split into functional groups, walls form between product, technology, marketing and design, with product-technology being the most damaging. Teams loyal to their function rather than their product team undermine good decisions. He contends that effective collaboration, which product discovery depends on, rests on personal working relationships. Simple steps like seating product managers beside developers can build those relationships and gradually reveal the other half of developers' value, which is often wasted when they are used only to write code.
01Key takeaways
- Watch for social signals, such as product managers only lunching with other PMs, as early indicators of organizational walls.
- Prioritize the product manager and developer relationship, since it is the most critical working link on a team.
- Build personal rapport between product and engineering; effective collaboration depends on trust, not just process.
- Sit product managers near their developers to make informal, frequent interaction easier.
- Recognize that using developers only to write code leaves about half their potential value untapped.
02Key sections
- How walls emerge
- As organizations scale, people specialize into functions and begin identifying more with their department than with the product team. Social patterns, such as who eats lunch with whom, reveal these divisions.
- Scrum and its limits
- Scrum helps break down walls, but it doesn't guarantee it, since product owners may be nominal or disengaged from their teams.
- Product and technology as the worst wall
- The product-technology divide is the most harmful, because good outcomes are nearly impossible without a working relationship between product managers and developers.
- Relationships as the foundation
- Effective collaboration is built on personal relationships, and product discovery depends on that collaboration across product, design and engineering.
- Practical ways to connect
- Physically seating product managers next to developers can lead to shared meals, games and ideas, which builds trust over time.
03From the post
“A partnership dedicated to teaching best practices to product teams and product leaders”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.