TRANSFORMED

Marty Cagan announces that the next SVPG book, TRANSFORMED, is in progress with Lea, Jon, Christian and Chris as co-authors, targeting early 2024. The book addresses the many established companies that struggle to shift from project-driven work to the product model, since most transformation attempts fail. Its aim is to share what the SVPG team has learned about successfully transforming a company, including core competencies, product concepts, first principles, tools for change, stakeholder objections and common pitfalls. It will feature first-person case studies from pre-Internet companies rather than born-digital tech firms, and highlight the role of product coaches in guiding leaders who have never worked in the product model. Cagan also invites readers to send questions and feedback that could shape the chapters.

01Key takeaways

• Most companies trying to become product-driven fail, often because the required change is far more disruptive than leaders expect.
• Leaders who have never worked in the product model struggle to guide their organizations, so recruiting or developing product-experienced leaders matters.
• Transformation draws on competencies, product concepts and first principles that companies must deliberately build, not just adopt as processes.
• Learning from companies that were not born in the product model offers more relevant lessons than examples from leading tech firms.
• Product coaches can help organizations learn new ways of working when internal leaders lack bandwidth or experience.

02Key sections

Why a new book

INSPIRED covered best team practices and EMPOWERED covered leadership practices, but born-digital companies find these natural while most organizations find them foreign. Transformation is hard and usually fails.

Scope of the book

Topics include core competencies, product concepts, first principles, change tools, stakeholder objections and common problems when moving to the product model.

First-person case studies

Three executives who led major transformations at large pre-Internet companies will describe their experiences, avoiding the typical failure-focused or secondhand case studies.

The role of coaching

Because transforming leaders often lack product experience, companies need experienced product coaches, and SVPG is growing a global coaching community to meet that need.

Reader involvement

The authors ask readers for thoughts, confusing points, and gaps in coverage, since articles are being drafted as potential chapters.

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.