By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Marty Cagan argues that strong product organizations are built on teams of missionaries, people who are engaged, understand the business context, and empathize with customers, rather than mercenaries who simply execute orders. He contrasts the two by morale, speed, and results. He identifies three root causes of mercenary teams: leadership that dictates rather than debates, staffing that relies on resigned or outsourced people, and processes (such as SAFe) that bake in a mercenary model. He suggests fixing this by educating leaders, raising the bar on staffing with durable cross-functional teams, and adopting processes built around a compelling vision and measurable outcomes. The piece matters because team motivation and ownership, not just tactics, determine whether product work succeeds.
01Key takeaways
- Judge your teams by engagement, business understanding, and customer empathy, since these predict speed and results.
- Invite debate with leadership instead of demanding that teams follow detailed directions.
- Avoid outsourcing core product engineers or designers, because contracted builders behave like mercenaries.
- Choose processes that give teams ownership of outcomes rather than fixed feature delivery.
- Pair a compelling product vision with measurable objectives and key results at both the organization and team level.
- Build durable, co-located cross-functional teams to strengthen missionary behavior.
02Key sections
- The missionary ideal
- Cagan introduces John Doerr's line about needing missionaries instead of mercenaries. Missionary teams are engaged, understand the business, and care about customers, while mercenary teams lack empowerment and connection to users.
- Why companies fail to get it
- He names three causes: executives who want followers rather than debate, staff who have accepted a mercenary role or are outsourced, and processes designed for the enterprise that assume mercenary execution.
- Critique of SAFe and the Spotify model
- Cagan says he finds SAFe a poor fit for technology product companies, while the Spotify approach to scaling Agile better reflects the missionary model.
- How to change
- He recommends educating leadership, raising the caliber of product managers, designers and senior engineers in durable cross-functional squads, and adopting outcome-based processes anchored in a product vision.
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.