By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Marty Cagan argues that the concept of a "requirement" is misleading in product work. What stakeholders and customers present as requirements are often untested assumptions or guesses about an underlying problem, while the true requirements tend to surface only after observing real users. He notes that design choices and functional needs are intertwined, so the Waterfall idea of fixed upfront requirements is backwards. Requirements are also rarely all-or-nothing, since value in one area can offset gaps elsewhere, much like substituting ingredients in cooking. Cagan prefers Agile approaches like Scrum for giving requirements less weight, while warning that teams can still treat user stories as more fixed than they are. The single real requirement, he says, is finding solutions that work for users, customers, and the business.
01Key takeaways
- Treat stakeholder and customer requests as hypotheses about a problem, not as specifications to deliver.
- Investigate the underlying problem with real users before committing to what the requirements are.
- Expect design decisions and functional needs to shape each other rather than being sequenced one after another.
- Look for trade-offs and substitutions when a requirement is not feasible or only partly essential.
- Even in Agile, avoid hardening user stories into requirements; keep the focus on outcomes for users and the business.
02Key sections
- Requirements as hypotheses
- Customers and stakeholders describe requirements that are usually untested theories about an unstated problem. Treating them as facts limits the search for real solutions.
- True requirements emerge later
- The essential needs are rarely obvious at the start and typically become clear only when teams observe and interact with real users.
- Form and function are intertwined
- Design directions shape the functional requirements that follow, which reverses the sequence assumed by the Waterfall model.
- Requirements are rarely binary
- Value in one area can compensate for shortfalls in another, and technical constraints can be solved with alternative approaches that work as well or better.
- Agile and the danger of user stories
- Scrum reduces the weight placed on requirements, but teams can still mistakenly harden user stories into fixed mandates.
03From the post
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04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.