By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Marty Cagan contrasts two ways of organizing product work: project-based feature teams that get reshuffled around a communal roadmap, and dedicated product teams that persist around a business area. He argues that project-based setups fragment relationships, erode developer expertise, slow velocity, and leave projects orphaned after launch. Dedicated teams, given standing objectives and a persistent membership, build deep expertise, ownership, and better product quality and business results. He also offers practical notes on special-purpose teams and on Agile as a partial step, while cautioning that the change needs executive support and can be piloted with one or two teams.
01Key takeaways
- Stable team membership and persistent area ownership build expertise and velocity that reshuffled project staffing cannot.
- Allocate investment by business area and set team objectives, rather than debating individual projects each cycle.
- Watch for orphaned launches, where follow-on optimization is deferred because teams have moved to new projects.
- Create a small dedicated team for new opportunities so other teams are not raided for resources.
- Agile alone is not enough if teams still pull backlog items across many product areas.
- Pilot the model with one or two teams for about six months before committing the whole organization.
02Key sections
- Problems with project-based roadmaps
- Communal roadmaps are full of assumptions and change constantly, which scatters people across projects. Teams rarely form working relationships or develop deep expertise.
- What dedicated product teams are
- Executives choose investment areas and resource percentages, set team objectives, and then staff stable cross-functional teams to decide the projects themselves.
- Observed benefits
- Companies moving to this model report rising velocity as expertise grows, higher product quality from relationships and ownership, and stronger business results.
- Special-purpose teams
- Rapid response, new business opportunities, and infrastructure teams can be dedicated units, or their work can be blended into other teams.
- Agile and the transition
- Agile is a partial step that builds relationships, but true dedicated teams need stable area focus. Pilot one or two teams first, with executive backing.
03From the post
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04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.