Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) and author of Inspired, Empowered and Transformed.
Marty Cagan reflects on two years of generative AI's impact on product management, distinguishing between adding AI to products and using AI to change how products are built. He admits his earlier predictions were too…
Marty Cagan argues that the public debate over Paul Graham's 'founder mode' essay has largely missed its point. He reframes the idea as a style of leadership rather than a switchable mode, one that combines deep product…
Marty Cagan argues that successful product-model transformations deliberately confront political realities rather than avoiding them, since changing how an organization decides and builds is fundamentally a people…
Marty Cagan argues that a successful move to the product model depends on the product organization earning the trust of the rest of the company, which is a race to win over executives before they lose confidence. Senior…
Marty Cagan argues that many companies undertaking a transformation to the product model make the ironic mistake of managing that transformation as a conventional big project, with program managers, Gantt-style plans…
Marty Cagan argues that product creation is a blend of art and science, though he has long leaned toward the scientific side because of his training. Reading Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act reshaped his view…
Marty Cagan argues that when companies grow, boards often push founders to hand over leadership to professional managers, but the stronger path is to coach founders into strong product leaders. He contrasts two failure…
The article introduces a two-way feedback model that the author credits with changing how she coaches people. It argues that one-way "radical candor" style criticism can demotivate, so feedback should give both parties…
Marty Cagan argues that beyond the business case for the product model, there is a moral case: empowered teams are happier, more fulfilled, and proud of improving customers' lives or society. He notes that organizations…
Marty Cagan and Josh Kerievsky argue that outsourcing agencies can apply the product model to custom solution work, even though clients often arrive with a fixed solution in mind and fixed-price contracts. The core…
Marty Cagan and Stacey Langer argue that the product model, though born in commercial product companies, fits government technology work because government also aims to create value and achieve outcomes, just measured…
Marty Cagan argues that moving to the product model rarely requires a reorganization, because org design is largely orthogonal to whether a company adopts product principles. He describes the two dominant org models…
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones examine whether the product operating model, originally designed for product organizations building technology products, applies to traditional IT departments. They argue it can help when IT…
Marty Cagan reflects on his personal regrets from coaching companies through product transformations, prompted by a reader's question about whether every transformation in the book TRANSFORMED succeeded. He admits that…
Marty Cagan argues that some of the best product people are not product managers at all, and that many strong product thinkers he knows are engineers. He defines a strong product person as someone obsessed with solving…
Marty Cagan, author of INSPIRED, EMPOWERED, TRANSFORMED and LOVED, shares discussion guides for book clubs and product teams. The guide recommends an order for reading the books, starting with TRANSFORMED for an…
Marty Cagan argues that most product coaches and trainers are steeped in the feature-team model, which is the opposite of what companies need when moving to a true product operating model. He frames a good coach through…
Marty Cagan and Marily Nika argue that AI product management means building AI-powered experience products, not AI infrastructure, and that most PMs will soon need these skills just as mobile PM became essential. They…
Marty Cagan and Richard Russell use the origin story of Amazon Prime to show how Amazon's approach to building technology products mirrors the product operating model used by the strongest product companies. The article…
Marty Cagan and Lea Hickman catalogue the common forms of 'theater' that show up when companies try to transform how they build products. Their core observation is that many transformations stay on the surface…
Marty Cagan follows up his article on product management theater by arguing that where PM theater exists, product leadership theater usually exists too. Product leaders often blame senior executives, such as non-product…
Marty Cagan argues that many feature-team product managers and delivery-team product owners are actually doing project management or backlog administration, and that companies are beginning to recognize this. He calls…
Marty Cagan argues that organizations must shift from measuring success by shipping output on fixed dates to achieving customer and business outcomes. He frames this as moving from time-to-market to time-to-money and…
Marty Cagan uses an anecdote about Apple, Xerox PARC, and the graphical desktop computer to explain what a product vision and a 'visiontype' (a vision prototype) are for. He argues that a compelling visiontype helps…
Marty Cagan shares his 2024 product predictions in narrative form, framing each as a hope and a worry rather than a forecast, given his track record of overestimating how quickly change arrives. He covers ten recurring…
Marty Cagan clarifies a terminology problem in the product community: many people use "product leader" interchangeably with "product manager" or "product owner," which causes unnecessary confusion. He argues the two…
Marty Cagan argues that for product companies at scale, he knows of no reliable alternative to strong product leadership. He explains that founders who act as head of product eventually stop scaling, and that the common…
This FAQ, published by Marty Cagan after his book TRANSFORMED, answers recurring reader objections about moving from feature teams to empowered product teams. It argues that the product manager role changes rather than…
Marty Cagan responds to a public interview with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky by examining alternatives to product managers. He defines product management as owning the value and viability of what gets built, and argues that…
Marty Cagan and Joakim Sundén argue that Spotify's enduring success comes from the product operating model rather than the popular idea of 'The Spotify Model' (squads, tribes, and similar org labels). They walk through…