Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) and author of Inspired, Empowered and Transformed.
Marty Cagan argues that many Agile trainers and coaches who work with software teams lack the experience needed for commercial product companies, and that the poor work he has repeatedly cleaned up after is a persistent…
Marty Cagan, author of product management writing, sets out the personal beliefs that underpin his work and teaching: faith in technology, leadership, honesty, people, giving back, and continuous improvement. He argues…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams need to move fast, and that many teams still hold a Waterfall-era belief that speed trades off against quality and innovation. He contends that speed is valuable for reasons beyond…
Marty Cagan and Jeff Patton argue that product teams should be judged by the outcomes they generate rather than the output they ship. The article offers a practical checklist of questions to diagnose how strong a…
Cagan distinguishes two lightweight planning tools that are often confused: the Business Model or Lean Canvas and the Opportunity Assessment. The Canvas suits new businesses or entirely new product lines, where many…
Marty Cagan argues that product managers face a constant flood of requests from well-meaning colleagues, and that a product manager who simply funnels all of them into the roadmap will slowly kill the product. He…
Marty Cagan argues that stakeholder management is a frequent pain point for product managers, but it can be substantially improved. He defines stakeholders narrowly as people who hold veto power over launching work…
Marty Cagan argues that many product teams, both in startups and established companies, spend most of their effort capturing value (pricing tests, ad optimization, cost cutting) rather than creating it. Startups often…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams relying on long, pre-negotiated roadmaps repeatedly fail to deliver business results because of two unavoidable realities. First, at least half of ideas won't work, whether…
Marty Cagan argues that the word "pivot" is overused in product teams and that teams too often abandon their product vision far too early. He separates two kinds of pivots: vision pivots, which change the underlying…
Marty Cagan examines top-down deadlines, where management sets a date for a major outcome such as a trade show debut or a startup's runway limit. He acknowledges that such deadlines can create a powerful sense of…
Cagan argues that the friction around commitments in Agile product teams stems from making them too early, before the team knows whether a solution is feasible, valuable, and viable. Because product ideas often fail or…
Marty Cagan argues that as teams move to frequent or continuous delivery, releases can surprise customers and internal stakeholders such as sales, service, and product marketing. Most incremental releases are invisible…
Marty Cagan describes a growing trend where product teams move from batch-style phases to continuous practices in both delivery and discovery. He traces how continuous integration, testing, and deployment have spread…
Marty Cagan describes "Product Manager Charm School," a foundational training program for new product managers covering communication skills and external interaction. Originating at HP and expanded at Netscape, it…
Marty Cagan argues that Agile product teams often suffer from poorly defined backlog items, slow velocity, rework, and unvalidated ideas. He proposes Dual-Track Agile, which runs a Discovery track to quickly validate…
Marty Cagan argues that most tech product companies struggle to find enough very strong product managers, and that strong product teams depend on them. He points to Google's Associate Product Manager program, which…
Marty Cagan argues that product teams doing discovery often move far too slowly, risking wasted time and money on unvalidated ideas. He distinguishes time-boxing (fixed work period followed by reflection) from…
Marty Cagan describes a proposal from Jeff Patton to replace the traditional product roadmap with an "opportunity backlog." The core problem is that roadmap items are often treated as commitments, yet genuine product…
Marty Cagan argues that companies often confuse product roles, and that one person can legitimately cover more than one role. He focuses on a combination he increasingly recommends: a strong engineering lead or CTO who…
Marty Cagan shares a curated list of favorite product and leadership mantras he has collected while visiting companies, explaining what each one reveals about good product practice. Many of the quotes are attributed to…
Marty Cagan argues that a product team's primary scorecard metric should change depending on the stage the product is in. He describes three stages: MVP, where the only goal is winning several happy, referenceable…
The essay opens with a launch scenario where marketing and product management drift apart, producing mixed-up press releases, inaccurate website copy, and misplaced confidence. Cagan argues that product marketing is a…
Marty Cagan responds to a common challenge: why are products like Facebook, Amazon, and Google so successful if they seem poorly designed? He argues that product people often confuse their own tastes with the target…
Cagan distinguishes live-data prototypes, which are real code sent live traffic (usually in A/B tests) to prove an idea works, from production software that the business can run on. Production demands complete critical…
Marty Cagan responds to a CTO's question about whether a strong product designer and technical lead still need a product manager, arguing the PM's contribution is often invisible or poorly done. He frames the discussion…
Marty Cagan argues that a product proving it works and is usable is not the same as a product people will actually choose to buy and use. He calls the smallest functional, usable version a 'Minimal Product' and reserves…
Marty Cagan uses the social contract that Stanford's d.school Launchpad course requires of its students as a lens on what strong product leaders must commit to. The contract centers on not complaining about workload…
Marty Cagan contrasts the traditional PC-era product manager with the modern Internet-era product manager. He argues that many organizations still operate with the older model, which was often ineffective and poorly…
Marty Cagan argues that popular product measurement tools, such as product scorecards and Eric Ries's 'innovation accounting', are valuable for focusing on outcomes but are insufficient on their own. Measuring only…