Marty Cagan argues that a startup's central goal is reaching Product-Market Fit, the point where a product has proven demand and justifies investing in sales, marketing and scale. He standardizes on Marc Andreessen's…
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 argues that the project management role, in its many forms, is often poorly performed and sometimes seen as a liability, and that its damaged brand may need a fresh start. He attributes the problems to…
Marty Cagan explains why he has largely stopped recommending OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to most companies: the technique is simple, but organizations rarely have the structure it needs to work. He argues three…
Marty Cagan argues that splitting product work across teams is one of the hardest and most recurring organizational questions once a company outgrows its earliest stage, and that there is no quick general answer. He…
Marty Cagan argues that deep experience in a specific product domain is usually less important for product managers than people assume. He recounts two cases where a strong PM was doubted for lacking domain experience…
Marty Cagan revisits his earlier skepticism of the 'CEO of the Product' metaphor and states a clearer position in favor of it, with caveats. He notes the concept's risk of making product managers act like bosses, but…
Marty Cagan follows up on his critique of SAFe, the scaled-agile framework, by answering reader questions. He argues that process choices are really culture choices, and that adopting a heavy framework signals top-down…
Marty Cagan argues that web products spread worldwide quickly, but making them work well in other countries requires a different product approach than simply localizing a US product. Early companies that handed off US…
Marty Cagan argues that the simple conceptual model of continuous discovery and delivery running in parallel is useful precisely because it is process-agnostic, and warns against elaborating it into a rigid process…
Marty Cagan argues that generative AI will reshape how product teams are built and how they work, drawing on his decades of experience through successive tech disruptions like the PC, the internet, and mobile. He is…
Marty Cagan argues that the core of the product manager job is product creation: working daily with designers and engineers to solve customer problems in ways that are both loved by customers and viable for the…
Marty Cagan argues that the largest source of technology waste is not government projects or startups but large non-tech companies such as banks, insurers, airlines and retailers. These firms, often run by CIOs or CFOs…
Marty Cagan argues that 'Product Ops' has become a vague label, with at least six distinct meanings in companies today, making a claim that a company 'has Product Ops' nearly meaningless. He reviews five models he finds…
Marty Cagan offers a curated starting path for aspiring product managers who are overwhelmed by contradictory online advice. He argues that the product manager role is about ensuring what gets built is both valuable and…
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 asks whether product discovery applies to feature teams, which are handed a list of features rather than problems to solve. At a simple level, discovery is irrelevant there because the solution is already…
Marty Cagan introduces the core competencies that a product operating model requires, framing product teams as responsible for solving hard customer and business problems rather than delivering features on request. He…
Marty Cagan argues that product discovery and rapid test-and-learn techniques, which startups use, apply equally to established companies. Startups have no legacy to protect, so they can take big risks cheaply…
Marty Cagan argues that established companies often lose their capacity for continuous innovation, and that a deeper root cause than the usual focus on scale and execution is an "IT mindset" applied to product work. He…
Marty Cagan introduces the product operating model as a set of first principles that leading product companies use to consistently create technology-powered solutions that deliver customer value and business results…
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 argues that the scarcest resource for product people is effective coaching, since most managers lack the time or skill to provide it, and that foundation AI models configured with good instructions and…
Marty Cagan explains where the term "product discovery" came from and why he chose it. He argues that software has always faced two core problems: figuring out the right product, and then building it right, which he…
Marty Cagan argues that the term minimum viable product is used so inconsistently that it confuses product teams, and proposes a clearer working definition. He defines an MVP as the smallest product that is valuable…
Marty Cagan's first published article, from a 1986 HP Journal issue, is a technical overview of Hewlett-Packard's internal AI Workstation research program and its first product, a Common Lisp development environment. It…
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 addresses a recurring question: how Agile relates to the Product Operating Model. He argues Agile is only one of three dimensions of the product model, covering how software is built, tested, and deployed…
Marty Cagan, who popularized the term product discovery, clarifies a common confusion: learning is valuable, but the real goal of discovery is to gain insights, which are learnings a team can act on. He explains that…
Marty Cagan responds to readers stuck in IT-mindset organizations who ask whether they can change their company or must leave for a startup. He argues that established companies can still produce disruptive innovation…