“I had a friend reach out recently for advice. He said something funny/telling. “Half the time I don’t know what you really think. I have to figure out how my team works. What is your actual, opinionated advice?” So here it is: advice for a friend on how to operate. Raw. Not “polished John”.”
John Cutler introduces a leadership archetype he calls 'The Standard-Setter', a manager who is skilled at advancing their own career while misreading pressure as motivation. The core belief is that everyone has another…
Tal Raviv, a long-time individual-contributor PM, argues that flatter tech orgs demand PMs build their own systems to stay effective and healthy. The post offers practical tactics such as finishing meeting action items…
Cagan argues that beyond empowered teams hitting measurable outcomes, the best product companies also pursue a harder-to-define standard of excellence: desirability, delight, or 'spirit.' He acknowledges the tension…
Marty Cagan describes the Group Product Manager (GPM), a hybrid role between an individual contributor and a first-level people manager, which he has seen work well in fast-growing product organizations. A GPM is…
Marty Cagan distinguishes coaching from mentoring using a distinction he learned from Bill Campbell. Both are valuable, but mentoring is offered as honest opinion the mentee may or may not act on, so the mentor carries…
Executive coach Joe Hudson argues that as AI commoditizes knowledge and effort, the scarce advantage becomes emotional clarity. He lays out a "wisdom stack" of four traits (discernment, productive conflict, willingness…
Teresa Torres argues that product managers often wish their leadership, engineers, designers, and sales teams would behave differently, when the more productive move is to change their own behavior first. For each…
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 argues that empowerment in product teams must be paired with accountability, and that how accountability applies depends on the ambition of the objective. A team that misses a bold "Moon Shot" goal is…
Saumil Mehta, former CPO of Square, argues that the "skip lead" (the manager of managers) is pivotal to organizational health, since most manager problems trace back to how the skip leads hires, reviews, and coaches…
Cagan argues that product people operate in the idea business, and that depending only on one's own ideas severely limits potential. The core lesson is to actively seek out the smartest people across the company, since…
Marty Cagan revisits The Lost Interview with Steve Jobs to answer a question he has struggled with: why do so many product companies remain weak when the best ones are the most valuable in the world? Rather than…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille argue that AI, which makes generating ideas and building products faster, does not remove the need for product managers because the core of product work is relationship work. Aligning…
Marty Cagan argues that product managers should learn the underlying principles behind their practices, since techniques change constantly while principles endure and let people judge new methods. He recommends Ray…
In a fireside chat at the Product at Heart Leadership Forum, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille discuss how product leaders can help teams adopt continuous discovery. Torres frames discovery as the work of deciding what to…
Lenny answers a reader whose startup grew to four PMs and who worries the team is drifting out of sync. He argues a PM team meeting can be one of the most valuable recurring meetings, but only if it has a clear purpose…
Teresa Torres explains the product operating model, a set of first principles popularized by Marty Cagan, which focuses on achieving customer and business outcomes rather than shipping outputs. She contrasts it with the…
Marty Cagan argues that the current trend of cutting managers in favor of pure individual-contributor builders is a temporary phase rather than the future. He restates the principle that experts lead experts: effective…
Teresa Torres argues that most managers claim to manage by outcomes but in practice still manage by outputs, dictating features, projects, and fixed roadmaps. The root cause she identifies is a trust problem: managers…
Melissa Perri argues that a new Chief Product Officer must shift from viewing executives as obstacles to seeing them as teammates with their own goals and constraints. The essay stresses that the CEO relationship is the…
Lenny answers a reader who is joining a team with a history of underperformance, arguing that a turnaround is both risky and a strong career opportunity. He advises setting expectations with the manager early, since…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille discuss the crowded product coaching landscape and help listeners understand the different coaching settings (individual, group, team) and coaching types (general product, discovery…
A reader asks how to manage up with a difficult manager, and the post answers with five practical tactics. The core argument is that managing up is a core skill at every level: communicate proactively, set realistic…