Marty Cagan argues that Microsoft has managed to keep high staff quality during rapid growth, something most tech companies struggle with, and that its recruiting engine is a real competitive advantage. He describes his…
Marty Cagan argues there is a wide gap between how the best product companies work and how the majority of companies work, and that many people don't realize how different the two worlds are. He notes that practitioners…
Cagan argues that the 'Business Analyst' role, common in IT and custom-software shops where it gathers requirements for developers, becomes a problem when transplanted into a product organization. There it duplicates…
Marty Cagan argues that large companies are structurally risk averse and rely on shared, matrixed resources, which makes getting a product designed, built, and launched difficult. Rather than fighting the culture, he…
Julie Zhuo's paid essay argues that an AI transformation cannot be ordered into existence from the top down. It presents a ten-step guide to leading an AI shift in a way that preserves care for people and their sense of…
This piece profiles Datasite, formerly Merrill Corporation, a financial-document printer that had to reinvent itself as cloud demand grew. The company was slow, hierarchical and risk-averse, so it reframed its culture…
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…
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…
“Early in my product career, I wore many hats. I conducted research, analyzed data, sketched interfaces and wireframes, wrote requirements, coordinated releases, answered support questions, and even, shudder, wrote some code. Some of that was empowering. Some of it was amateur hour. But it was all bundled into the loose idea of “product management.””
Teresa Torres contrasts two product managers: Jim, who is absorbed in delivery tasks and makes all the team's decisions, and Sally, who has time for customer discovery because her team shares the problem-solving load…
Marty Cagan argues that the foundation of a strong empowered product team is unencumbered, direct access to four constituencies: customers and users, product data, business stakeholders, and engineers. He explains that…
Hiten Shah argues that leaders usually try to engineer culture directly, which rarely works. Instead, culture emerges from the environment (systems, cadences, unwritten rules), and the environment itself is shaped by…
The post answers a founder's question about hiring difficulty by synthesizing advice from several early-stage founders who consistently attract strong talent. It argues that hiring success comes from a compelling…
Teresa Torres argues that job titles and disciplinary boundaries matter for advancing each craft, since naming skills lets people debate, invest in, and share them. However, she warns that the same labels become harmful…
Teresa Torres introduces the product trio: a product manager, designer, and engineer who share responsibility for product decisions rather than handing work off in sequence. She argues the traditional handoff model…
Marty Cagan and Elias Lieberich describe how the product model shows up at Google, a company with nine products that each exceed one billion monthly users. The article frames the model around three parts: leaders…
This is an index page from Marty Cagan's SVPG site introducing a series of articles on how a company can transform from merely adequate to truly excellent at product work. It groups the articles into themes…
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…