I lead teams at the intersection of strategy and design. Autodidact. Polymath. Barbecue acolyte. I start fires (the good kind).
two important things for product leaders to keep in mind, especially if they wish to embark on a transformation to the product model: first, you have as much ownership as you have credibility; and second, part of your job as a product leader is to change hearts and minds.
Marty Cagan in Product Leadership Theater
Overall, we look to leadership for inspiration and we look to management for execution.
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones in Empowered
In contrast, in strong product companies, teams are instead given problems to solve, rather than features to build, and most important, they are empowered to solve those problems in the best way they see fit. And they are then held accountable to the results.
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones in Empowered
to summarize feature teams vs. empowered product teams: Feature teams are cross‐functional (a product manager doing mainly project management, a product designer, plus some engineers), and assigned features and projects to build rather than problems to solve, and as such they are all about output and not business results. Empowered product teams are also cross‐functional (a product manager, a product designer, and engineers), but in contrast to feature teams, they are assigned problems to solve, and are then empowered to come up with solutions that work—measured by outcome—and held accountable to results.
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones in Empowered
In the empowered product team model, the product manager has a clear responsibility, which is to ensure that the solutions are valuable (our customers will buy the product and/or choose to use it), and viable (it will meet the needs of the business). Together with a product designer who is responsible for ensuring the solution is usable, and a tech lead who is responsible for ensuring the solution is feasible, the team is able to collaborate to address this full range of risks (value, viability, usability, and feasibility). Together, they own the problem and are responsible and accountable for the results.
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones in Empowered
in strong product companies, the purpose of the product team is to serve customers by creating products customers love, yet work for the business.
Marty Cagan and Chris Jones in Empowered
