by Marty Cagan | Feb 25, 2017
I have a little heuristic which I find useful. If I see a particular issue going on in at least three companies at the same time, I figure it’s a common and serious enough issue that it’s worth writing about. In truth, I’ve already written about...
by Marty Cagan | Jan 29, 2017
I have been working exclusively with technology product teams now for a full 35 years, and I’ve seen countless processes, methodologies and techniques come and go. In large part that’s the nature of the beast. People are always searching for a silver bullet, and...
by Marty Cagan | Dec 13, 2016
Five years ago I wrote an article arguing that it is essential that the product manager is also the product owner. My motivation, which I made no secret of, was that I was worried about this point because more than a few companies were using the relatively new role...
by Marty Cagan | Nov 28, 2016
Much of product discovery work doesn’t actually require a lot of planning. We need to come up with a solution to a particular problem, and often this is straight forward, and we can proceed quickly to delivery work. But for certain efforts, this is decidedly...
by Marty Cagan | Oct 16, 2016
Recently I gave a keynote address to the Mind The Product Conference in London, and in that talk I wanted to illustrate, by example, the essential role that very strong product managers play for their team and their company. Most people noticed that all six of my...
by Marty Cagan | Sep 30, 2016
When I first decided to start The Silicon Valley Product Group, I had just left eBay and had some very strong opinions about what makes great product teams, and great product cultures…
by Marty Cagan | Jul 15, 2016
Overview In recent articles on keys to product success and the alternative to roadmaps I have highlighted that if you want the benefits of product team empowerment and autonomy, then you need to provide each team with the necessary context in which to make good...
by Marty Cagan | Jun 28, 2016
Most people by now have read Marc Andreessen’s Why Software Is Eating The World. This was written back in 2011, and I’ve been watching his predictions play out in companies all around the world. While my focus is primarily on technology-powered software products,...
by Marty Cagan | Jun 1, 2016
This has been a tough year for the technology industry. In March we lost Andy Grove, and in April we lost Bill Campbell. Sadly, in May we lost Bruce Williams. Bruce had been fighting Pancreatic Cancer for the past year and a half. He had been in an experimental...
by Marty Cagan | May 19, 2016
There is a very common fallacy about developers in our industry, and I think it hurts countless companies. Have you ever heard the old accusation that developers only want to solve problems for themselves? They’ll spend countless hours, often on their own time, to...
by Marty Cagan | May 2, 2016
Exactly a year ago I was invited to give a keynote at the Craft Conference in Budapest and I discussed the 10 biggest reasons why product teams fail. You can read the narrative article here. As I mainly shined a light on why so many teams are operating so...
by Marty Cagan | Apr 12, 2016
Note 1: I’m focusing in this article on women, however, my points here are intended to apply to all under-represented groups. Note 2: I am highlighting here the product role, which is a subset of the “women in tech” topic. I would also love to see more women in...
by Marty Cagan | Mar 10, 2016
In my last article on Discovery Sprints I mentioned the concept of Discovery Coaches and several people asked me about that, so I thought I’d describe more about what this role is and when it’s helpful. For many years, as teams move to Agile methods (they usually...
by Marty Cagan | Feb 29, 2016
I find that many teams, especially those new to modern product techniques, are looking for a structured introduction to modern product discovery. In this article, I’d like to describe the concept of a discovery sprint, and also introduce you to a new book that goes...
by Marty Cagan | Feb 15, 2016
Product Optimization is a hot topic. It can provide real value to teams. However, many people confuse optimization with product discovery. I’ve written about this earlier. Eric Ries of the Lean Startup movement also recently tried to clear up this confusion. My...
by Marty Cagan | Feb 8, 2016
NOTE: I was invited to write the foreword for Christina Wodke’s new book on OKR’s, Radical Focus, and I am sharing the foreword here. I was extremely fortunate to have started my career at Hewlett-Packard as an engineer during their heyday, when they were known as the...
by Marty Cagan | Jan 11, 2016
Lots of people have written about the challenges of managing growth. Especially about the importance of working hard to maintain staff quality as you scale the organization. There is little question that most organizations become worse in their ability to rapidly...
by Marty Cagan | Dec 29, 2015
NOTE: This article is from the foreword to the new 2nd Edition of The Art of Scalability by Marty Abbott and Michael Fisher. I’m reprinting it here because quite a few people have written me asking how to get their old-style company to start behaving more like a...
by Marty Cagan | Nov 24, 2015
One of my all-time favorite quotes in our industry comes by way of the legendary VC, John Doerr, where he argues that “we need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.” This point captures so much, and gets right to the heart of the most important trait...
by Marty Cagan | Nov 10, 2015
In my last article I discussed how we need to simultaneously learn fast in product discovery, yet still release with confidence in product delivery. I got a very good response from this article, as well as many questions as to how teams can get better at one or both....