by Marty Cagan | Nov 22, 2013
Much has been written about how to do product discovery in startups, by me and many other people. There are many challenges for startups, most importantly, survival. But one of the real advantages from a product point of view is that there’s no legacy to drag...
by Marty Cagan | Oct 20, 2013
When I start working with product teams, one of the first things I try to do is to get them to stop thinking of their job as one of gathering and documenting requirements. In fact, I try to get them to stop thinking in terms of requirements at all. Most requirements...
by Marty Cagan | Oct 12, 2013
One of the things I like about a Lean Canvas is it helps to quickly highlight the key assumptions and major risks facing a startup or a significant new product in an existing business. This is a good thing. The idea is to tackle the biggest risks first....
by Marty Cagan | Aug 30, 2013
Our job in the product organization is to create products that can sustain a business. Make no mistake about it: everything depends on strong products. Without these strong products, our marketing programs require customer acquisition costs that are too high; our...
by Marty Cagan | Aug 21, 2013
I should have written this article many years ago. Starting around 2004 and 2005 I began seeing an increasing number of teams moving to Agile, and of course the first thing they needed was training and often some coaching. However, more often than not, I had to go...
by Marty Cagan | Jul 31, 2013
This article is a little bit different, but if you make it to the last paragraph, I’m hoping it will help better explain where I’m coming from. In the spirit of the inspirational This I Believe project, I thought I would share with you the beliefs that...
by Marty Cagan | Jul 21, 2013
I’m always badgering teams about moving faster. Yet I continue to meet people and teams that not only move very slow, they don’t understand the relationship between speed and innovation, or speed and quality. In fact, many people still think those goals...
by Marty Cagan | Jun 25, 2013
Note: This article is a collaboration between myself and my long-time friend and colleague Jeff Patton. We often work together to help product teams. We have both long argued that the best way to evaluate product teams is by their results; the outcome they generate,...
by Marty Cagan | Jun 22, 2013
One question that’s come up several times recently is the difference between an Opportunity Assessment, and a Business Model Canvas (or its popular derivative Lean Canvas). While it is true you could try to use each to serve the purpose of the other, it quickly...
by Marty Cagan | May 30, 2013
In my last newsletter I wrote about Stakeholder Management. That article seemed to strike a chord with many people. One person sent me a quote that is attributed to Todd Jackson of Facebook, which is probably one of the best lines I’ve seen regarding product in...
by Marty Cagan | Apr 30, 2013
I’m not sure why I haven’t written specifically on this topic before because it comes up as an issue with so many teams. For many product managers, managing stakeholders is probably the least favorite part of their job. I don’t want to suggest that...
by Marty Cagan | Apr 21, 2013
People approach creating products from many different perspectives. Some seek out customer pain and dedicate themselves to solving their problems. Others follow the technology and strive to deliver solutions that are just now possible. Some like to follow...
by Marty Cagan | Mar 17, 2013
Every week I continue to find product teams laboring away on old-style product roadmaps that have been painstakingly negotiated with management and stakeholders, sometimes for several quarters in advance. I have written several times about the problems with this...
by Marty Cagan | Feb 3, 2013
The term “pivot” is probably one of the most overused and abused terms in today’s product teams. If you’re not familiar with the concept, see Your Business Plan Is Wrong. As I work with different teams I find the term used in so many different...
by Marty Cagan | Jan 22, 2013
In my last article, I discussed how we manage public commitments in an Agile, Dual-Track environment. In that article I talked about those public commitments that are needed to run a business, such as when a customer can count on getting some capability, or when a...
by Marty Cagan | Dec 15, 2012
The past several articles have discussed the nature of Continuous Discovery. In this article I’d like to discuss another dimension of working effectively in an Agile environment, which is how we manage commitments. In most Agile teams, when you mention...
by Marty Cagan | Nov 1, 2012
In my last article I wrote about the trends of continuous discovery and continuous delivery. At the end of the article I pointed out that while I love these techniques because overall they are much better for our customers, and for our ability to rapidly improve our...
by Marty Cagan | Oct 24, 2012
I have written recently about how product teams do product discovery in parallel with product delivery. I have also written about how teams sometimes like to time-box their product discovery work. What I’d like to write about in this article is an increasing...
by Marty Cagan | Oct 2, 2012
Recently I wrote about Apprentice Product Manager programs, where companies recruit and groom high-potential product managers. Quite a few people asked me about this program and the type of curriculum that I have provided for my own teams in the past. In this...
by Marty Cagan | Sep 17, 2012
When I first start working with an Agile product team, one of the most common situations I find is where the teams have long and frustrating Sprint planning meetings because backlog items are poorly defined and not well understood; they have slow velocity as well as...
