Founder of Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) and author of Inspired, Empowered and Transformed.
Marty Cagan describes a common failure mode: once a product has customers, the same development team is pulled between urgent fixes and new product work, so both slow to a crawl and everyone becomes frustrated…
Marty Cagan introduces four thought leaders whose blogs he finds valuable for product people, many of whom were relatively new voices in 2010. He profiles Ben Horowitz, Eric Ries, Steve Blank, and Fred Wilson…
Marty Cagan, a consultant who works mainly with CEOs and product leaders, writes an open letter to designers about common mistakes that undermine their impact on products. He argues that designers should be involved…
Marty Cagan describes a shared workspace he helped create in Silicon Valley for very early-stage startups, which often struggle with the time and money needed to set up an office. The space offers flexible…
Marty Cagan argues that leaders often undermine their product organizations even when their intentions are good, and he lists ten common behaviors that stop leaders from actually helping. The behaviors range from…
Marty Cagan recalls his early-1980s work at HP Labs, where research head Joel Birnbaum asked why most people dislike their computers, and proposed the idea of a 'domesticated computer' that adapts to people rather than…
Marty Cagan responds to a debate sparked by Don Norman's essay arguing that big societal innovations are driven by technology first and needs later, which Norman frames against heavy upfront user research. Cagan says…
Marty Cagan reflects on whether product discovery techniques built for software apply to non-technology products. He tested them while writing a book, using customer research, a small group of charter customers…
Marty Cagan contrasts two ways of organizing product work: project-based feature teams that get reshuffled around a communal roadmap, and dedicated product teams that persist around a business area. He argues that…
Marty Cagan argues that as startups grow and split into functional groups, walls form between product, technology, marketing and design, with product-technology being the most damaging. Teams loyal to their function…
Marty Cagan follows up on his earlier argument that product organizations often degrade into service teams that merely document others' decisions. He offers ten practical moves for reclaiming influence: deep customer…
Marty Cagan argues that as companies grow, product organizations often drift into serving internal stakeholders, documenting requirements, mediating conflicts, and allocating developer time, which crowds out customer…
Marty Cagan argues that the coming decade will be among the most productive for product innovation. He points to four converging forces: ubiquitous connected mobile devices, powerful platforms that give apps instant…
Marty Cagan revisits Fred Brooks's classic essay "No Silver Bullet" and argues that the software world is full of advocates who present a single favorite technique as the answer to everything. He acknowledges that he…
Marty Cagan argues that commercial software companies should never outsource three core competencies: product definition, user experience design, and the underlying site architecture/engineering that builds the product…
Marty Cagan walks through a fabricated three-week product discovery sprint to show what the fast, iterative rhythm of discovery actually looks like compared with linear, Waterfall-style processes. The team sets product…
Cagan argues that teams who genuinely value product discovery still waste time when they lack a plan, so they should write a Product Discovery Plan spelling out who is involved, what must be done, what resources are…
Marty Cagan describes the "feed the beast" problem, where product teams feed a hungry development organization with specs just to keep engineers busy, regardless of whether the products are worth building. He argues…
As a product grows from one team to many, keeping a holistic view of how the whole product fits together becomes very hard. Cagan argues that three senior roles are needed to hold that view: a principal designer for…
Cagan argues that product teams need two distinct disciplines: Product Discovery, which uses prototyping and user testing to find new valuable, usable, feasible solutions, and Product Optimization, which improves an…
Marty Cagan argues that many product teams delay validating their ideas with real customers until it is too late, and that this delay is a common cause of disastrous product results. He notes that people often agree in…
The author, watching TV ads on a DVR, found that a Palm Pre commercial failed to convey what the phone actually did, while an iPhone ad made the product immediately clear and compelling. She argues that products only…
Marty Cagan argues that most software companies handle product portfolio planning poorly, and that while no single process fits every company because culture and leadership matter, a set of overarching principles can…
Marty Cagan highlights a talk by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and draws out four principles that connect to his thinking on product portfolio planning. The core message is that great product companies focus relentlessly on…
Marty Cagan examines what business incubators, from independent startup accelerators to corporate labs like HP Labs and Yahoo's Brickhouse, teach about turning product ideas into successful companies or products. He…
Marty Cagan, drawing on a conversation with venture capitalist Josh Kopelman, argues that business plans are wrong almost as soon as they are written. Competition, technology, and market dynamics constantly shift, and…
Marty Cagan argues that product companies can learn a great deal from venture capital firms, which are also in the business of making product investments and maximizing returns. He contrasts VC practices with typical…
Marty Cagan argues that the typical product portfolio planning process used by companies past the startup stage is deeply frustrating, and that few organizations are satisfied with how they choose projects and allocate…
Cagan argues that many companies lack a clear way to tell whether product managers' work actually aligns with business strategy, and that teams drift into chasing feature ideas. He proposes a 'Product Scorecard': a…
Marty Cagan argues that every technology company has more product ideas than capacity to build them, so the real work of portfolio planning is deciding where to invest. Rather than only adding headcount, companies can…