Marty Cagan argues that product teams benefit from writing a short manifesto, a public declaration of core principles and beliefs that complements the product vision and strategy. He describes how a manifesto forces a…
Marty Cagan argues that product management is demanding and that product managers inevitably face rough days, which matter more because their teams watch how they react. He offers a set of practical habits for breaking…
Marty Cagan argues that strong project management is a hidden driver of successful product organizations, using eBay's Lynn Reedy as the example. He contends that project management is distinct from product management…
Marty Cagan addresses a frequent complaint from product managers at large companies: their managers keep shifting direction, producing constant rework and frustration. He acknowledges that such churn is a structural…
Marty Cagan argues that company culture, defined by how a company treats its employees, customers, and partners, directly shapes how product teams work and what they build. He suggests a company's treatment of employees…
Marty Cagan argues that employees join a company but leave a manager, so a manager's behavior strongly shapes job satisfaction and team effectiveness. He offers a list of characteristics of great product leaders, aimed…
Marty Cagan argues that Hewlett-Packard was Silicon Valley's greatest product company because its founders built a culture and structure for continually breeding new products and businesses. By splitting growing…
Marty Cagan argues that product opportunities are far from exhausted, pointing to three reasons: products that frustrate users always invite better alternatives, what is technically feasible keeps shifting, and today's…
Marty Cagan argues that many companies outsource for the wrong reason, namely cost savings, when they should outsource to assemble the right product team. He notes that Silicon Valley's high living costs push talent…
Cagan argues that the next big product is usually not a wholly new market but a new version of something existing that does the job far better, faster, or cheaper, thereby redefining its category. He illustrates this…
Marty Cagan argues that no amount of marketing can rescue a genuinely bad product; asking marketing to make the best of a 'pig' produces 'lipstick on a pig.' He uses Macromedia's Flex as a case study. Flash was a great…
Marty Cagan uses General Patton's quote about telling people what to do rather than how to do it to argue that product managers should specify outcomes, not implementations. He identifies two failure modes: customers…
Marty Cagan argues that the common startup approach of funding engineers to build a product before validating it is inefficient and causes many good ideas to fail. Founders typically act as product manager, build in…
Marty Cagan argues that 'specials'—large customer or partner deals that come with a condition to build exactly what they request—can derail a product company. Although the cash is tempting, especially for cash-strapped…
Marty Cagan argues that product leaders should not be dismissed because of their youth, noting that outstanding product people exist across all ages. He points out that anyone 24 or older has grown up alongside the…
Marty Cagan argues that enterprise software is in poor shape: products are often hard to use, don't work out of the box, and force customers into costly professional services. He contends that good product management…
Marty Cagan argues that consumer internet services differ sharply from traditional enterprise software: there is no sales force or distribution channel between the product and its users, so ideas can be tested and…
Marty Cagan argues that great brands come from great products rather than from marketing alone, and that Silicon Valley companies often err by fixating on technology. He notes HP's brand was stronger when built on…
Marty Cagan argues that deep experience in a specific product domain is usually less important for product managers than people assume. He recounts two cases where a strong PM was doubted for lacking domain experience…
Marty Cagan argues that platform product management, which means building foundation software that other companies use to create end-user solutions, is among the hardest and highest-leverage jobs in product. He first…
Marty Cagan argues that the founders of many of the world's most successful high-tech companies, such as Gates, Jobs, Bezos and Page, were effectively product managers in the best sense. They identified opportunities…
Marty Cagan argues that product managers should validate a product specification before handing it to engineering, rather than trusting the spec and planning to adjust after beta feedback. Because prototyping costs have…
Marty Cagan examines the Waterfall product development process, which he notes remains the most common way software products are built despite being decades old and widely criticized. He explains its phased structure of…
Marty Cagan examines how Agile methods, especially Extreme Programming (XP), fit into product management for commercial products. He first outlines the twelve shared Agile principles and XP's core practices, which were…
Marty Cagan argues that the title "Product Manager" means very different things across companies and industries, a symptom of how young high-tech product development still is. Rather than wait for standardized titles…
Marty Cagan argues that the VP Product role is difficult to fill and perform well, but when done right it creates major value for a company. He frames the role around four competencies: team development, product vision…
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