Marty Cagan argues against the view that a technology company is essentially made of engineers who build software and salespeople who sell it, with everyone else treated as overhead. He contends that combining even…
“Q: I’m a PM and I’m having a hard time getting buy-in for my ideas. My teammates quickly shoot me down, or disregard my recommendations. Any advice? That sounds rough! I’d be super-discouraged if I were in your shoes. But I’m inspired that you’re using this as a learning opportunity instead of calling it quits. To help you build your getting-buy-in muscles, I pulled in Shivani Berry, the CEO and Founder of Arise Leadership, to share…”
A guest post by DJ DiDonna of the Sabbatical Project that debunks three common manager objections to sabbatical programs: that everyone will leave, that the company will collapse without the leader, and that people…
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion argue that many organizational transformations toward the product operating model stall because companies start before they are ready. Driven partly by consultants and the success of big…
Christian Idiodi argues that hiring experienced product people is not enough, because even strong hires lack the company-specific context, decision-making knowledge, and relationships needed to succeed. Standard…
Marty Cagan, a longtime admirer of Apple, argues that the first Apple Watch after Steve Jobs is a disappointing product that falls short of Apple's usual standards of value. He criticizes its dependence on the phone…
Marty Cagan argues that a company growing rapidly from startup to large organization faces stress, and that practices and people who drove early success can later hold it back. He suggests leaders who excel at startups…
Marty Cagan reflects on witnessing gender-based bias early in his career and argues that avoiding discrimination is not enough; leaders must actively work to counter the lingering effects of past inequities. He focuses…
This podcast episode argues that organizational change is exhausting and that individuals usually waste energy trying to fix their companies' people and processes. Teresa Torres and Petra Wille describe a three-part…
Marty Cagan argues that product evangelism, which he describes as selling the dream, is a core job for founders and product managers alike. Without it, strong teams are hard to assemble at startups, and at larger…
Sandrine Veillet, VP of Global Product at WebMD, describes how she introduced continuous discovery into a large, previously waterfall-style product organization. She began by building a product vision and simple…
Carole Robin, co-creator of Stanford's 'Touchy Feely' course, answers a reader whose co-founder relationship is deteriorating while the business still needs it to work. She argues that co-founder friction, like marriage…
Teresa Torres, who teaches design-based courses at Northwestern, argues that continuous discovery principles extend beyond product work to broader organizational challenges like engagement, team effectiveness, and…
This Product in Practice piece profiles how Hemnet, Sweden's largest property portal, adopted continuous discovery through a grassroots start. A User Research Director and a Chief Product Officer describe how one…
Teresa Torres shares her top picks from the 74 books she read in 2015, grouped into product-management-adjacent titles, books on meaning and happiness, academic reads that shaped her thinking, and favorite fiction. The…
Teresa Torres argues that product teams should not commit to specific features by specific dates, because product work is inherently unpredictable and date-based roadmaps tend to create chaos, broken trust, and wasted…
Lenny Rachitsky's early newsletter answers three reader questions: how to motivate engineers to hit arbitrary deadlines, where to find real PM career ladders, and how to get executives to accept more actionable customer…
Teresa Torres argues that product managers often make quick, gut-based calls when colleagues ask for features or details, and that the way decisions are made matters as much as the decisions themselves. Drawing on…
John Cutler reflects on the pull many product people feel to help and improve things, and on how that impulse can turn into exhaustion if left unchecked. He frames the desire to help as a real gift that helps people…
This podcast episode, hosted by Teresa Torres with guest Petra Wille, examines the difference between product training and product coaching and when each is the right tool. Training builds foundational knowledge and…
Marty Cagan argues that the written narrative is his favorite coaching tool for turning product managers into exceptional ones. Unlike a spec, a narrative lays out the vision, the customer and business value, and the…
Marty Cagan argues that the performance-management ideas he learned at Hewlett-Packard, Management by Objectives (later refined as OKRs), remain the foundation of how the best companies operate. The first principle is…
Marty Cagan argues that team objectives should empower product teams by assigning them a hard problem to solve rather than a feature to build, along with the strategic context needed to make good decisions. Handing over…
Shreyas Doshi argues that when two highly competitive, ego-driven product managers must negotiate with each other, the outcome tends to be poor for everyone involved. The piece frames this as a recurring pattern in some…