Marty Cagan argues that web products spread worldwide quickly, but making them work well in other countries requires a different product approach than simply localizing a US product. Early companies that handed off US…
“The larger and more complex your company is, the more challenging it can be to introduce continuous discovery. It’s not just about training people to conduct interviews, use opportunity solution trees, or test assumptions—though those are all important activities—it’s also about convincing them of the value”
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader question about how Airbnb balanced outcome-oriented thinking with design and engineering requirements that don't directly drive a target metric. He argues that outcome-oriented…
Marty Cagan addresses a recurring question from company leaders: should product managers carry P&L responsibility? He traces the idea to consumer packaged goods, where a product manager owned costs, marketing, forecasts…
Marty Cagan explains how SVPG operates: it advises startups and growth-stage companies and runs public and private workshops on how strong product teams work. Demand far exceeds capacity, which he attributes to SVPG's…
Christian Idiodi, an SVPG partner and Black leader in tech, writes about the personal weight of racial injustice in America and asks why tech companies, which tackle enormous problems like aging and space colonization…
Marty Cagan shares a chapter from his book EMPOWERED, written by SVPG partner Jon Moore, describing the digital transformation at The Guardian during a period of industry crisis. Facing collapsing advertising revenue…
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine why hiring processes often fail product teams despite their rigor. They describe how AI-inflated application volumes, longer funnels, and many stakeholders create noise, and how…
Teresa Torres's weekend roundup highlights three posts she found useful for building great products. She opens with Brad Feld's observation that startups often lack a clear owner of the overall user experience, which…
Marty Cagan proposes a simple taxonomy for the types of product coaching, since no widely accepted vocabulary exists yet. He distinguishes product-related coaching (delivery, discovery, product leadership, and…
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…
Cagan argues that once leaders decide which problems product teams should tackle, the mechanics of assigning objectives matter a great deal. Leaders own the decision of which team takes which problem, guided by product…
Teresa Torres argues that many product managers are so consumed by delivery work (grooming backlogs, triaging bugs, handling schedule slips) that they lack time for discovery, the work of figuring out what to build. Ad…
Marty Cagan argues that enterprise software companies sometimes need to become consumer or small-business companies, whether because enterprise markets are saturated, investors demand bigger markets, or leaders tire of…
Lenny Rachitsky surveys about 30 companies on when they hired their first product manager, finding the typical wait was two to three years, often before product-market fit. The post shows that someone always does PM…
Marty Cagan argues that economic downturns, while painful, can be a productive period for product teams and companies that know how to use them. Beyond the defensive measure of cutting costs to extend runway, he…
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…
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…
The post offers a step-by-step guide to hiring and structuring a first growth team, drawing on interviews with a dozen growth practitioners. It argues growth should follow product-market fit, that acquisition is usually…
Teresa Torres argues that product trios (PM, designer, engineer) should conduct their own customer discovery interviews rather than outsource them to centralized research, marketing, or BI teams. Centralized research is…
Teresa Torres argues that continuous discovery is achievable in almost any organization, even when people say 'that would never work here.' She frames resistance into three scenarios: the feature factory, the messy…
Marty Cagan responds to recurring questions about whether SVPG promotes a specific branded process such as 'the INSPIRED process' or 'the EMPOWERED process'. He argues that nearly everything involves some process, and…
Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth argue that annual and quarterly planning is painful for most organizations because it asks many people to imagine futures, agree on one, and plan a path to it. Drawing on dozens of…
Marty Cagan describes a common remote-work problem in product discovery: teams drift back into passing static artifacts between product manager, designer, and engineers instead of collaborating closely. His proposed fix…