Cagan argues that many product teams neglect design, leaving products with weak user experiences because the design roles that shape usability and emotional appeal are missing. He lays out four design roles that work…
“This post is part of the So You Want To Be a Product Manager series. We've heard from Oded and Colin who had some product experience from the context of account management type roles. We've heard from Zaz who switched to product from engineering. Today, we are going”
Teresa Torres ran the inaugural CDH Benchmark survey, collecting responses from 1,999 product people across 78 countries to measure how many teams have adopted continuous discovery habits and whether those habits…
Teresa Torres and Hope Gurion walk through the seven most common reasons product teams say they have no time for discovery, and offer practical fixes for each. The core argument is that discovery should run in tandem…
Teresa Torres argues that teams should adopt continuous discovery through small, sustainable habits rather than attempting a full transformation at once, which often leads to frustration. She adapts Nisha Vora's SPICEY…
Teresa Torres describes how she rolled out the idea management tool Kindling at AfterCollege so that everyone in the company could contribute to idea generation and evaluation. The approach worked because it had clear…
This podcast episode examines how capacity planning, a common quarterly ritual of allocating team time to fixed deliverables, fits within outcome-driven and discovery-first product organizations. The hosts argue that…
Teresa Torres describes rolling out Kindling, a simple idea management app, across her company to make product input more transparent and data-driven. She wanted an easy tool that everyone would use to share and vote on…
Jason Fried defends the continued use of cover letters in hiring, responding to people who think they no longer matter. He argues that a cover letter is the first and most revealing signal of an applicant's effort…
Lenny Rachitsky answers a reader's question about team speed by compiling a list of roughly fifteen tactics drawn from founders, his own experience, and community input. The core argument is that velocity matters…
Hila Qu, a growth advisor and former GitLab and Acorns growth leader, walks through how B2B companies can add a product-led growth (PLG) motion alongside sales. Her core argument is that PLG and sales are complementary…
Jason Fried argues that the common hiring requirement of 'years of experience' is a weak signal, since time spent doing something doesn't guarantee anything was actually produced or learned. He proposes evaluating…
Cagan argues that many companies confuse a product vision with a mission statement, a slogan of purpose that does not do the work a product vision must do. He also criticizes the practice of each product team inventing…
Two former Reddit leaders outline a four-step framework for building products with a vocal, opinionated user base: measuring trust, listening to representative voices, moving debate into private advisory councils, and…
Marty Cagan argues that Agile methods, such as Scrum and XP, change but do not eliminate the product manager's job, and he offers guidance specific to product software rather than custom or IT projects. The product…
Melissa Perri describes how a typical remote staff meeting can waste the chance to connect and align a team, and argues that remote work mainly amplifies existing meeting problems. She interviews product leaders at…
Cagan argues that many product companies have yet to seriously consider data science, even though leading firms are already gaining advantages from it. He distinguishes data science from traditional analytics by its…
John Cutler examines the difference between using mirrors and practicing mirroring, two ways of reflecting back what teams and people do. He describes how his own thinking about this distinction has evolved over the…
This article describes how John Deere, a 185-year-old equipment maker, is repositioning itself as a technology company centered on "smart farming." Facing a projected global population of 9.6 billion by 2050 and rising…
Marty Cagan and Jon Moore argue that a product-led company's engineering practices should rest on three principles: protecting customers, revenue, brand and colleagues; responding quickly to market needs; and earning…
Teresa Torres marks the one-year anniversary of Steve Jobs's death by reflecting on her mixed feelings about him. She credits Jobs with an extraordinary record of beautiful, usable products and a rare dedication to…
John Cutler, writing in response to a friend who wanted his unpolished, opinionated view, presents a set of candid operating takes for product and team leaders. The piece's premise is that leaders often hedge or present…
Teresa Torres argues that when a whole company is invited to generate product ideas, every idea deserves thoughtful feedback, since that feedback is what keeps people contributing. She walks through common idea types…
In this podcast episode, Teresa Torres and Petra Wille examine how people behave in communities, noticing a growing number of members who ask what they can get rather than how they can help. They argue that community…