Drawer 13 · 461 notes · 69 people · 2005–2026

Org design & culture

Team topologies, operating models, culture, and scaling organizations

Q:
Answers from Org design & culture notes, cited
SVPG · Marty CaganDec 2, 2019

Inside SVPG

Dec 2, 2019 · 6 min

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganJun 3, 2020

Advocating For Racial Equity

Jun 3, 2020 · 5 min

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganMay 22, 2020

Transformation in Action

May 22, 2020 · 9 min

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganFeb 21, 2022

Types of Product Coaching

Feb 21, 2022 · 4 min

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…

SVPG · Marty Cagan

The VP Product Role

7 min

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganMar 4, 2020

Team Objectives – Action

Mar 4, 2020 · 4 min

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…

Product Talk · Teresa TorresMar 18, 2015

Fix Delivery to Make Time for Discovery

Mar 18, 2015 · 3 min

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganOct 6, 2008

Moving From Enterprise To Consumer

Oct 6, 2008 · 5 min

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’s Newsletter♥ 97

When they hired their first PM

Nov 14, 2023 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary only

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganDec 7, 2008

Product Management in Economic Downturns

Dec 7, 2008

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…

SVPG · Marty CaganApr 12, 2016

Women in Product

Apr 12, 2016 · 3 min

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…

Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 1

Three myths about sabbatical programs

Apr 27, 2021 · 16 min
Subscriber post — summary only

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…

Lenny’s Newsletter♥ 112

How to hire your first growth team

Aug 22, 2023 · 17 min
Subscriber post — summary only

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…

Lenny’s Podcast126 min

Thinking like a gardener not a builder, organizing teams like slime mold, the adjacent possible, and other unconventional product advice

Alex Komoroske · Oct 3, 2024
Key learnings
  • Favor gardening over pure building: look for things that can grow on their own with ecosystem or network-effect dynamics, invest…
  • Treat LLMs as squishy, imperfect 'magical duct tape' and design products that tolerate occasional failures rather than assuming…
  • Build taste by finding a distinctive perspective that resonates with people, since cheap content generation makes differentiation…
SVPG · Marty CaganAug 26, 2022

An SVPG Process?

Aug 26, 2022

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’s Podcast68 min

Brandon Chu on building product at Shopify, how writing changed the trajectory of his career, the habits that make you a great PM, pros and cons of being a platform PM, how Shopify got through Covid

Brandon Chu · Jun 27, 2022
Key learnings
  • Treat domain expertise as table stakes; to reach the highest levels, lean into founder skills like storytelling, motivating…
  • Think of the PM role as helping teams ship the right thing at the right time in the right way, acting as a servant leader rather…
  • Set annual directional plans but expect them to change; avoid sunk-cost fallacy and be willing to throw away work when the world…
Lenny’s Podcast133 min

An inside look at X’s Community Notes

Keith Coleman & Jay Baxter · Feb 27, 2025
Key learnings
  • Surface notes only when raters who normally disagree both find them helpful; seeking cross-polarized agreement is what keeps…
  • Open participation to everyone with basic verification and random selection, rather than curating contributors, so the system…
  • Set the quality bar conservatively: showing a bad note damages trust far more than withholding a good one, so the team accepts…
SVPG · Marty CaganFeb 13, 2021

Prototype of the Day

Feb 13, 2021 · 3 min

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…

Lenny’s Podcast107 min

Leveraging growth advisors, hiring well, mastering SEO, and honing your craft

Luc Levesque · Jun 15, 2023
Key learnings
  • Focus relentlessly on impact over activity: measure outcomes against the north-star metric rather than hours worked or work…
  • Hire the top 1% by looking for repeated 'signs of excellence' in a candidate's history, such as multiple standout achievements…
  • Recruit with the whole executive team and involve the candidate's spouse or family, since changing companies is a family…