Empowered by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones
How ordinary people build extraordinary products
👋 Good to see you again! Those of you who have been reading the newsletter since its inception know that my favourite book is ‘Inspired’ by Marty Cagan, as it is the book that set me on this path. Lucky for me, Marty has written another book! ‘Empowered’ is the sequel to ‘Inspired’, and discusses how to create empowered product teams, that work according to the principles described in ‘Inspired’. Let’s dive right in!
I remember reading ‘Inspired’ for the first time, roughly 5 years ago. Armed with my newfound knowledge on empowered product teams, I set out to implement its ways in the company that I was working for at the time. (As an individual contributor.) Little did I know that the challenge had only just started. Letting go of the delivery- and feature team model in favour of the empowered product team model was something that was obviously a great idea to me.
It wasn’t so obvious to the management team.
Moving an organisation to empowered product teams is incredibly complex. Marty received the same feedback after ‘Inspired’ was initially published. The biggest surprise to him was that many teams aren’t even allowed to work in the way that is most effective for them. This leads to the current situation in the industry, where there are many so called ‘product teams’, which are in fact just feature teams in disguise: They are not empowered at all.
As Marty has shown many times before in the example companies he provides, the returns of the empowered product team model are significantly better than the outsourced feature model. But, as we now know, empowerment isn’t easy. It requires a sustained effort of evangelism and dedication on many levels in the organisation. The book covers how to approach this in excellent detail.
TL;DR for the Time-Pressured Product Manager
Empowerment starts from your product vision, strategy, principles, and objectives. Together they form the guiding light for your product teams, and make an excellent recruiting tool for competent product people.
When hiring people, we want to ensure they have a tight connection to our vision, and are committed to putting in the effort. Furthermore, note that it is much easier for a product person to learn a new domain, rather than to convert a domain expert into a competent product person.
As soon as we have our team together, our single most important responsibility is coaching our people. This is what turns ordinary people into extraordinary product teams.
Create a coaching plan, and schedule weekly 1-on-1’s. Don’t cancel.
As the organisation scales, alignment is what keeps teams empowered. For platform teams, this means aligning their objectives to the objectives of the experience teams they collaborate with, and for experience teams this means giving them as much end-to-end responsibility as possible.
Transforming an organisation to the empowered product team model is not an easy task. It starts with evangelism, which allows you to persuade other executives to buy into the approach.
Teams of missionaries dramatically outperform outsourced mercenaries, so the empowered product model is well worth your time and effort.
Staffing
“A’s hire A’s, but B’s hire C’s.”
Before we can empower our product teams, we must first hire them.
One of the mistakes companies make when hiring new people, is that they mainly hire for domain knowledge. It is much easier for a competent product person to learn a new domain, than for a domain expert to learn how to be a competent product person. That being said, there is nothing wrong with hiring for a persons potential. Note that this only works if the manager is personally committed to investing their time to coach the product person to competence.
One of the key factors to consider when hiring someone, is their ‘cultural fit’. Now this doesn’t mean we only hire people that are the same as us: Quite the contrary! It is important to hire people from many different backgrounds, in order to get many different viewpoints in the teams and the company. That being said, we do want to be thorough in our reference checks, to make sure that we’re not hiring anyone toxic.
Once you’ve decided to hire the person, make sure to call them personally, and tell them that if they join and commit to putting in the effort, you will promise to personally invest in coaching and developing the person to reach their potential. The first three months for a new member of the team are critical, and will set the tone for their future at the company. Make sure you give them the best possible guidance.
Coaching
“Coaching is what turns ordinary people into extraordinary product teams.”
This is the area where we’ll have to spend most of our time. If we want our people to be empowered, we’ll have to guide them towards this.
In order for a product team to become empowered, it is of extreme importance that they leave out of the office from time to time, in order to meet and talk to various customers. Next to that, the team must also leverage the customer knowledge of their colleagues when they’re not out of the office. Before they can make any meaningful decisions, they have to become experts on the customers. There is no substitute activity for this, it it essential.
As for the product managers, a lot of product involves persuasion, and therefore, becoming a great communicator is vital. Taking a presentation class is one of the best investments a product manager can make. Furthermore, they have to be skilled in their interactions with the engineers, and therefore, taking a CSPO course will never hurt. Finally, make sure that product managers are spending as much as 4 hours per day on product discovery. This key activity can’t be squeezed in between meetings, as it requires focus and dedication.
The product person must be confident that you as the manager are genuinely committed to helping them reach their potential. The cornerstone of this relation is the weekly 1-on-1 meeting. Don’t cancel it. As the manager, the product team is your product, and weekly coaching is the single most important thing you can do to contribute to the success of your product.
Vision, Strategy, Principles, and Objectives
“A good product vision inspires ordinary people to create extraordinary products.”
This section reiterates on several topics also covered in ‘Inspired’, but with the additional perspective of how they influence the management of the empowered product team. A strong product vision is the most powerful recruiting tool that you have for strong product people. By centring the hiring process around it, you’ll attract people that are committed to your vision.
A great product vision provides the team with meaningful work, and in order to learn how to create one, I’ll refer you back to ‘Inspired’.
“The main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing.”
Generating activity is easy, but in order to keep our teams empowered, we have to be clear about strategy. The best strategies focus energy and resources on very few pivotal objectives, whose accomplishment will lead to a cascade of favourable outcomes.
Regarding objectives, it is important that we are clear about the level of ambition that we would like the product team to strive for. If we want them to be outrageously ambitious, we ask them to go for a moon shot, and if we want them to go for something more easily achievable, we ask them to go for a roof shot. This distinction helps them filter their discovery work.
As a final remark, in order to sustain empowerment, ‘high-integrity commitments’ should be the exception, not the rule. Otherwise, we’ll find ourselves on the slippery slope back to feature teams.
Team Topology
As a company scales, it becomes important to assess the topology of your product teams. We want to ensure that the teams stay aligned, as this drives empowerment.
In larger product organisations, there are typically two types of teams: Experience teams, and platform teams. Empowering them requires a different approach for each of them. For platform teams, the most common way to pursue meaningful work is through shared objectives, where they essentially have the same objectives as the experience teams they’re collaborating with. For experience teams, it is essential that we give them as much end-to-end responsibility as possible, and therefore, we mostly align their topology with the customer.
A final pitfall to avoid, is that design should not be run as an internal service. It is essential that it is a first-class member of the different product teams, just like the product manager and the tech lead.
Inspired, Empowered, and Transformed
The most critical role of a strong product leader is evangelism. This is what transforms an organisation to a great product organisation. True missionaries will dramatically outperform outsourced teams of mercenaries, so it is well worth your time to pursue empowered product teams.
If the executive team isn’t on board with this product operating model, the chances of a successful transformation are slim. Therefore, persuading them to go for this transformation is your key responsibility as a product leader. Marty’s colleagues at the Silicon Valley Product Group are writing a book on the topic of transformation, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
Closing Remarks
Whether you are an experienced product leader looking to perfect their department, or a product owner looking to transform their organisation to the empowered product team model, this book is a great addition to your bookshelf. In addition to what I’ve covered here, the book also includes an excellent case study on applying the learnings of the book in practice, which I found especially helpful.
I’ll leave you with this great quote from Bill Campbell, which the book heroes. (He shows up in pretty much every book I read these days, I’ll have to read his book as well at some point…)
Until next week!
“Empowered engineers are the single most important thing that you can have in a company.” - Bill Campbell