Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love (Silicon Valley Product Group)

by Marty Cagan

The biggest flaw of the old waterfall process has always been, and remains, that all the risk is at the end, which means that customer validation happens way too late.

Mercenaries build whatever they're told to build. Missionaries are true believers in the vision and are committed to solving problems for their customers.

And to be clear, a product team is not something we create just to deliver a specific project. It's nearly impossible to have a team of missionaries when they're pulled together for a project that lasts only a few months and is then disbanded.

It's usually easy to see when a company has not paid attention to the architecture when they assemble their teams—it shows up a few different ways. First, the teams feel like they are constantly fighting the architecture. Second, interdependencies between teams seem disproportionate. Third, and really because of the first two, things move slowly, and teams don't feel very empowered.

Realize that the optimal structure of the product organization is a moving target.

One frequent problem is to try to standardize on a common foundation prematurely. The foundation isn't yet ready for prime time, in the sense of the leverage it is designed to provide.

we need to solve the underlying problem, not just deliver a feature.

The key is to understand that the root cause of all this grief about commitments is when these commitments are made. They are made too early. They are made before we know whether we can deliver on this obligation, and even more important, whether what we deliver will solve the problem for the customer.

One of the most basic of all product lessons learned is that trying to please everybody at once will almost certainly please nobody. So, the last thing we should do is embark on a ginormous, multi‐year effort to create a release that tries to deliver on the product vision.

The difference between vision and strategy is analogous to the difference between good leadership and good management. Leadership inspires and sets the direction, and management helps get us there.

And, just to be clear—the idea is not that every product team has its own product vision. That would miss the point. The idea is that our organization has a product vision, and all the product teams in that organization are helping to contribute to making that vision a reality.

We can't ignore the market, but remember that customers rarely leave us for our competitors. They leave us because we stop taking care of them.

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.”