Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products

by Marty Cagan

Also included in industry knowledge is competitive analysis.

the product manager will need to have a deeper understanding of the offerings, vision, and strategy of each of the major players in the landscape.

ask the PM to evaluate the top three to five players in the space and to write up a narrative comparing and contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of each player—highlighting opportunities.

understanding how their own business works requires the greatest amount of work.

have the new product manager fill out a business model canvas

The new PM needs to understand the entire funnel from awareness to trials to onboarding.

lifetime value of the customer),

it's important for the product manager to understand these contracts and constraints.

using your own products on a daily basis (this is known as dogfooding).

the new PM must understand the four different types of product risk (value, usability, feasibility, and viability), the different forms of prototypes to tackle these risks, and how to test those risks qualitatively and quantitatively.

I typically have them read the book, and then I like to make sure they understand the techniques by describing different scenarios and asking the PM how she would address them.

product delivery techniques are the focus of the engineers on the team. However, it's important for the product manager to understand the delivery techniques that are being used

I usually recommend that the new PM take a CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) course if she has not already done so.

the CSPO responsibilities, while important, are just a very small subset of the responsibilities of the product manager of an empowered product team.

Modern product management is all about true collaboration between product, design, and engineering.

When I sit down with a product team to talk about a problem they're trying to solve, I rarely spend time with just the PM. Almost always, it is with the PM, the product designer, and the tech lead.

while most PMs are individual contributors, most stakeholders are company executives. They are often very knowledgeable about their part of the business, and they are often used to giving orders.

For the PM, that starts with putting in the time and effort to understand what each of the stakeholder's constraints are.

I also encourage PMs to take a presentation skills class where your presentations are video recorded and you are provided professional critiques.

so much of strong product management is actually about leadership.

for the PM, leadership must be earned. It does not come with the title.

A tech lead is essentially a senior‐level engineer who has taken on the additional responsibility of participating in the ongoing product discovery work.

They are asked to care not just about building and delivering reliable products, but also to care about what gets built.

my favorite product companies try to screen for this when they interview engineers—they want engineers who care just as much about what they build as how they build it.

the real potential of a tech lead comes from combining their understanding of technology with an appreciation for the issues customers struggle with.

I also try to make a point—after visiting an interesting customer myself—to stop by and chat with the tech leads about what I saw and learned, and what they might think about that.

every single minute you invest in coaching a tech lead on either customers or business context will be among the best possible uses of your time.

much of your coaching time will be spent helping the product designer address the gaps.

they are the frontline for ensuring a holistic view of design. This means that, while there may be many product teams—each with a skilled product designer—the design managers need to ensure that the experience works as a whole, across teams.

Design managers ensure a holistic view by reviewing designs at the weekly one‐on‐ones and by holding design sessions with the broader group of product designers,

design leaders often need to raise the bar and educate product managers and tech leads about what strong product design is and how product designers contribute to successful products.

Product marketing is not: managing a checklist of everything needed to get done for launch, project management, or just being a facilitator between product and sales.

Great product marketing requires understanding the market first. It pressure‐tests assumptions based on what the market tells you so you can adapt, position, and market into customers' true reality. It makes clear why your product matters and should be loved using customers' language, experience, and needs.

this made them skip the crucial step of figuring out how to talk about what they did succinctly and why people should care.

Had they brought in product marketing earlier, they could have discovered—and solved—go‐to‐market gaps sooner.

if you're a technology company and only have one person doing marketing, it should be a product marketer.

recommend the book http://leananalyticsbook.com/

The primary purpose of the 1:1 is to help the product person develop and improve.

The product person must understand and believe that you as the manager are genuinely and sincerely committed to helping her reach her full potential.

this period of close oversight lasts on the order of two to three months, and it is a much more intense coaching relationship than the ongoing coaching that happens once the product person is deemed capable.

the 1:1 should be no less than 30 minutes, once per week, and that this session is sacred

For new PMs in the onboarding period who are not yet competent, it may be two to three times per week, or even daily.

making sure she understands the company's mission and objectives for the year, the product vision, the product strategy for the broader product, and the team objectives for her particular product team.

There's simply no substitute for the product person doing her homework. It is the foundation for competence,

You can guide the product person to the right resources, and answer questions about the material, but it's on the person to spend the time and effort to do her homework and gain this knowledge.

What does homework really mean? For a product manager, it means learning the product inside and out. Learning about the users and customers. Learning the data. Learning the capabilities of the enabling technologies. Learning the industry. Learning the various dimensions of the...

coaching is mainly about helping the product person learn to think and act like a strong product person.

What does it mean to think like a product person? It means focusing on outcome. Considering all of the risks—value, usability, feasibility, and business viability. Thinking holistically about all dimensions of the business and the product. Anticipating ethical considerations or impacts. Creative problem solving. Persistence in the face of obstacles. Leveraging engineering and the art of the possible. Leveraging design and the power of user experience. Leveraging data to learn and to make a compelling argument.

What does it mean to act like a product person? Listening. Collaborating. Shared learning. Evangelizing. Inspiring. Giving credit and accepting blame. Taking responsibility. Knowing what you can't know and admitting what you don't know. Demonstrating humility. Building relationships ...

honest, constructive feedback is the main source of value you provide as manager.