A reflection on Marty Cagan's Product Model
There are few people who are able to mobilize the entire product community as Marty Cagan does. And when he asks a question, many times I get food for thoughts. The latest case is about a new term that he wants to introduce in his new book on product transformation. Marty is working on a brand new book, TRANSFORMED aimed at providing direction and guidance to companies who want to transform their ways of working and starting to adopt the ”empowered” model he advocates for.
While working on that, he asked a really interesting question in his newsletter - what should we call the effort transforming a company into a technology-powered one?
He argues that to describe a transformation we need a name that captures the set of principles, practices, and competencies that the best companies use. Many of these companies call this their ”ways of working”, but what should the common term be? Marty Cagan's idea is to call it a ”product model”.
The product model would be the model a company would transform to, as opposed to the prior model that they come from (sale model, IT model, engineering model). The question is: does the name resonate?
If I have learned something in many years of practice is that in product, where the word jungle is real, words really matter. A well-understood word can really align everyone around a concept, while a word with many interpretations can generate endless discussions and question marks. Risking to tilt the organization toward confusion more than toward clarity.
One example of word confusion I recently encountered at Hemnet, is the word ”opportunity” - we are working at the same time with business opportunities roadmaps, the opportunity solution tree, and some parts of the company work with the evergreen opportunity assessment.
In the same word, three different things, getting people to talking past each other. All this within the same company of 140 people. So imagine scaling this challenge to all the companies in the world, with their really specific context, size, jargon, and industry. All the ones that read and want to live by Marty Cagan’s principles. The impact of what we call this transformation can be real.
Therefore I started to reflect - if ”product model” would become the norm in the product community, what would the impact be?
What I do not like
The biggest issue I have with the term is that talking about a product model conveys a message that there is ”A” model, or ”THE” model that everyone should aspire to. While I believe the most important point to make is that product is contextual.
I understand that there is a need for generalization, but at the same time, I think that in product there is a growing tendency of generalizing and blindly wanting to follow a blueprint. This leads to missing out on the context that is necessary to make an informed choice that is beneficial for your own company. I believe that it would be really hard to create a model that fits all, therefore I am skeptical of the term.
Identifying some guiding principles - like giving teams goals and not features, creating cross-functionality to add different perspectives to identify and tackle a problem, combining qualitative and quantitative data, talking with the users often, and avoiding building without testing is great. These are examples of best practices that are really good to highlight in order to help companies start their journey. And additionally, all of those can be done in different scales and adapted to the individual context. But giving the impression that there is a model that fits all, and adding to the rhetoric that there is one way of doing product, can be harmful and misleading.
The proposal
If I am skeptical of the term, what would I use instead? That is really the hard part, as Marty is right, finding a good word is really hard.
While reflecting on it, I went back to what I think is the most important concept to communicate while talking about technology-empowered companies. And I believe that is not a model, nor a process but a mindset. A way of thinking that puts solving real customer problems in a way that works for the business at its center. And aligns the entire organization around it.
It is not about being product-led, it is about being product centered. So this is what I would call what you transform into, you transform into a product-centered company
To me being product-centered means that:
The product (and not product management) is at the center and all the decisions are made to solve a real customer problem in a way that works for the business
All the different competencies are at the service of the product and work to make sure that it is a success
A product trio is responsible for the desirability, feasibility, viability, usability, and ethical usage of the product
Business development is responsible to find a business model that extracts the best business value out of the way we solve a customer problem
Communication, sales, and support are responsible for making sure the product reaches the right customer and is perceived and talked about in the intended way
That there is buy-in by everyone in the company, and that all the functions are aligned around making the product(s) work to drive customer and business value
What I like about this is that the focus is on the product and not on the model.
We do not need a process to make sure to be successful, but a mindset and an organization that serves the product (in its larger term, not as a function) is the key to success.
I also like that it is much more flexible and can be adapted in different steps by companies, depending on their product maturity.
I appreciate that the question is complex and that my view is definitely biased toward the company I have worked with and seen. So I am really curious, what is your take on it? Is it processes or mindset that should be highlighted and what would you call the effort of transforming a company into a technology-powered one?
