(2018-10-31) Cagan Empowered Product Teams

Martin Cagan: Empowered Product Teams. Many teams get quite good at the techniques of product discovery, yet are not able to actually apply those techniques and work the way they need to... The issue is that they are often not allowed to work as they need to. Specifically, in so many companies, they are not truly empowered to work as they need to.

Many of us in the industry describe this difference as “culture,” as in the companies that get this are said to have a product mindset or culture, and those that don’t are said to have an IT or project mindset or culture. 2014-10-14-CaganProductVsItMindset

But I’ve come to believe that’s not especially helpful. Amazon, Google, Apple and Netflix are all very strong product companies, yet they each have very different cultures.

It really gets down to their views on their people, and how they should work together to solve problems.

rather than focus on the techniques these teams use, let’s look at the actual role or purpose of the team in the broader organization.

In most companies, technology teams exist “to serve the business.”

However, in contrast, in strong product organizations, teams exist for a very different purpose. They exist “to serve the customers, in ways that meet the needs of the business.”

The odd thing is that the virtues of truly empowered teams are not a secret. In fact, there’s many very inspiring books.

While I found these books inspiring, and well worth reading, most companies have not been convinced to empower their teams in any meaningful sense. Why is that?

When I ask CEO’s and other key leaders of these organizations, the answer typically boils down to one word: trust.

The leaders don’t trust the teams. Specifically, they don’t believe they have the level of people on their teams they need in order to truly empower them.

When I ask these leaders why they don’t put people in place that they do trust, they usually argue that they either can’t find, can’t afford or can’t attract the level of people that Google, Amazon, Apple and Netflix hire.

I then point out to them that they would be surprised at how ordinary the vast majority of the members of these company’s product teams actually are, and that maybe the important difference lies elsewhere.

moving to truly empowered teams does require moving away from the command and control model of management, but this does not mean you need fewer leaders and managers, it means you need stronger leaders and managers.

The purpose of strong leadership is to inspire and motivate the organization. This involves five major responsibilities:

Product Vision

The product vision gives the organization its purpose, and we only want people in our organization that are excited about and dedicated to this vision – missionaries.

Product Strategy

The plan is not referring to a detailed schedule

Without the strategy, two bad things happen: teams struggle because they don’t see the path from where they are today to the 5-10 year product vision; and they too often try to please too many types of customers in a single product and they end up pleasing no one.

Product Principles

values

help the teams make the right decisions when faced with difficult trade-offs.

Product Priorities

it’s on leadership to make the high-level prioritization decision

OKR

Product Evangelism

across the company

people that are willing to take the leap of faith that this is both possible and worthy

The Role of Management

people responsible for hiring and developing the actual members of the cross-functional product teams.

It is important that these managers understand, and can effectively communicate, the vision, strategy, principles and priorities from the senior leaders, but beyond that, these managers have three critically important responsibilities:

Staffing

Coaching

Objectives

OKR

ensure that each product team has a clear and relevant set of objectives

This is where empowerment becomes real, and not just a buzzword. The team is given a small number of significant problems to solve (the objectives). The team considers the problems and proposes clear measures of success (the key results).

The litmus test for empowerment is that the team is able to decide the best way to solve the problems they have been assigned (the objectives).

Assuming we have competent leadership and management, we can now return to the actual people on the product teams.

Ordinary People

the characteristics you should be considering when recruiting and assembling strong, cross-functional product teams:

Competence

The person must have the necessary skills – either an an engineer, a designer, or as a product manager.

This is often where so many organizations plant the seeds of their future struggles.

A manager that is not an accomplished product manager, designer or engineer herself is ill-equipped to assess a candidate

Character

Once we know the candidate has the required level of competence, most companies focus on what is usually referred to as “cultural fit.” This is probably one of the most damaging concepts to your efforts to build a great organization.

the “No Assholes Rule.”

rather than narrowing a very large pool of people to the small subset that are perceived as a “cultural fit,” I argue to instead keep the pool very large, and just filter out the relatively few assholes.

what we really need are people that think differently than us. This is one of the most tangible and immediate benefits of adding diversity.

Summary

Great teams are comprised of ordinary people that are empowered and inspired.

Truly empowered teams that produce extraordinary results don’t require exceptional hires. They do require people that are competent and not assholes, so they can establish the necessary trust with their teammates and with the rest of the company.

Truly empowered teams also need the business context that comes from the leadership – especially the product vision – and the support of their management, especially ongoing coaching, and then given the opportunity to figure out the best way to solve the problems they have been assigned.