(2026-10-12) Cagan Predictability Vs Outcomes

Martin Cagan: Predictability vs Outcomes. I was first taught about the importance of outcome over output way back when I was an engineer getting coached to become a tech lead,

I have been writing about the importance of outcomes over output for more than a decade, and it is a core theme of all of the books.

And I really don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone that tried to argue that output was more important.

Yet, here we are, in 2026, in the midst of AI turbocharging product development, and we have never had the problem of abundant output yet scarce outcomes more than we do today. I wrote about that recently in The AI Productivity Paradox.

it was only a few months ago that I realized that I was framing this all wrong.

We can’t achieve outcomes without output, so outcomes versus output is not really a trade-off.

The focus on output may be the symptom, but I really don’t think it’s the root cause. Increasingly I have come to see the root cause as the desire for predictability.
The real trade-off is the relative priority of outcomes versus predictability.

One of the product model principles described in the book TRANSFORMED is innovation over predictability.

Recently I wrote an article discussing my regrets after publishing INSPIRED, and I explained that “One of my biggest mistakes was that I simply didn’t appreciate just how powerful and deeply rooted the desire for predictability was.”

most companies are implicitly making a different choice. To them, predictability is the clear priority, and outcomes are a hoped-for consequence of shipping what was promised.

That is the only explanation I have for the many companies that adopted SAFe over the years. It is a model that very clearly is optimized for predictability, and makes no serious attempt at achieving outcomes.

If you frame the trade-off with company leaders as predictability vs outcomes, they’ll very likely say that of course they need and expect both. And from their perspective, it’s not hard to understand why both are so desirable. But it’s not hard to understand how these two worthy goals of predictability and outcomes can be at odds.

If you’re prioritizing outcomes, then you need to acknowledge that many, if not most, of the product ideas on your roadmaps are simply not going to work.

Outcomes require humility, and knowledge of the craft of product, especially product discovery, where we are working to quickly discover a solution that can generate the necessary outcome.

Many product leaders and product managers contribute to this problem every day by continuing to push untested ideas onto product roadmaps, usually with expectations on dates or at least timeframes.