The Marty Cagan Episode: Product Management Crash Course in 61 Minutes

**Marty Cagan** (0:00)
If the first thing they tell me is they release every quarter, I'm like, don't bother me, you're not agile in any sense at all.

**Aakash Gupta** (0:08)
What are the principles that you've seen in the best companies?

**Marty Cagan** (0:11)
Starting at the highest level, the very highest level, it's really about all about moving from output to outcomes. Outcomes is hard, output is easy. What does it mean to be an agile coach today? Almost nothing. If that same thing happens to product coach, we lose.

**Aakash Gupta** (0:27)
If that product leader hasn't lived it, then they can't influence it.

**Marty Cagan** (0:30)
Well, in fact, I would argue that the real key to successful transformation, there's a lot of things that have to go right, a lot of things that are hard, but the real key are...

**Aakash Gupta** (0:44)
This is a really special episode of the Product Growth Podcast. Marty Cagan is the author of the bestselling books Inspired, Empowered and Transformed. And now as a partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, he is transforming how many millions of product managers work. Paul Hearn and I recorded this episode last year, but it's as relevant as ever if you want to move to the product operating model, if you're a fan of Marty Cagan, or if you're facing challenges as a product manager. We ask Marty all the hot questions of how to overcome key obstacles. Really quickly, I think a crazy stat is that more than 50% of you listening are not subscribed. If you can subscribe on YouTube, follow on Apple or Spotify podcasts, my commitment to you is that we'll continue to make this content better and better. And now on to today's episode. Marty has played a very formative role in my product career. And I'm curious, Pavel, I'm sure has a very similar story.

**Pavel** (1:42)
Yeah, I have a very similar story because after reading inspired, I got interested in product management seriously, and I started reading more and writing at the conference. So this was transformative for me.

**Aakash Gupta** (1:55)
Yeah, and I think every product manager probably has a similar tale. So thank you for what you've done for the product career.

**Marty Cagan** (2:01)
Oh, well. Yeah, I mean, I remember when I started, I mean, I started product a long time ago, literally in the 1980s. So it was a long time ago, but there wasn't really any books. I mean, good or bad, there wasn't really any books. There were some books from the old, what we call product marketing, but there wasn't on product management. And I remember the person who was coaching me saying, you know, there's no books on this. It's the tech industry is not that big. There aren't that many of us that do this. The main way you learn it is from other people that have done it, learned it before. And so I realized, of course, after I left the bubble of Silicon Valley and kind of went to more companies around the industry and around the world, that there was so few resources for people who wanted to learn product.
And of course, today is very different. Today, there are so many resources, but today we kind of have a different problem, because there are many different views on how to do product. And so, it's hard to get heard above the noise.

**Aakash Gupta** (3:17)
What are the principles that you've seen in the best companies?

**Marty Cagan** (3:20)
But we kind of define this starting at the highest level, starting at the highest level, the very highest level. It's really about all about moving from output to outcomes.
So, if you had to say in one phrase what it's about, it's about changing to delivering outcomes, which as everybody knows who has even ever tried, that is very hard. Outcomes is hard, output is easy. So, at the highest level, it's about outcomes. But what does that really mean? Because that's just a phrase, that doesn't really mean much. So, if you double click on that, there are three dimensions that we see in every good product company. And it talks about when you transform three dimensions. The first dimension is changing how you decide what problems you need to solve. In other words, making your decisions on strategy. What is most important work to do? The way the best companies do that is very different than how most companies do with their big annual roadmaps and planning meetings and stuff like that. So, the first topic is changing how you decide which problems are important to solve. That's really product strategy.

**Aakash Gupta** (4:32)
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