Who in product management hasn’t heard of Marty Cagan? I assume 🦗
Naturally, his latest publication was much anticipated. Unfortunately, one sees a constant decline in quality commensurate with the rise in odious preachiness. Cagan is here to sell (to your CEO, not you) a pipe-dream that can only be achieved his way.
Right off the bat, let’s make something clear: You aren't the target audience for this book. This is Cagan's and SVPG's sales brochure for CEOs and CFOs to hire their services, and does not contain any practical advice for people in the trenches of product development or those trying to affect business transformation in their organisations.
As such, Cagan offers a land of unicorns and rainbows that can only be achieved via his brand, or doomed to fail ("the best and the rest" language). This is supported by shallow case studies (which as any MBA will tell you, are the ultimate selection bias) and his usual preachy tone. While I appreciate his general drive to make product development better for engineers, the holier-than-thou tone he chooses, the disregard of the complexities and realities, and the superficial and general observations that are the only thing on offer, end up making things worse for practitioners when his fantasies crumble in the real world. I get that as a consultant it pays to be somewhat controversial with strong opinions, but this book won't really help anyone trying to transform a business.
As for content, nearly half the book is simply rehashing the previous two books. The rest are depictions of happy frolicking product elves (aka flimsy case studies without any details), and some highly general advice that anyone who has reached a point in their career where they care about transformation has learnt long ago. This book can be likened to a salad of lettuce with Tabasco — spicy, but lacking nutritional value.
Furthermore, Cagan’s claim that “That’s how all the best companies work” is disingenuous. For example, you know who doesn’t use the Spotify model? Spotify. It’s more of a case of “some teams worked somewhat like that for a bit some time ago”. Having collected sensible principles from many companies across the industry, in presenting them as “these are core must-haves” Cagan moves from the land of what could be to what should be — and “should” is a dangerous word. It sets up an ideal that disregards reality, and this dissonance is actively harmful to the profession.
While Cagan pays lip service to the fact each transformation story is unique and that his principles have been gathered from many different organisations (ie no single one exhibits all of them), he still persists in advocating an unrealistic ideal as "the only way." He's quick to expound that this is hard, and that you probably don't have the right talent — a language CEOs love, justifying them in laying off staff and getting consultants in. This goes back to my original point, the book is a thinly-veiled pamphlet of SVPG services for potential customers, because how else would you know how to reach that magical land?
The upshot of all of this, is that while Inspired had some good bits about the practice of product management, his later books have gotten to the point where they are causing more damage than doing good. I speak with too many burnt-out product managers, disappointed that reality does not match the promise they’ve read in books. In effect, I find that Cagan’s tone is contributing to the stress of a profession that’s already stressful.
You want a good book about practical transformations? Read
’s Escaping the Build Trap. At least that book has actionable advice you can implement with your team, and slowly build up the skills needed across the org. If you’re more of the thinker and likes mental models, The Beautiful Mess substack is amazing at showing the intricate complexities of product organisations.You must realise that business transformation starts at the top, that there will be politics and the realities of budgets involved, and that it’s a hard slog. Even when all the executive team are aligned (a rarity), it’s hard to Turn The Ship Around. Without executive support — and Transformed won’t really help you generate it — it’s nearly impossible.
So don’t go chasing unicorns, that path leads to disappointment. Instead, keep reviewing multiple viewpoints (with a healthy scepticism of anyone who has magic solutions or ‘one true way’), keep reading, listening, and — most importantly — practicing. Things will improve over time, without relying on fantasy.
Are you in product management, and struggling? It’s a tough role, and we could all use a bit of support. Reach out if you’d like to talk — I’m not selling any services, just paying it forward to the community.
That is spicy!
I read it as we need to set the stage for the product model to succeed and to do that well, we need the leaders of the organisations on board. Hence the stories and case studies of when the product model was adopted and the value that was created for the organisation.
All transformations have a top down, bottom up path to success - and you can't succeed with just a bottom up view (what we talk about moving from a feature factory to solving problems in individual teams). Plus every organisation's culture and ways of working means product management doesn't work exactly the same way everywhere (and it shouldn't). The goals of creating value and viability should.
Kotter, Senge and Lewin have looked at the models for human change before we've been looking at transforming organisations to the product model. I found a lot of the book reminded me of these thinkers and their models (while not explicitly mentioned).
https://theproductvenn.substack.com/p/transformations-that-stick-kotters
https://theproductvenn.substack.com/p/unfreezing-human-habits-for-lasting
Let's talk about it on the 21 June - https://forms.gle/9xDsHgPWEtLELBHG6