◆Hot Take12:30
The Over-Hiring That Created Product Management Theater
Marty Kagan argues companies over-hired during the pandemic and lowered the bar, stacking on roles like agile coaches, product owners, product ops, and business analysts. Combined with a higher cost of funds and the looming impact of generative AI, this created a wave of 'theater' roles that produce little real outcome for their cost. He says the waste at these companies is embarrassing and a reckoning is now underway.
- Companies over-hired during the pandemic and lowered the hiring bar at the same time
- Team size has ballooned outside Silicon Valley with agile coaches, product owners, product ops, and business analysts
- Rising cost of funds and predicted generative-AI impact are hitting simultaneously
- Better companies do far more with far fewer people
- Kagan wrote an article a decade ago called 'epic waste' warning about this
“I go into some companies honestly I can't believe all the ridiculous roles that they have”
“of course I'm talking about agile coaches and product owners and product Ops and business analysts and all these assistant product manager types”
#product management#hiring#theater#layoffs
◆Hot Take25:00
A Real Product Manager Is a Creator, Not a Facilitator
Kagan pushes back hard on the idea that a product manager's job is to 'say why' or facilitate. On a real empowered team the PM is a creator who works side by side with design and engineering to invent solutions. He argues the 'why' actually comes from product strategy, so a PM who defines their role as facilitation is scrambling to justify their job.
- A real empowered product manager is a creator, not a facilitator
- The 'why' comes from product strategy, not from the PM
- The PM owns value and viability, just as engineers own feasibility
- Solutions come from side-by-side creation with design and engineering
“product manager is a Creator not a facilitator I always cringe when somebody tells me oh my job is to say why”
#product management#role definition
◆Hot Take33:30
Why 90% of Product Advice Online Is Wrong
Kagan argues that a new product manager searching online will mostly find content produced by the feature-team world, which propagates the wrong model. He extends this to communities, where well-meaning people answer questions with what they learned at their own weak companies. The result is a self-propagating cycle of bad practice that even good books rarely counter.
- Roughly 90% of online product content comes from the feature-team world or worse
- New PMs rarely get lucky enough to find a manager guiding them the right way
- Community members answer questions with what they learned at their crappy companies
- Kagan cites Teresa Torres's Continuous Discovery Habits as a rare good exception
“you look online probably what 90% of the content out there is from the feature team world or worst”
“the majority of the well-meaning people jump in with what they learn at their crappy company”
#product management#advice#community
◆Hot Take40:30
Is It Ever Okay to Just Be a Feature Team?
Asked whether a B2B sales-driven company can be content as a feature factory, Kagan says no. He argues this is exactly why most B2B software is bad, pointing to companies like Oracle and SAP that are valuable but widely disliked. For him the real question is whether you care about your customers at all, and an empowered product team can do everything a feature team can and more.
- Sales-driven feature factories are a big reason most B2B software is poor
- Oracle and SAP are hugely valuable but widely disliked products
- Many sales-driven companies run that way because the CEO isn't a product person
- An empowered product team can do everything a feature team can and more
“this is not an accident why most B2B software is such crap it is horrible”
“why are you in this business do you really not care what your customers think about your products”
#product management#b2b#sales-driven
◆Hot Take52:30
If You're a Backlog Administrator, Good Luck
Kagan expects generative AI to compound the pressure on weak product roles. He warns that anyone who is fundamentally a backlog administrator or feature-team project manager is doing largely administrative work that AI can already assist with. For empowered product managers, though, viability becomes an even harder and more important challenge that AI is unlikely to solve soon.
- Backlog administration is administrative work AI will increasingly support
- Feature-team project managers do little that is truly high-value
- For empowered PMs, viability becomes even more important with gen AI
- Probabilistic vs deterministic software raises hard legal and ethical viability questions
“if you are fundamentally a backlog administrator good luck protecting that”
#product management#ai#career#viability
◆Hot Take1:11:30
When Product Ops Means 'Process and Governance', Run
Kagan clarifies that product ops is analogous to DevOps and design ops, and at good companies it simply brings user research and data analysts under one leader. But he warns that when a company defines product ops around 'process and governance', that's a huge red flag. He also cautions that product-ops staff hired to do the product leaders' job are very vulnerable.
- Product ops is analogous to DevOps and design ops, not the operating model
- At good companies it unites user research and data analysts under one leader
- Defining product ops as process and governance is a major warning sign
- Product ops hired to do the leaders' job or the PM's dirty work is an anti-pattern
“process in governance that's like a huge red flag and I try to tell people if that's what you see run don't walk away from…”
#product ops#product management#governance