Principles To Build The Best Product Team
2 December 2022
[Video Transcript]
3 Principles Of The Best Product Teams
Insights From ‘Inspired’ by Marty Cagan
Product teams are always looking for a silver bullet to create better products.
In their search for the magic answer, many teams adopt work methods like Lean and Agile.
The Lean and Agile methods are effective, but some teams go overboard with them.
In Inspired, Marty Cagan lays out three simple, overarching principles you can focus on to optimize your work and create better products:
The first principle is to always tackle risks sooner rather than later.
Too many teams waste time and money building something before they assess their product’s risk.
Before you build a product, make sure you’ve answered these questions:
Will customers buy it?
Will customers be able to use it easily?
Can your engineers build the product with the skills and resources, they have?
And finally, does the product work for other aspects of your business like sales and marketing, finance, and legal?
The second principle is to define and design products collaboratively, instead of sequentially.
On traditional product teams, a product manager defines the product requirements, then the designer designs a solution, and the engineers build the solution.
They work sequentially.
Instead, have your product, design, and engineering teams work together in a give-and-take kind of way.
Strong teams work collaboratively to create solutions that their customers love.
Related Content: Watch More Emeritus Insights Videos From Best-Selling Books
The third principle is to focus on solving problems instead of implementing features.
Traditional product teams concentrate on output.
But great output doesn’t always solve the underlying problem you’re trying to address.
The strongest product teams focus on solving their customers’ problems and achieving meaningful business results.
Does your organization follow these three principles?
Keep these overarching ideas in mind for your next product if you’re looking for ways to make your product team more effective and more efficient.
