Читать книгу EMPOWERED - Marty Cagan - Страница 13

In most product companies, the role of true product leadership is largely missing in action.

Instead, they are mainly there as facilitators, responsible for staffing the in‐house (or even worse, outsourced) feature factory, and keeping the trains running on time.

In most companies, there is no product strategy. Notice I didn't say a bad product strategy—I mean literally no product strategy. The feature teams are simply there “to serve the business.”

The business certainly has reasons for what they request or put on the roadmaps, but they very rarely have a product strategy, or even the skills or data required to create one.

The stakeholders end up providing product teams with a prioritized list of features and projects that they need completed this quarter or this year. So, the “product strategy,” if you could even call it that, is really about trying to please as much of the business as possible.

When technology product companies moved to Agile methods over the past 10–20 years, many managers and leaders questioned whether they were still necessary, since team members would be expected to take a much more active role in how they work.

I realize this is counterintuitive to many people, but while moving to truly empowered teams does require moving away from the old command‐and‐control model of management, it does not mean you need fewer leaders and managers. It means you need better leaders and managers.

It's actually easier for a manager to manage (often micromanage) in the old command‐and‐control style. It's not hard to assign a team a list of activities, or a list of features to build, and just tell them to do the work as fast as they can.

While this command‐and‐control style may be easier for the manager, it creates teams of mercenaries with no empowerment in any meaningful sense.

In contrast, in strong product companies, the product leaders are among the most impactful leaders in the company.

They are responsible for staffing and coaching the product teams; they are responsible for the product strategy and converting the strategy into action; and they're responsible for managing to results.

Empowered product teams depend on skilled product managers, product designers, and engineers, and it is the leaders and managers who are responsible for recruiting, hiring, and coaching these people.

Further, a focused and compelling product strategy—based on quantitative and qualitative insights—is among the most important contributions of product leadership.