What are common diseases of product teams, and how do you avoid them? Why should you focus less on problem discovery and more on solution discovery? How do you maintain your product mojo? After working as a product leader for over 20 years, Marty Cagan started Silicon Valley Product Group to help product teams operate at a higher level. In this conversation, Marty shares what Steve Jobs can teach you about building product, how to structure your teams for innovation, how to improve your product culture, which trends in PM to ignore, and much more. After this, you’ll never think about building teams the same way. Join us.

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Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan-silicon-valley-product-group/#transcript

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Where to find Marty Cagan:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/cagan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cagan/

• SVPG: https://www.svpg.com/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Whimsical: https://whimsical.com/lenny

• Flatfile: https://www.flatfile.com/lenny

• Modern Treasury: https://www.moderntreasury.com/

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Referenced:

• The Nature of Product: https://www.svpg.com/the-nature-of-product/

• Devolving From Good To Bad: https://www.svpg.com/devolving-from-good-to-bad/

• Shreyas Doshi: https://twitter.com/shreyas

• The Lost Interview: https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Lost-Interview/dp/B01IJD1BES

• Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value by Theresa Torres: https://www.amazon.com/Continuous-Discovery-Habits-Discover-Products/dp/1736633309

• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp: https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/1442397683

• Patrick Collison on User Research: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1443215022029619200

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In this episode, we cover:

[03:46] The biggest misconceptions about what a good product team does and looks like 

[07:49] The qualities that separate the best product teams

[16:20] The downfall of innovation in great product teams

[17:43] The gap between the best and the rest

[19:23] The pitfalls product teams can fall into

[27:46] The role of user research in building a great product

[35:26] What individual contributors can do to shift product culture

[41:04] How PMs can set themselves up for success when trying to change product culture

[44:06] How product management is changing

[55:33] The pitfalls Marty warns to watch out for in product management

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Production and marketing: https://penname.co/