EMPOWERED

Book description

What is it about the top tech product companies such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Tesla that enables their record of consistent innovation?  

Most people think it’s because these companies are somehow able to find and attract a level of talent that makes this innovation possible. But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products. 

As legendary Silicon Valley coach--and coach to the founders of several of today’s leading tech companies--Bill Campbell said, “Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge.” 

The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you’ll need to create just such an environment. 

As partners at The Silicon Valley Product Group, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have long worked to reveal the best practices of the most consistently innovative companies in the world. A natural companion to the bestseller INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to truly leverage the potential of their people to innovate: product leadership. 

The book covers:

  • what it means to be an empowered product team, and how this is different from the “feature teams” used by most companies to build technology products
  • recruiting and coaching the members of product teams, first to competence, and then to reach their potential
  • creating an inspiring product vision along with an insights-driven product strategy
  • translating that strategy into action by empowering teams with specific objectives—problems to solve—rather than features to build
  • redefining the relationship of the product teams to the rest of the company
  • detailing the changes necessary to effectively and successfully transform your organization to truly empowered product teams

EMPOWERED puts decades of lessons learned from the best leaders of the top technology companies in your hand as a guide. It shows you how to become the leader your team and company needs to not only survive but thrive.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. PART I: Lessons from Top Tech Companies
    1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 1: Behind Every Great Company
      1. The Role of Technology
      2. Strong Product Leadership
      3. Empowered Product Teams
      4. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 2: The Role of Technology
      1. Notes
    4. CHAPTER 3: Strong Product Leadership
      1. The Role of Leadership—Inspiration
      2. The Role of Management—Execution
      3. Note
    5. CHAPTER 4: Empowered Product Teams
    6. CHAPTER 5: Leadership in Action
    7. CHAPTER 6: A Guide to EMPOWERED
      1. Who This Book Is For
      2. How This Book Is Organized
  6. PART II: Coaching
    1. CHAPTER 7: The Coaching Mindset
      1. Developing People Is Job #1
      2. Empowering People Produces the Best Results
      3. Beware Your Own Insecurities
      4. Cultivate Diverse Points of View
      5. Seek Out Teaching Moments
      6. Continually Earn the Trust of Your Team
      7. Have the Courage to Correct Mistakes
    2. CHAPTER 8: The Assessment
      1. People, Process, and Product
      2. The Gap Analysis
      3. The Coaching Plan
    3. CHAPTER 9: The Coaching Plan
      1. Product Knowledge
      2. Process Skills and Techniques
      3. People Skills and Responsibilities
      4. Notes
    4. CHAPTER 10: The One‐on‐One
      1. Keys to Effective One‐on‐Ones
      2. Anti‐Patterns
      3. Summary
    5. CHAPTER 11: The Written Narrative
      1. Note
    6. CHAPTER 12: Strategic Context
      1. Company Mission
      2. Company Scorecard
      3. Company Objectives
      4. Product Vision and Principles
      5. Team Topology
      6. Product Strategy
    7. CHAPTER 13: Sense of Ownership
      1. Notes
    8. CHAPTER 14: Managing Time
    9. CHAPTER 15: Thinking
    10. CHAPTER 16: Team Collaboration
      1. Note
    11. CHAPTER 17: Stakeholder Collaboration
    12. CHAPTER 18: Imposter Syndrome
    13. CHAPTER 19: Customer‐Centricity
      1. Notes
    14. CHAPTER 20: Integrity
      1. Dependability
      2. The Company's Best Interests
      3. Accountability
    15. CHAPTER 21: Decisions
      1. Right‐Size Decision Analysis
      2. Collaboration‐Based Decision Making
      3. Resolving Disagreements
      4. Transparency
      5. Disagree and Commit
      6. Note
    16. CHAPTER 22: Effective Meetings
      1. Communication
      2. Decisions
      3. Problem Solving
      4. Organizing Effective Meetings
    17. CHAPTER 23: Ethics
      1. Note
    18. CHAPTER 24: Happiness
      1. Meaningful Work
      2. Personal Relationship
      3. Personal Recognition
      4. Work Habits
      5. Modeling Good Behaviors
      6. Career Planning
      7. Note
    19. CHAPTER 25: Leader Profile: Lisa Kavanaugh
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  7. PART III: Staffing
    1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 26: Competence and Character
      1. Competence
      2. Character
      3. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 27: Recruiting
      1. Note
    4. CHAPTER 28: Interviewing
      1. Note
    5. CHAPTER 29: Hiring
      1. Note
    6. CHAPTER 30: Remote Employees
      1. Artifacts
      2. Trust
      3. Time
      4. Note
    7. CHAPTER 31: Onboarding
    8. CHAPTER 32: New Employee Bootcamp
    9. CHAPTER 33: Performance Reviews
    10. CHAPTER 34: Terminating
    11. CHAPTER 35: Promoting
    12. CHAPTER 36: Leader Profile: April Underwood
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  8. PART IV: Product Vision and Principles
    1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 37: Creating a Compelling Vision
      1. Customer‐Centric
      2. North Star
      3. Scope and Timeframe
      4. Leveraging Industry Trends
    3. CHAPTER 38: Sharing the Product Vision
      1. Communicating the Product Vision
      2. Validating the Product Vision
      3. Product Vision as a Recruiting Tool
      4. Product Vision as an Evangelism Tool
    4. CHAPTER 39: Product Principles and Ethics
      1. Note
    5. CHAPTER 40: Leader Profile: Audrey Crane
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
      3. Note
  9. PART V: Team Topology
    1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 41: Optimizing for Empowerment
      1. Ownership
      2. Autonomy
      3. Alignment
    3. CHAPTER 42: Team Types
      1. Platform Teams
      2. Experience Teams
    4. CHAPTER 43: Empowering Platform Teams
      1. Shared Team Objectives
      2. Platform‐as‐a‐Product Objectives
      3. Note
    5. CHAPTER 44: Empowering Experience Teams
      1. Media Product
      2. E‐Commerce Product
      3. Enterprise Product
      4. Marketplace Product
      5. Customer‐Enabling Product
    6. CHAPTER 45: Topology and Proximity
      1. Optimizing for the Product Team
    7. CHAPTER 46: Topology Evolution
      1. Evolving a Topology
      2. Topology Warning Signs
    8. CHAPTER 47: Leader Profile: Debby Meredith
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  10. PART VI: Product Strategy
    1. Notes
    2. CHAPTER 48: Focus
      1. Notes
    3. CHAPTER 49: Insights
      1. Quantitative Insights
      2. Qualitative Insights
      3. Technology Insights
      4. Industry Insights
      5. Shared Learnings
      6. Note
    4. CHAPTER 50: Actions
    5. CHAPTER 51: Management
    6. CHAPTER 52: Leader Profile: Shan‐Lyn Ma
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  11. PART VII: Team Objectives
    1. CHAPTER 53: Empowerment
      1. Assigning Problems to Solve, Rather Than Features to Build
      2. Sharing Strategic Context
    2. CHAPTER 54: Assignment
      1. Assigning Objectives to Product Teams
      2. Determining Key Results
      3. Alignment
      4. Keep‐the‐Lights‐On Work
      5. Note
    3. CHAPTER 55: Ambition
    4. CHAPTER 56: Commitments
      1. High‐Integrity Commitments
      2. Deliverables
      3. Tracking High‐Integrity Commitments
    5. CHAPTER 57: Collaboration
      1. Shared Team Objectives
      2. Common Objectives
      3. Note
    6. CHAPTER 58: Management
      1. Keep‐the‐Lights‐On Work
      2. Weekly Tracking
      3. Staying on Track
      4. Helping Our Colleagues
    7. CHAPTER 59: Accountability
      1. Note
    8. CHAPTER 60: Objectives in Perspective
    9. CHAPTER 61: Leader Profile: Christina Wodtke
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
      3. Note
  12. PART VIII: Case Study
    1. CHAPTER 62: Company Backgrounder
      1. Note
    2. CHAPTER 63: Company Objectives
      1. Note
    3. CHAPTER 64: Product Vision and Principles
    4. CHAPTER 65: Team Topology
      1. Team Topology Overview
      2. Notes
    5. CHAPTER 66: Product Strategy
      1. Focus
      2. Insights
      3. Action
      4. Management
      5. Notes
    6. CHAPTER 67: Product Team Objectives
      1. Company Dashboard
      2. Notes
    7. CHAPTER 68: Business Results
    8. CHAPTER 69: Key Takeaways
    9. CHAPTER 70: Leader Profile: Judy Gibbons
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  13. PART IX: Business Collaboration
    1. CHAPTER 71: The Role of Product Leaders
      1. Business Results
      2. Product Strategy
      3. Product Teams
    2. CHAPTER 72: Stakeholder Management vs. Collaboration
    3. CHAPTER 73: Shared Insights and Learning
    4. CHAPTER 74: Keeping the Lights On
    5. CHAPTER 75: Evangelism
    6. CHAPTER 76: Leader Profile: Avid Larizadeh Duggan
      1. Path to Leadership
      2. Leadership in Action
  14. PART X: Inspired, Empowered, and Transformed
    1. CHAPTER 77: Meaningful Transformation
    2. CHAPTER 78: Transformation in Action
    3. CHAPTER 79: TRANSFORMED
    4. CHAPTER 80: The Most Important Thing
    5. CHAPTER 81: The Destination
      1. Final Thoughts
  15. Acknowledgments
  16. About the Authors
  17. Learning More
  18. Index
  19. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: EMPOWERED
  • Author(s): Marty Cagan, Chris Jones
  • Release date: December 2020
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119691297