Real Talk about Empowered vs. Feature Product Teams | Chris Jones (SVPG)
Description
My guest today is Chris Jones, partner at Silicon Valley Product Group.
Chris and Marty Cagan wrote the best-selling book Empowered based on their 30+ years of experience working with 200+ companies. Their definition of “empowered vs. feature product teams” has created controversy, so I knew I had to chat with them.
Chris and I had a heart-to-heart chat about empowered vs. feature teams, how to avoid becoming a feature factory, and how to take back control of your career.
Timestamps:
(00:00) What empowered really means
(01:13) The difference between empowered and feature teams
(04:58) Why companies stop being customer-focused
(06:12) OKRs, processes, and bureaucracy
(13:47) Be the go-to person to build trust with leaders(18:13) Quarterly metric targets lead to bad trade-offs
(21:40) The trend towards small teams
(23:00) Does empowerment matter in wartime (Airbnb)?
(27:24) 3 types of product operating principles
(30:23) Is Google still empowered?
(33:40) How to avoid product review hell(36:15) The right way to push back on execs
(41:08) Take back control of your career
Where to find Chris:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjonessvpg/
Get the interview takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/empowered-vs-feature-product-teams-chris-jones
📌 Subscribe to this channel – more interviews coming soon!
My guest today is Jiaona Zhang, the CPO of LinkTree.
JZ is the Chief Product Officer of LinkTree and a guest lecturer at Stanford. We had a great chat about AI’s impact on PM managers and super ICs, the shift towards PM specialists, and whether becoming a creator can help advance your PM...
Published 11/24/24
My guest today is Niels Hoven, founder and CEO of Mentava.
Niels founded Mentava, an education startup teaching 2-year-olds to read at the 2nd-grade level. We had a great chat about why K-12 education is broken for high-achieving kids, whether AI will unlock personalized learning, and how his...
Published 11/17/24