The Root Causes of Product Failure

Most products fail. Even in the best companies this happens: for every Google AdWords there is a Google Wave. In this talk at Mind the Product San Francisco in June 2015, Marty Cagan, founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group, outlines and dissects what he sees as the root causes of these failures.

Among the causes he covers is where product ideas come from. Asking internal stakeholders and big customers for ideas is not bad in itself, but Cagan argues that engineers are the best source, because they understand what the technology can do to solve customer problems. He also takes on the business case: its two inputs, how much money a product will make and how much it will cost, are things nobody can know in advance.

Product roadmaps sit at the top of his list. At least half of the ideas on a roadmap will not work, he says, and the ones that do will usually take several iterations before they deliver.