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!

Episode 215 - Occupational Safety - Plan your future