Essay

Outcomes Are Hard

Marty Cagan · Silicon Valley Product Group Free Advanced

Cagan draws the exact line at the heart of your question: output is what you shipped, outcome is the result it produced, and teams confuse the two constantly. He is honest that measuring outcomes is harder than counting features, which is why most teams quietly avoid it. Read it to commit to the harder, truer scoreboard.

  • Output is what you build, outcome is the difference it makes
  • Feature factories measure shipping because outcomes are harder to face
  • Sign your team up for a result, not a list of things delivered
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The question it answers

  1. How do I know when something we shipped is actually working versus just launched?

Read with it

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