Marty Cagan: the real trade-off for product teams is outcomes vs predictability, not output
rseroter · x · 2026-10-15
Marty Cagan of SVPG argues that in an era of AI turbocharging product development, the problem of abundant output yet scarce outcomes has never been greater — but the root cause isn't teams not understanding that outcomes beat output. It's the desire for predictability. The real trade-off is the relative priority of outcomes versus predictability.
He notes that outcomes versus output isn't a genuine trade-off since you can't achieve outcomes without output; it's easy to rationalize flooding output and hoping something works. Product teams often grasp this trade-off intuitively (as Henrik Kniberg has long emphasized), but a company's culture and what it chooses to reward and incentivize is ultimately a decision on this trade-off.
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