Obsess over customers, not over competitors.

Every business depends on customers. And what customers buy—or choose to use—is your product. The product is the result of what the product team builds, and the product manager is responsible for what the product team will build. So, this is why the product manager is the person we hold responsible and accountable for the success of the product.

the QA team will follow this up with some testing to make sure the new idea works as advertised and doesn't introduce other problems (known as regressions).

Our business unit structure is an artificial construct. The different business units are often selling to the same actual customers. So, while there are advantages to aligning with business units, this usually comes after the other factors in priority.

“We need teams of missionaries, not teams of mercenaries.” Mercenaries build whatever they're told to build. Missionaries are true believers in the vision and are committed to solving problems for their customers. In a dedicated product team, the team acts and feels a lot like a startup within the larger company, and that's very much the intention.

strong in four key competencies: (1) team development, (2) product vision, (3) execution, and (4) product culture.

Culture of urgency

I will also confess here that, while I love the core notion of autonomous, empowered teams, I am also a big fan of investing in a high‐leverage foundation. This means building a strong foundation that all teams can leverage to create amazing products and experiences much faster than they would otherwise.

Much of the key to effective product discovery is getting access to our customers without trying to push our quick experiments into production.