Why Most Product Teams Aren't Really Empowered

Summary: Although product teams say they're empowered, many still function as feature factories and must follow orders.

We've all heard the promises. Empowered teams make better products. They're more engaged, more innovative, and they ship faster. According to Marty Cagan's definition in his book Empowered , truly empowered product teams are "given problems to solve rather than features to build" and have "the authority to decide the best way to solve those problems." They're accountable for outcomes, not outputs.

Sounds great, right? But the uncomfortable truth is that most teams aren't empowered, despite what the company handbook says. And it's not usually because leadership is lying or being intentionally manipulative. It's because empowerment is often incompatible with how most large organizations work.

Empowered Teams Struggle at Scale

Imagine a product manager at a mid-sized fintech company whose team is supposedly empowered to improve the onboarding experience. They've done their research, identified several significant problems, and have some great solutions. One of them involves changing the main navigation to make it easier for new users to find critical features.