In Marty Cagan’s Transformed, we’re given a clear view of what it means to become a truly empowered product organisation. It’s an inspiring vision, but it can sometimes feel like a snapshot of the destination, without enough acknowledgement of the winding road it takes to get there. This post explores that journey by drawing on a relatable metaphor: driving a car.

From Projects to Products: A Journey

Think about your first car. The freedom you had as you got into your car to take off and travel. And the burden of having your car, with insurance payments and maintenance costs and continually refuelling the car. Project thinking is like being driven around – travel before you had your own car. You tell someone where you need to go, and – after a negotiation – they take you there. The car, the route, the traffic—they’re someone else’s problem. It’s efficient for short-term, well-defined objectives. But it limits ownership, flexibility, and long-term planning.

Shifting to product thinking is like getting behind the wheel of your own car. It’s exciting and a little terrifying. Suddenly, the responsibility and the freedom is yours. You can drive anywhere you want to – limited only by the car itself. The car is no longer a hidden cost carried by someone else; it’s a dynamic system you need to understand and support. The car must be maintained – there are ongoing costs you need to keep on top of – and you are limited as to how many places you can visit in a day or a week. But you can use this freedom to get really good at driving where you need to go. You are in control, and you can become an expert in how you drive the car and what you achieve with the drive (and all future drives).  

The Product Thinking Journey: Learning to Drive

Stage 1: The Passenger (The Project Organization )

Metaphor: You’re in the back seat with a destination and a timeframe in mind, negotiating (with a parent or Uber driver) where you want to go and when you need to be there.  

Focus is on what you need – your destination and the time you need to be there. You don’t give any consideration to maintaining the car, or the experience and expertise of the driver.

• Projects are initiated with fixed scope, deadlines, and budgets.

• Teams are executors, not problem solvers.

• Success is delivery, not impact.

• Maintenance and running costs never come into the conversation.

Stage 2: Learning to Drive (Learning to Deliver)

Metaphor: You’re in the driver’s seat, but someone’s in the passenger seat with a clipboard. You’re still figuring out the rules of the road and you’re learning how to drive the car and get from A to B without relying on others.

Focus is on how you drive – learning how to safely navigate the simplest routes. You still don’t give any consideration to maintaining the car but are beginning to take responsibility for the driving.

• Organisations start to value predictable outcomes over output.

• Product Managers emerge but still operate under heavy control.

• Teams begin to look at user needs—but often still wait for direction.

Stage 3: Buying Your First Car (More Product than Project)

Metaphor: You’ve passed your test and now you have your own car. You know the rules of the road, but you also know when to rely on your experience and intuition. More importantly, you now think about the car. Running costs, maintenance, every bump in the road and scrape in the parking lot matters.

Focus is on balance between driving and care of the car. How you treat the car matters. If you want to take that road trip across the mountains, how you maintain your car makes a difference.  

• Product teams start shaping their own roadmaps.

• There’s room for experimentation and learning from failure.

• Metrics are tied to customer and business outcomes.

• Technical debt and how problems are solved are part of the conversation.

Stage 4: “A few years later” (The Product Organization)

Metaphor: You’ve had one or two cars, and now you’re not just driving; you’re teaching others, handling emergencies serenely, and mastering the art of shared car usage. Almost certainly you have conflicting ideas of who will use the car and for what. You balance maintenance and stewardship with planning what uses you put the car to.  

• The organization continuously revisits priorities to stay on course.

• Innovation, strategy, and customer value are deeply embedded.

• Product leaders coach, support, and challenge teams to grow.

Closing: Know Where You Are, and Keep Driving

No one becomes an experienced driver and car owner overnight. Likewise, no organization becomes a truly empowered product company in a quarter. But knowing where you are—and what’s next on the journey—informs your expectations and where you need to work next.

You don’t get to be a “Transformed” organization by reading a book or hiring a Product Manager. You get there by taking the long view. Understanding that delivering value once is not success, but creating a vehicle which you can repeatedly use to deliver value is. The goal is to take ownership of your vehicle and then, get behind the wheel, again and again, learning from every mile you drive.

If you’re curious to dig a little deeper, I also put together a follow-up piece called Owning the Journey. It builds on this metaphor and looks at what comes next. You can check it out  HERE.