Anti-pattern in which the heads of product and engineering are misaligned — sometimes hiding personal agendas — while outwardly presenting the org as running on the Product Model (vs. Roadmap Model). Because there should be only one product-team goal shared by product and engineering leadership, any daylight between them (competing priorities, unspoken turf concerns) undermines the whole transformation even when the teams below are doing the work correctly. The name distinguishes performing the model's rituals (trios, discovery, OKRs) from actually being aligned on outcomes — the surface pattern is present, the substance isn't. Part of the Product-Model Transformation Anti-Patterns (Taxonomy) taxonomy.
A concrete version of the pattern: a CTO adopts product-model language to unilaterally fund and control tech-debt work, or a CPO adopts outcome language while still privately dictating what teams build — in both cases the vocabulary changes but the underlying agenda (retain control, fund a pet priority) doesn't.
Apply: check whether the heads of product and engineering are genuinely aligned on why they're transforming, or whether each is separately pursuing a private agenda dressed in product-model vocabulary — misalignment between them is a leading indicator of cosplay rather than adoption. See First Rule of Tech Debt, Household Budget Analogy.
Marty Cagan extends the cosplay diagnostic to leadership itself: mature Product Model (vs. Roadmap Model) organizations are distinguished not by whether they hand out a "Head of Product" or "product leader" title, but by whether that person actually performs the two substantive responsibilities of product leadership — coaching and strategy. A team can carry every product-model artifact (trios, discovery rituals, the title) while its "leader" does neither, which is cosplaying the model at the leadership layer rather than at the team layer.
Из тем: Transformation in Practice