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11 Must Read Books on Product Management
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11 Must Read Books on Product Management

UserExperior Team
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Throughout my life, I have come across people who just love to read. I have seen their eyes light up like a Christmas tree whenever they think of reading. I am one among them too.

 

Saying that, from childhood, books have been a part of our life. Growing up, some of us are not really in touch with them like we used to.

In our series of articles on Product management, this one is all about the interesting books we came across on Product management. 

 

Inspired 

What is that with companies like Facebook, Netflix, Google, and Amazon making people from all over the world love their products? This is what Marty Cagan explains in this book.

 

He talks about everything from how to discover products to delivering them to the customers for all businesses.

 

Coming to leading and managing product teams, this book explains how to structure your product organization, scale it, how to build the product culture, and much more.

The most interesting thing about this book is that all the concepts discussed in this book can be easily put into practice and you’ll be able to see prominent results.

You can get the book here: Inspired

 

The Lean Product Book

There is an undeniable fact - A lot of new products fail. Building a successful product is very hard. There is no right or wrong way to do it. However, Dan Olsen with this book made it as easy as possible for anyone to understand the idea behind building products that customers love.

 

with his diverse expertise across multiple areas such as UX, Marketing, and analytics, Dan touches in this book, all the aspects of the Lean product process. From explaining how to determine your target audience, building compelling product strategies, especially not to miss out on  - deciding on a Minimum viable product and prototyping it, it’s an outstanding reading experience.

 

We can see people showing so much love and interest towards this book, saying it has taken a beautiful practical approach more than just theories. Also, the author has taken the readers through a step-by-step approach making it an easy read for beginners as well.

You can get the book here: The Lean Product Book

 

Hooked - How to Build Habit-forming products

Hooked by Nir Eyal is not just for Product managers, it is for designers, marketers, founders, and anyone who wants to understand the user behavior that influences the product decisions.

 

As the name says in itself, this book explains the underlying habits or the behavioral patterns that are keeping us hooked to certain products. What’s in there that is making us behave so. It does talk about behavioral science and psychology. However, Nir made sure it is written in simple words that is unambiguous.

 

This now clearly backs the pattern behind us going back to certain products again and again and not feeling comfortable with the others. It is a must-read. Sure you’ll love it too.

You can get the book here: Hooked

 

Escaping the build trap

Melissa Perri, the believer of building great product management teams is the key to building great products, explained beautifully the need to focus on outcomes rather than just outputs.

 

Escaping the build trap emphasizes the need to focus on the user's needs than only prioritizing the features. 

 

Melissa backed her ideas and concepts with case studies which is making the read very insightful and interesting for the readers.

 

With Escaping the build trap, Melissa makes us part of her experience throughout the read

 

You can get the book here: Escaping the build trap

  

Product Management for Dummies

Product Management for dummies is a heads-up for anything you’d like to learn in Product management. According to the authors - Brian Lawley and Pamela Schure only a tiny fraction of people are trained for this vital role of Product manager. 

 

As it claims, it is a great read for product managers to upskill themselves and manage products effectively.

 

The book throws light on areas like creating a winning strategy for the product, analyzing the market and customer feedback, communicating requirements to other functional teams.

 

Link to buy the book: Product Management for Dummies

 

Crossing The Chasm

Geoffrey Moore points out that launching a high-tech product can be extremely challenging, and selling that product to mainstream customers is even more difficult, written long ago in 1991, but that is relevant to today's market with a revised version of the book. 

 

How do you fill the gap between early adopters and the early majority when the product is too disruptive and a behavior change is needed? 

 

You will get to know about the technology adoption life cycle and transition from initial market to mainstream. 

You can get the book here: Crossing The Chasm

 

The Innovator’s Dilemma  

Clayton Christensen explains the power of disruption. 

 

When new technologies cause great firms to fail. The book's description speaks for itself: those large companies fail to adopt new changes, not because of lack of resources, but because changes get in the way of the development of margin opportunities across processes and values.

 

Have you ever thought about the reason for these failures? Must be because of bad management, right? No, it is because of good management. How? Read this book, you will understand how management should cooperate with the adoption of new technology in the organization.

You can get the book here: The Innovator’s Dilemma 

 

Measures What Matters 

John Doerr, the author discusses How Any Organization or Any Team Can Achieve Its Goals With Aggressive and Ambitious Goal Setting.

 

He introduces objectives and key results (OKR). And in organizations, this technique is usually implemented in a waterfall fashion, established at the executive level and then extended to the manager level and then to the employees. 

 

You don't move towards the goal just because your superior has given work to be done. But OKR is transparently important to the company. 

You can get the book here: Measures What Matters

 

The Mom Test

What is this book and why should you consider reading it?

 

You have the idea and desire to build something based on it, but before you start implementing it, you must first evaluate and how are you going to do it? How do you get your ideas across to your potential customers?

 

And as product managers, we come up with ideas about our products to validate these questions with the right answers, the right questions that need to be asked. 

You can get the book here: The Mom Test

  

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just 5 days

Jeff Knapp is a self-described process geek. Working at Google and Google Ventures, he found that the best ideas sit outside the brainstorming process, rather than coming up with the brainstorming process. 

 

In short, it's 5 days of sprints to build a map and sketch out competing solutions, choosing a target, deciding on the best, building a realistic prototype, and final testing with the target customers.

 

And these techniques can be helpful in product development and rapid iteration.

You can get the book here: Sprint

 

Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Results 

How do great product companies work and how do others work? Author Marty Cagan has also written an inspired book, in this book he explains the 5 key elements of strong teams. 

 

He says that when we train and empower teams, ordinary people can deliver extraordinary results.

 

This book will mold you into a responsible team leader who can achieve exceptional results with his team. It is ideal for product leaders, designers, and engineering teams.

 

In today’s age, it is important to stay updated and keep learning. Some have the time and interest to read and learn from books and some don't. It is purely based on people’s interests and choices. We hope these suggestions will add value to your reading list :)) Also all the very best with your product management career.


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