A room without books is like a body without a soul
When I began my journey, my primary focus was on the role of a Scrum Product Owner. As a result, my initial recommendations consisted of books on Agile and Scrum. Over time, my focus expanded to include aspects such as customer engagement, product discovery, achieving product-market fit, scaling products, and product leadership.
Identifying the top 10 books in the product management field can be challenging. However, I would like to recommend some of my favourite books that have significantly contributed to my development as a product manager over the years.
- The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The core concept of Lean thinking revolves around validated learning. The Lean Startup methodology adopts a scientific approach to launching startups by utilizing user feedback data to guide and accelerate the product’s iterative development.
To create a product that customers love, it’s essential to follow the build-measure-learn loop. Eric Ries introduced several key terms in his groundbreaking book, including minimal viable products (MVP), Innovation Accounting, validated learning, and the 5 Whys analysis. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding how startups operate differently from large organizations, minimizing waste, and developing successful products or services.
Quote from the book:
In a world of constant change, the only sustainable competitive advantage is speed.
2. The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank
I believe that “The Four Steps to the Epiphany” is the most underrated book on product management. In this book, Steve Blank emphasizes the importance of customer discovery and validation. This is the book that sparked the Lean Start-Up movement. It offers practical guidance on interacting with customers, sales, marketing, and developing your company at various stages of its growth. Steve encourages entrepreneurs to step outside their buildings, engage with customers, and continuously refine their business models.
Quotes from the book:
- Build it (product) and they will come,” is not a strategy; it’s a prayer.
- In a startup, no facts exist inside the building, only opinions.
This book is available for free download on the internet.
3. What Customers Want by Anthony Ulwick
This book focuses on outcome-based innovation. In “What Customers Want,” the author illustrates with examples why it is essential to address customer needs instead of merely concentrating on products and technologies. As the saying goes, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill; they want a quarter-inch hole!”
The author identifies three key components of outcome-based innovation:
- Customers purchase products and services to help them accomplish specific tasks.
- Customers use a set of metrics to evaluate how well these tasks are being completed and how effectively a product performs.
- Customer metrics enable the systematic and predictable creation of breakthrough products and services.
Quote from the book:
Only after knowing what jobs customers are trying to get done and what outcomes they are trying to achieve are companies able to systematically and predictably identify opportunities and create products and services that deliver significant new value. Only then can they figure out What Customers Want.
4. Inspired by Marty Cagan
Marty Cagan is often regarded as the father of modern product management. In his book, he outlines the role of a product manager within a technology company and what it takes to succeed in this position. He emphasizes the importance of cultivating the right product culture for success and explores various product discovery and delivery techniques to address customer and business challenges.
The book is organized into five sections:
- Part I: Lessons from Top Tech Companies
- Part II: The Right People
- Part III: The Right Product
- Part IV: The Right Process
- Part V: The Right Culture
Whether you are new to product management or have some experience, “Inspired: How To Create Tech Products Customers Love” is an insightful and valuable read.
Quote from the book:
Software projects can be thought of as having two distinct stages: figuring out what to build (build the right product), and building it (building the product right). The first stage is dominated by product discovery, and the second stage is all about execution.
5. Cracking The PM Interview by Gayle Laakmann and Jakie Bavaro
If you plan to apply to a FAANG company — Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, or Microsoft — this resource is essential. Lackman thoroughly explains how product management functions at each of these companies. The book includes chapters on PM resumes, soft skills, coding, company research, PM roles, and more. My favourite section, however, is the Estimation section, which presents numerous scenario-based questions. For example, it poses inquiries like, “How many pizzas are delivered in Manhattan every hour?” and “How would you design an alarm clock for the blind?”
Quote from the book:
A PM is the person on a product team who is responsible for choosing the right problems to go after, defining what success looks like, and guiding their team to achieve successful outcomes.
6. Hacking Growth By Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown
“Hacking Growth” is highly relevant for products that have reached an AHA moment and are ready to scale. The book emphasizes the importance of a North Star metric and outlines strategies for discovering growth levers. It introduces a growth hacking cycle that consists of four stages:
- Data analysis and insight gathering
- Idea generation
- Experiment prioritization
- Running the experiments
The second part of the book, titled “The Growth Hacking Playbook,” provides a comprehensive set of tactics for acquiring, activating, retaining, and monetizing users or customers.
Quote from the book:
There is no question that stalled growth is one of the most pernicious and pressing problems for today’s businesses, and that’s not just true for start-ups, but for just about any business, large or small, in just about any industry you can think of.
7. Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres
In her book, Teresa introduces a new discovery framework called the “Opportunity Solution Tree” (OST). This framework appears to combine elements from existing methodologies like Lean Startup, Jobs to Be Done, and Scrum.
The book begins by outlining the formation of a continuous discovery team, which consists of:
– The Product Manager
– The Design Lead
– The Tech Lead
A key focus of the book is that effective product discovery starts with a clearly defined outcome, measured by a specific metric. A product outcome (OKR) assesses how well it aligns with a business objective and whether it provides value.
Once the product outcome is determined, the next step is to define and map opportunities.
What are opportunities?
Opportunities represent customers’ needs and pain points. Addressing these needs is essential for creating the business value that drives your outcome, as the product will solve them. Lastly, it’s important to develop solutions and assumptions that can be validated through testing to meet customer needs and alleviate their pain points. In summary, our solutions must align with the organization’s goals and outcomes.
Quote from the book:
The beauty of a continuous discovery process is that we can always course-correct as we learn. So, as you assess and prioritize the opportunity space, relax. Make the best decision you can, given what you know today, and know that, if you got it wrong, we’ll simply revisit the decision when we need to.
8. Testing Business Ideas by David Bland and Alexander Osterwalder
Seven out of ten new products fail to meet expectations. “Testing Business Ideas” aims to change that statistic. Following in the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller, “Business Model Generation,” this practical guide offers hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas.
“Testing Business Ideas” explains how systematically evaluating business ideas can significantly reduce risks and increase the chances of success for any new venture or project. It builds on the internationally recognized Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by incorporating Assumptions Mapping and other effective lean startup-style experiments.
Quote from the book:
It’s no surprise that children raised in this style of educational system become adults who often struggle with the idea of being wrong. The culture of rewarding who is right and penalizing who is wrong extends into their businesses. They’ve been conditioned to look for that one right answer.
9. The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman
The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman. It explores how design acts as a communication link between objects and users, emphasizing the importance of optimizing this connection to enhance the user experience. The book goes beyond digital products, addressing various aspects of daily life and demonstrating how poor design can negatively impact user satisfaction. It’s an essential read for anyone involved in product design.
Quote from the book:
Good design is actually a lot harder to notice than poor design, in part because good designs fit our needs so well that the design is invisible.
10. UX for Lean Startups By Laura Klein
“UX for Lean Startups” (2013) presents an innovative and cost-effective strategy for researching and designing products and services. Aimed at startups and companies that aspire to adopt a startup mentality, it demonstrates how to deliver an excellent user experience while minimizing time and financial expenditures. The book applies Lean Startup principles to validate the most uncertain design assumptions, enabling prompt decision-making for your product.
Quote from the book:
Here is the worst possible way for you to try to figure out if your idea solves somebody’s problem: Ask them. Most entrepreneurs seem to think that explaining their concept in detail to a few people and then asking whether it’s a good idea constitutes validation. It does not.
Other notable mentions:
- Running Lean by Ash Maurya
- Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz
- The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
- The Lean Product Lifecycle by Tendayi Viki
- The art of thinking clearly by Rolf Dobelli
- Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
- Hooked by Nir Eyal
- Measure What Matters by John Doerr
- Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
- Product Management’s Sacred Seven by Aditya Agashe, Neel Mehta, and Parth Detroja
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