The Product Management Today Summer Reading List

We reached out to some of our favorite product management thought leaders to get the word on must-read titles this summer. We recommend you bookmark this page - no matter whether you make your way through the list during the summer, fall, or winter, it's filled with helpful resources to integrate into your work in 2019.

Books

Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value, Melissa Perri.

”I wrote this book to show organizations how they can scale Product Management teams successfully to achieve the value they desire, and to give Product Managers the opportunity to see the bigger picture of their domain.” - Melissa Perri

The Product Manager’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Succeed as a Product Manager, Steven Haines.

”Regardless of industry or sector, to compete in today’s business world, product managers must understand how their customer’s preferences change, how technology evolves, and how anticipate what competitors might do. Regardless of industry, you need a reliable resource that provides timely guidance and practical tools to help you compete. With new content and expert advice, this updated edition of The Product Manager’s Survival Guide brings you fully up to date on what you need to succeed as a product manager. To learn more, visit Sequent Learning Networks.” - Steven Haines

Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age, Roman Pichler.

”If you are a product manager or product owner, you need to read this book. Roman Pichler lays out this book in two parts: the first discusses product strategy, vision and KPIs; the second tackles product roadmapping. It's an easy read, and he uses consumer examples so anyone can easily understand.” - Amazon Review

The Secret Product Manager Handbook, Nils Davis.

”A great resource for new product managers, or people considering getting into product management. It’s all the things I wish someone had told me when I was first starting as a product manager. (Whispering: I think a lot of experienced product managers would benefit from the ideas in The Secret Product Manager Handbook as well.)” - Nils Davis

Badass: Making Users Awesome, Kathy Sierra.

”Your users don’t care about your product, they care about their thing, that your product is supposed to be helping them with. The more your product helps them do their thing better, the more they’ll love your product, and recommend it, and share it, and become true fans. Badass is about how to do that.” - Nils Davis

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, Or How to Build the Future, Peter Thiel.

”It is a must-read for all PM's out there” - Navjot Singh

Product Takeoff: The Art of Innovative Product Management, Navjot Singh and Kamal Manglani.

”The product life cycle has four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. This is a book that takes you through the product life cycle and the necessary steps taken by successful companies and entrepreneurs that have helped them ensure their products remain in the growth stage for a longer time. We go through the do's and don'ts of successful product development for people wanting to be the next generation of product managers. Part of this book's journey includes explaining the four important aspects of successful products: vision, strategy, rapid learning, and team. It is important to have a great mix of all these ingredients. By missing any, we cannot make successful products and successful companies. This book also has collated examples from various startups and companies that highlight these four aspects, and explains in detail how they help make better products and how companies have become successful by using this mix in the right way.” - Navjot Singh

eBooks

Product Management Excellence: The SiriusDecisions 2019 Playbook, SiriusDecisions.

”Product managers have historically “fallen” into the role, learning on the job by watching others who also learned on the job. Although product management leaders recommend and coach their teams on certain approaches that seem logical, the reality is that there has been little evidence to support certain product management practices or shed light on important aspects that may have gone unnoticed -- until now. SiriusDecisions has identified the characteristics that drive product management excellence – product management teams that perform at a higher level than their peers, and the results are summarized in our this e-book." - Jeff Lash

Articles

Product Ethics, Roman Pichler.

"This article offers five guidelines to put product ethics in practice and create products that truly benefit their users and avoid harming the planet." - Roman Pichler

How to Run a Product Discovery: A Full Step-by-Step Guide, Tim Herbig.

"Nailing a Product Discovery is an ambitious task for every product manager. Here‘s hands-on advice for approaching it. The goal of this guide is to show you the extensive range a Product Discovery can have and how to set up and execute your own Product Discovery process." - Tim Herbig

Three Diseases your Product Can Catch (and how you can prevent them), Radhika Dutt.

"As product leaders, we are asked to think strategically but in practice, we are mostly responsible for product administration. Summer is a great time to level up and think about how we can take on a more strategic role. Start with a quick diagnosis of your product. Is your product suffering from any of these diseases? These diseases are common across different industries and sizes of organizations. How do you avoid these diseases?" - Radhika Dutt