Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love
Encouragement, resources, and assistance in the form of real-world applications
The Silicon Valley Product Group was formed by Marty Cagan to aid and encourage other product managers by condensing years of knowledge into this book. In this book, he shares some of the most important things he’s learned while working for some of the world’s most well-known corporations. This is an excellent resource if you’re seeking for someone who can speak with authority on Product Management.
Closing Remarks On Top 5 Best Books To Crack Product Management Interviews
Though these books can give you a direction, reaching the destination is a function of your speed and efforts.
The books will be more useful if you practice the problems before looking out for solutions.
Also, I would recommend to not mug up the structures, rather work on the reason for their existence.
If you have an approach, it automatically comes into your thinking. When you put one in place during an interview, it sounds more natural.
Thanks for reading my article.
The Making Of A Manager
The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo talks about how product managers can achieve greater product goals, as well as repeat and even expand their success with each iteration.In her book, Zhou expresses the concern that managers inevitably lean too far towards the product side, while the actual management side takes a back seat. This leads to poor coordination, ineffective collaboration, and a product that fails to deliver what the customer needs from it.The Making of a Manager goes into detail how you can become the best product manager for your company and product, and create a product that the company can depend on to succeed each time.The perfect read for managers struggling with putting the ideal product team together, The Making of a Manager highlights the leadership and inspirational qualities that you can display within your specific product sphere.To purchase, check outThe Making of a Manager.
Recommended Reading: How To Transcribe Interview Recordings
Naked Statistics: Stripping The Dread From The Data
We have billions and billions of data points from an incredible range of sources in the digital age. This can be a terrifying prospect for the person who needs to look through all that data to find the valuable insights you need.
Naked Statistics takes a laid-back approach to data processing. Author Charles Wheelan fills the book with humor while breaking down key concepts such as inference, correlation, and regression analysis. Trust us you wonât want to put it down!
Escaping The Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
Escaping the Build Trap is another fantastic work that hammers home the need for customer-centric company cultures.
According to author Melissa Perri, many companies and modern product managers are at risk of falling into what she calls the “Build Trap.”
It is a situation where because producers place so much emphasis on output, they lose sight of whether the product is still meeting customer needs and creating value.
Sometimes, companies waste a tremendous amount of time and resources trying to polish product details. In reality, they should be listening to their target customers.
And unfortunately, many businesses fail because their strategy never changes.Instead, Perri argues, PMs and others should focus primarily on outcomes.
This helps to keep the product always headed in the right direction. It reduces wasted time and energy and forces you to understand how the product fits into the market.
This salient message should make product managers everywhere take heed.
There’s a reason Escaping the Build Trap shows up again and again in user recommendations.
It also hammers home key concepts that frequently show up in product manager interviews.
Recommended Reading: What To Say In Phone Interview
One Must Read Book For Product Managers
Before closing this post, I wanted to recommend one book to all the product managers and aspiring product managers.
Rather I would like to extend the recommendation to everyone.
We all in some way or the other are involved in product creation and management process.
This is one book that I would recommend every Product Manager to read. It gives a scientific approach to why some products stand out and why others sink.
Might not be absolutely necessary for product management interviews. However, this will add much more value and depth to your thoughts and structure to your answers.
The 16 Best Product Management Books
Looking to land your first job in project management? Feedback on your product idea? Want your product to attract more customers? Or are you a founder looking to better cope with todays rapidly-changing technological landscape?
Reading the right books will give you an edge.
The best product management books are written by industry tech moguls and industry experts who walk their talk. They contain field-tested and actionable strategies their authors have gathered from decades of experience.
With that in mind, here are the 16 best product management books of 2022 :
Subtitle: The Primer on Technology and Business Strategy
: Aditya Agashe, Neel Mehta, and Parth Detroja
Time to read : 5 hours and 21 minutes
Audiobook available: No
Swipe to Unlock was written in 2017 by three product managers at Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. And it delivers.
In short, the book will give you an understanding of todays tech scene and get you to appreciate some of the strategic decisions tech giants have made in the last decade.
You will get acquainted with important tech concepts like algorithms, big data, and operating systems, but youll also find out how these technologies have impacted the consumer market as we know it today. For example: Why does Amazon offer free delivery even though it loses the company money? Or: Why does Asia rely so heavily on QR codes for payments?
Subtitle: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
: Marty Cagan
Time to read: 6 hours 8 minutes
: Melissa Perri
Read Also: How To Prepare For A Social Media Manager Interview
Best Books For Product Managers
See the books and resources that I recommend to experienced product managers trying to grow as leaders and new product managers trying to learn the craft. These product management books cover a range of essential topics, including interviewing, methods and practices, design, technology, and leadership, among others.
Note: I independently recommend these books but this article does include Amazon Affiliate links. Also, I will continue to add resources so please revisit.
Product Management Book Recommendation: Product Leadership
Can you describe the difference between a product manager and a product leader? Can you think of three aspects of product creation that a product leader must balance to deliver a successful product? Do you know whats even more fundamental to great product management and leadership than developing a great process?
Youll find expert-level answers to those questions, and dozens of other important product leadership questions, in the book Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams, by Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson & Nate Walkingshaw.
The book covers a great deal of territory for product professionals. But if we had to distill it to a single thesis, its this:
Product leadership is distinct from product management, although if youre a product manager youre also acting as a product leader . And that product leadership role is probably the most challenging and important role you have. Challenging, because you have a massive amount of responsibility but little or no organizational authority to carry it out. Important, because as a product leader you are responsible for the success or failure of your companys productsand, by extension, the success or failure of your company itself.
Watch CEOs discuss how to practice resilient leadership during challenging times:
Heres a brief overview of the types of product wisdom youll find in this great book.
You May Like: How To Pass Amazon Interview
Take This First Step And Then Choose Your Path
First off, and this is the only book I’d call “non-optional”.
Inspired – Marty Cagan
This book covers all relevant aspects at least to some extent, and does so really well. However, apart from discovery, it does not dig very deep. If you have not read it, do so first. It provides an invaluable perspective. Then, depending on what you are interested in next, different books will help you dig deeper into the specific areas.
Collaborating With Team And Stakeholders Through Working With
Once you have discovered roughly what to build, it is time to move into delivery. And delivery is all about collaborating and communicating with team and stakeholders. To do this, three different artefacts are especially useful, and each have a book dedicated to them.
…user stories? – User Story Mapping – Jeff Patton
Used right, user stories have an almost magical ability to get everyone on the same page, especially when put on a user story map. Be it developers, designers, or business stakeholders. They may come with different perspectives, but they can all relate to stories about how different functionality applies to actual users. No-one describes that better than Jeff.
…feature documents? – Epic Alignment – Nils Janse
If team and stakeholders don’t all sit in the same room, if done right, the best way to keep them on the same page is to write feature documents . With a foreword by Jeff Patton, the book I wrote describes how best to do this. Like Matt LeMay put it: “Epic Alignment dives deep on one of the most important and underappreciated aspects of product management.”
…roadmaps? – Product Roadmaps Relaunched – C. Todd Lombardo
Also Check: How To Send A Thank You Email After An Interview
Design And User Research
An effective PM is a thought partner to designers, not just someone who requests design specs and unconditionally accepts them. To be a partner, you can support a designer in gaining evidence , asking incisive questions, and challenging the design thinking to inspire better outcomes.
What is not effective is designing a solution yourself and steamrolling designers to accept it. Product can add value by helping to discover, articulate, and validate the most impactful problems-to-solve, as well as encouraging the most creative solutions from designers .
To be a good partner, you should understand the nuances of an effective design process and core UX concepts. Over time, you should expand your expertise in both the problem and solution spaces, such as gaining a deeper understanding of psychology, habits, research techniques, trade offs of various design patterns, and what data is needed to make better decisions.
Research online to learn more about this model. Remember, key outputs include:
- Problem Space: Validated problem statements for personas that are clear and impactful
- Solution Space: Verified solutions that are valuable, feasible, and lovable
What You Do Is Who You Are
Create your company culture
Part of being a leader is being an owner of company culture. Within your teams, establishing a culture is a great way to keep things moving swiftly, avoid silos, and at the end of the day, build great products. Ben Horowitzs guide has everything that a Senior Product Manager or Head of Product needs to know about building cultures that can weather both good and bad times.
Don’t Miss: What Are The Interview Questions For Hr Recruiter
How To Choose The Product Management Books
Is finding an excellent product management books a stressful experience? Have you ever been unsure what model to buy when considering the purchase of product management books in general?
Knowing youre not alone is sometimes all you need. There are many people who have difficulty finding the perfect product management books for themselves. This is why we are here to help!
You have obviously come to this page to learn more about Cheap product management books Reviews. There is a lot of information out there, so to make an informed decision, find a reputable source with a variety of options before committing.
The information you seek can come from many sources buying guides, ratings websites, word-of-mouth recommendations, online forums where users give their personal experiences, independent product reviews found throughout the internet, and even YouTube channels. The best products can only be found through thorough research.
Right? But isnt it not always easy to do that? Therefore, we have taken the time to compile a list of the top product management books products on the market, for your benefit, so that you dont need to worry.
What led us to compile this list? Why did we make this buying guide?
- Firstly, we used our algorithms to gather the information about the products that were available from reliable sources.
- To validate all collected information, both Artificial Intelligence and large data volumes were used.
How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
Best product management interview books. product vs. Be the greatest product manager ever Answers to product management interviews.
Awit, a 501 nonprofit, was founded in 2017 to address the diversity gaps in tech industry leadership. One big disclaimer before we begin our review: Creating products that customers love.
71 brilliant salary negotiation email samples Please be aware that all of the views shared here are the product gym staffs personal opinions and. This brand new book has over 160 practice questions for product management interviews.
Todd lombardo, bruce mccarthy, evan ryan and michael connors. The book provides a few exercises to help you see. Its one of the most popular features from my new book, the product manager interview
Agile product management with scrum: Feature teams Aug 26, 2015 · 2 min read.
Case interview questions for tech companies Lewis is the best selling author of several interview preparation books, including decode and conquer: So, heres our very own take on gayle lackmans cracking the pm interview.
It shows how a lot of different companies can do roadmaps, and how to make a great roadmap. Secrets of the product manager interview A lot of product managers struggle with roadmaps
Popular product manager youtube channels Over 1,000 product manager interview questions from the best tech companies in the world. Product management product strategy interview questions.
Pin by Jeri Willard on Bewerbungstipps Job interview
Also Check: How Hard Is Facebook Interview
Want To Develop Into A Product Leader
At the product leadership level, one question stands out above all else: How ensure that PMs work on things that actually move business forward and help customers ? Two books look at this from slightly different angles.
Escaping the build trap – Melissa Perri
As the title suggests, Melissa’s book takes this main question head on and looks at how both individual PMs and managers of PMs can “escape the build trap”, i.e. focusing on business impact and customer outcomes rather than being stuck in a feature factory, just building feature outputs. It is full of both higher-level mindsets to adopt and down-to-earth practical advice and examples.
Empowered – Marty Cagan
Ship It: Silicon Valley Product Managers Reveal All
All of Silicon Valley’s best-kept secrets
Instinct alone will not get the job done for even the finest Product Managers. You aren’t a psilocyber. There is a need to collect data. It is imperative that you take a methodical approach to learning about your customers. In addition, you must learn how to effectively convey this understanding to your team, so they are encouraged to share your vision and stay on track. The book, ‘Ship It,’ contains both specialized and general product management guidance.
Also Check: How To Track Exit Interview Data
Empowered: Ordinary People Extraordinary Products
Empowered looks at how the top tech companies use innovation to achieve success and compares their methods to companies that simply go with the flow. It teaches us to worry less about who we hire and focus on empowering teams to push innovation.
Of course, the learning process never ends. When youâre done with your reading list, you can always get more top tips and key insights right here at airfocus!
Salary Negotiations After A Job Offer
Did you get a job offer and you want to maximize the compensation that you are being offered? If so, then you have 2 main ways:
Read Also: How To Ace A Phone Interview
Concrete Examples And Tips And Tricks
Oftentimes, the main thing PMs feel missing is not knowledge of a particular skill, but rather just meat on the bones and a general wealth of examples. The most powerful way to get this is of course own experience, but reading can give a bit of a turbo charge.
Product Management in Practice – Matt LeMay
The title is no misnomer. Matt is all about concrete tips and tricks. As he helped me write my book, this was one of his constant reminders. And he walks the talk, as his book is full of them. If Marty’s book gives you the map, Matt’s will fill the map with practical guidance and pointers.
The Product Book – Carlos González de Villaumbrosia et al
This book covers all the topics of product management. It is a great complement to Inspired by Marty Cagan in that it is a more descriptive, less narrative rundown. It explains the most important frameworks in each area, and gives concrete tips, for example on how to work with developers and how to work with designers.
Interested In A Particular Phase Of The Product Lifecycle
Another way to categorize PM books is by what part of the product lifecycle they are most relevant. Below are some PLC-specific PM books.
That being said, the early phase books are relevant for all PM, as it is always important to keep a “startup mindset”, to question basic assumptions and to do rapid iterations. And the same on scaling, as it is always relevant to think big, to “think one step ahead”.
Read Also: Interview With An Artist Questions And Answers
