Books for Product Managers
There are tons of great books and resources for Product Managers so I started this running list of the books that helped me become a stronger PM. I hope they help guide other PMs through the stages of their career.
Foundational
If you’re interested in Product or just getting started, Marty Kagan’s Inspired will lay the foundation for best practices as well as go over the functional roles of the product team.
Resources are always scarce for Product Managers so you have to learn to be scrappy. Eric Ries changed the game with The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.
The Lean Startup centers around validating assumptions and building great products that user want. Any seasoned Product Manager knows that the best ideas aren’t always successful.
This is a great book for aspiring and junior PMs to learn how to achieve high impact with low effort.
Dan Olsen followed The Lean Startup and adapted it specifically for Product Management. This book continues to be a phenomenal resource for standard product practices.
It covers everything from initial discovery to measuring and optimizing feature adoption.
Managing a Team
Great Product Managers are fantastic at influencing without authority but it definitely helps a great deal if everyone is rowing in the same direction.
John Doerr coached Google in the early days on developing OKRs as a way to get the entire company focused on working towards the same higher level objectives. In Measure What Matters, he gives a history of where OKRs came from and the best practices for implementing an OKR process.
The bottom line: having a stellar goal planning process will be the most efficient and effective way to engage your team and achieve success.
2. The Hard Thing About Hard Things
I can’t recommend this one enough. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a harrowing tale of Ben Horowitz’s ups and downs as CEO of Opsware. His account is incredibly raw and honest. He analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies.
This book is specifically focused on Product leadership as the title implies. Product Leadership does touch on some standard practices but the true value of the book is all about growing and developing Product teams.
