ISSUE #15 - MARCH 28, 2023
10 Books that you MUST read as a Product Manager
A list of books that I found particularly useful to my product management journey up to now. And probably one of the few that doesn't contain Inspired.
I have often met product people claiming that "product management is not only about what's described in Inspired." I agree. Product management is one of the most versatile crafts, and product professionals must combine various skills to succeed in their careers. In this post, I list the books that I believe any product manager should read at some point during their careers, with no particular sorting. And no, Inspired won't be part of this list. Not because I think it's not a "must read" - it's definitely the book I would recommend for anyone trying to break into product - but because I want to give space to books that come up less often in similar lists and are equally insightful.
The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects, by Andrew Chen
This is one of the most practical books I have read regarding how to drive product-led growth and definitely the best for marketplace products where you need to cultivate network effects. There are many insightful case studies from well-known companies, very thoroughly explained, which makes it easy for the readers to understand the underlying logic and re-apply them in cases they come across in their daily work.
Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter, by R Dutt
In her book, Radhika Dutt presents a useful framework for setting a compelling product vision and a product strategy to serve it. Providing a series of frameworks, examples, and templates to help readers think through, a great combination of a theoretical and practical approach is achieved. On the plus side, toward the end of the book, the writer presents a few interesting thoughts regarding ethics regarding product, which you rarely come across when reading books of similar subjects.
Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products, by Chris Jones, Marty Cagan
A good way to describe this book would be "the sequel to Inspired." There's an apparent reason - one of the writers is Marty Cagan - but also, this book talks about Product Leadership and goes a step beyond the fundamentals of product management. It primarily goes over how to build, scale, and lead product organizations by enabling people to work together and solve complex problems effectively. The target readers are product professionals at that stage of their career when they want to jump into a more senior leadership role or product leaders who want to sharpen their leadership skills.
Measure What Matters: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth, by John Doerr
OKRs are one of the most influential and widely used frameworks for goal setting among companies and product teams. John Doerr uses various real-world examples to demonstrate how several companies used this framework to drive growth, so I consider it a "must-read" for anyone working in product. At the same time, I must admit that this is not the most engaging book you will ever read, as it is a bit repetitive from one point onwards. It could be better to be a bit less in size. Nevertheless, it is a book with significant value to offer.
Just Enough Research, by Erika Hall
Maybe one of the most comprehensive books when it comes to user research. As indicated by the title, in this book, Erika Hall describes how much research is just enough and provides guidelines so that you can choose the appropriate research method, depending on the insights you want to unveil. Furthermore, she goes into more depth and provides tips on how to be effective while using research tools such as interviews, prototype testing, etc., but she also describes what you should avoid helping you keep your research insights reliable and unbiased. It is definitely the best place to start if you want to deepen your knowledge on user research.
Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, by Steve Portigal
One more book in the broader area of user research, this one focusing on user interviews. As we know, user interviews are one of the most effective tools when it comes to discovering user problems, so in this book, Steve Portigal offers an abundance of practical advice on how to plan, set up, manage, and analyze the results of your interviews properly so that you can get the most out of them. It is a short and dense read with many real-life stories and examples.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, by Chris Voss, Tahl Raz
Although the value of this book for product managers is not apparent, I find it extremely helpful when it comes to stakeholder management. Every human communication can be perceived as a form of negotiation. In this book, Chris Voss presents a framework that helps you first listen and then conversate with another party in a way that will help them see things from your perspective. To make it more fascinating, most examples in this book are sourced from FBI negotiations, so it is even more engaging for the reader.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters
Perhaps the book with the most controversial ideas on this list. Even myself, I disagree with several of Peter Thiel's points in this book. As a reading, it is more relevant to entrepreneurship as a whole; still, I find the area where he talks about creating monopolies by delivering products that are 10x more valuable than the competitive ones very insightful, as well as the parts where the writer explains the importance of having a unique vision to create something, rather than focusing on improving something that already exists.
Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries, by Safi Bahcal
In this book, Safi Bachal demonstrates a framework that is supposed to help companies innovate, without jeopardizing their "traditional" revenue streams. I find it useful for product, as many times as Product Managers, we can be dogmatically focused on solving only those problems that we consider to be directly attributable to the core customer problems and limit our thinking to "non-out-of-the-box" ideas. This often kills creativity, which could lead to innovative solutions being introduced to the market. Safi Bachal recommends an organizational setup where traditional business and innovation work on separate streams, however, with ongoing feedback loops between the two. I find this directly applicable to product organizations, as a framework where the teams can retain their focus on the core customer problems while finding ways to innovate.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni
This is a page-turner. One of the best books I have read about building a team culture that embraces trust, accountability and excellent communication within a team. As a bonus, the book has been written in a story format, which makes it enjoyable for the reader and is not presented as "dry" theory.
Past Newsletters
ISSUE #14 - FEBRUARY 24, 2023
Hiring Product Managers: Formulating the interview process
In this post, I am sharing my thoughts on formulating a solid interview process for hiring a product manager, given the role requirements and the available..
ISSUE #13 - JANUARY 24, 2023
Thoughts on goal setting, planning, and opportunism
In this post, I am sharing some thoughts on my OKRs and how they look like, planning and the time horizon of early-stage roadmaps, and opportunism..
ISSUE #12 - DECEMBER 15, 2022
Product Lessons Learned in 2022
Ten product leaders from US, UK and Greek startups, scale-ups and Big Tech share their greatest learnings for the past year.
The Product Notebook by Manos Kyr.
Once every month, I’m sharing my thoughts on product, growth & entrepreneurship.
Copyright © Manos Kyriakakis