What books do you recommend on product management?

Whenever I’m asked this question, I usually reply, “that depends, what part of product management do you want to learn more about?”

Just like books on parenting cover everything from potty training to toddler communication to infant sleep training, there are 100s of books you might want to read about product management adjacent subjects, most of which may not even have the words “product management” in the title.

I’ve broken my recommendations (including books, blogs and articles) into some of the different components of product management. Almost everything here is available in text and audio format.

• Learn about tech strategy
• Operate an effective product organization
• Make better estimates about the impact of new features
• Get better at experiments (AKA A/B tests) and measuring impact
• Learn what it’s actually like to do the job of PM
• Understand systems — critical when your work touches a platform, ecosystem or any kind of policy
• Learn more about social networks
• Learn about getting things done in large companies

Learn about tech strategy

Stratechery (comes in blog and podcast form) and/or Dithering (podcast)

Disclaimer: I don’t always listen to the full Stratechery interviews, but the Stratchery and Dithering podcasts are great. Sometimes there is a little overlap if they discuss the same story. The audio versions are behind paywalls, if you are preparing for interviews and want to brush up on product strategy, it will be money well spent. Depending on your employer, they may also be happy to cover part of all of the cost.

The archives are huge and it’s unrealistic to review everything but if you want to get caught up on some of the foundational ideas (especially as part of interview prep) I recommend familiarizing yourself with the list of Ben Thompson’s concepts.

Operate an effective product organization

SVPG Articles by Marty Cagan

I only recently discovered this, and I haven’t read most of the articles, but those I have read were very insightful and I agree wholeheartedly with Marty Cagan’s assessment of the industry. To get started, I recommend checking out this article on Product Teams vs Feature Teams. I find this content to be more targeted towards senior leadership as it talks a lot about the best way to run the product organization at a company. However I believe everyone would stand to benefit from a thorough understanding of many of his ideas.

Make better estimates about the impact of new features

Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock, Dan Gardner

Most of what I do as a product manager is make recommendations based on what I think will lead to the best outcome. Therefore, predicting likely outcomes is a foundational part of my job. This book gives a great framework for how to make predictions, and evaluate your work so you can do better next time.

Get better at experiments (AKA A/B tests) and measuring impact

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong — and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster

Even if you never want to have kids, this book does an excellent job breaking down so many bad studies, as well as good ones. You will learn through examples how many ways NOT to design experiments as well as common pitfalls in experiment data interpretation.

Learn what it’s actually like to do the job of PM

The Power of One — by Frances Haugen

If you only want to focus on the product management part, jump to the chapters on Frances’s work at Google, Pinterest and Facebook. (But for what it’s worth I also enjoyed the rest of the book!)

Chaos Monkeys — by Antonio Garcia Martinez

Note that this book has a lot of problematic content, (you can read my full review of the book on Goodreads here) but it’s still one of the more accurate portrayals of what it’s actually like to work in tech, and more specifically product management.

Understand systems — critical when your work touches a platform, ecosystem or any kind of policy

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella H. Meadows, Diana Wright

This book will give you the right language to describe things you may already have observed or suspected. Personally, I found the frameworks provided are useful to so many aspects of my life, not just work, and they gave me better tools to look at the causes of dysfunction in everything from startup funding to politics.

This book is essential if your team’s work depends on or impacts an ecosystem (ex: creators, developers, even reviewers). Understanding the variables driving the current system, and the implications of any change you make is critical to effective product development.

Learn more about social networks

No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram by Sarah Frier

As someone who has never worked on a major social network, I felt like this book did a great job explaining the product tradeoffs and implications of some of the decisions Instagram made in the early days, and how those paid with (and didn’t always pair well) with Facebook.

The Power of One — by Frances Haugen

In addition to showing what it’s like to actually do the job of PM at big tech companies, the book contains a lot of great insights into how things actually work behind the scenes at Pinterest and Facebook (and also Google+, RIP).

Get things done across an organization

Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down by John P. Kotter and Lorne A. Whitehead

This book probably could have been a much shorter article, but since I haven’t found anything shorter with the relevant content, we’re stuck with this book (which is to be fair not a long read).

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

People are often surprised how much the role of PM is having your colleagues think you aren’t a jerk. You don’t have to read this book exactly, but reading at least one or two books about how to play nice with others will serve you well. This book has been around so long it’s now in the public domain!

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory

As a product manager you’ll have to make a lot of unpopular decisions and odds are someone somewhere will be a little bit mad at you most of the time. This book provides some great tools for handling difficult conversations productively in both your personal and professional life.

To conclude

This is in no way an exhaustive list, and I’ll continue to update as I expand my own horizons. If there is any book or article you read directly or peripherally related to product management that changed your career let me know on LinkedIn and (if it’s available as an audiobook) I’ll check it out.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to check out my other articles about navigating the world of product management, especially the most frequently asked questions about product management.