MUST-READ PRODUCT MANAGEMENT BOOKS

ESSENTIAL BOOKS FOR EVERY ASPIRING OR SEASONED PRODUCT MANAGER

The only way to truly grow as a Product Manager is by experience.

Learning with the successes, but especially failures, is the ultimate source of growth as a PM.

Learning through experiences can be built by self-experience or by third-person adventure.

Books are the best short path to learn: take advantage of the path others have trodden and build your knowledge on top of it.

Here you can find a list of Product Management books that will help you grow as a Product Manager.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT 101

• “Inspired” by Marty Cagan
  “Inspired” is probably the most claimed PM entry-level book. Marty Cagan is one of the most influential Product thought leaders. It is a complete book about what being a Product Manager means. The book is about discovering a usable, feasible, and valuable product management fits with other functions.
• “The Lean Product Playbook” by Dan Olsen
  This book is another claimed entry-level PM book, is part of the “Lean Series”. Takes into the “Lean Startup” concept and breaks down the “Build, Measure, Learn” cycle into “Hypothesize, Design, Test, Learn”. Again, focus on the problem space before jumping into the solution space.
• “The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage” by Don McGreal and Ralph Jocham
  This guide is a misunderstood pearl. Don’t be fooled by the name: It has three parts (Agile Product Management, Scrum, Tactics), and the Scrum one is the smallest. However, this book goes beyond Scrum — this is one of the complete books concerning concrete Product Management Techniques. Fantastic to have it pocket wise as reference material.

PRODUCT MANAGER CORE SKILLS

PRODUCT DISCOVERY / USER RESEARCH

• “Continuous Discovery Habits” by Teresa Torres
  This book was released in 2021 and is probably the best Product Discovery book. Teresa Torres gives you a hand and explains to you how to think about what Discovery is and explains precisely how to do it with specific methodologies and how to embed it into daily work.
• “The Mom Test” by Rob Fitzpatrick
  “The Mom Test” is a simple, down to earth guide to assessing the potential of your opportunity by talking with customers. This book gives you the guidelines to keep essential during the initial research.
• “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman
  It is not a product book per Si. Instead, this book teaches us the two systems that drive the way we think. By pointing how to make choices in our business and personal lives, this book is most valuable to leverage its insights while discovering.

PRODUCT DESIGN

• “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug.
  It is the 101 for web usability, fundamentals of good design and user experience testing.
• “Hooked” by Nir Eyal
  This book explains how engaging users have “triggers” to bring the user back to the product. It is exceptionally relevant for B2C products that depend on user engagement.
• “Lean UX” by Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden
  “Lean UX” is a good book that offers an approach on how UX Design and Agile practices can go hand in hand.

PRODUCT DELIVERY

• “Sprint” by Jake Knapp
  This book is a practical guide on hosting a “Design Sprint” in one week and using different techniques to turn a concrete problem into a testable prototype.
• “Flow” by Donald Reinertsen
  “Flow” is a complete examination of product development practices about queues management.
• “Scrum, A pocket guide” by Gunther Verheyen
  This book condenses all the Scrum framework fundamentals and the “why” behind the different Scrum elements.
• “User Story Mapping” by Jeff Patton
  This book is a how-to deep dive into Story Mapping.

SUCCESS MEASUREMENT

• “Lean Analytics” by Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
  This book shows how to use data to validate the success of an idea. It’s the “measurement” stage of “Lean Startup”.
• “How to Measure Anything” by Douglas Hubbard
  This book explains how to translate problems into quantifiable metrics, understand their outcomes, and best measure them.

GROWTH

• “Hacking Growth” by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
  This book presents a well-designed method to “analyze-ideate-prioritize-test” growth opportunities across the marketing funnel (acquisition, activation, retention, monetization). It is essential for PM Growth.
• “Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers” by Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
  “Traction” is a book full of concrete traction tactics and real examples where they were applied successfully. In addition, it summarises a series of tried and proven growth practices thematically.

PRODUCT LEADERSHIP

• “Build Trap” by Melissa Perri
  “Build Trap” is the Product Leadership Bible. It guides you to what it takes to become a product-led company and how to identify and solve problems that prevent organizations from being outcome-oriented. It is super easy to read (storytelling style), and it’s a short book with so much valuable content.
• “Empowered” by Marty Cagan
  “Empowered” bring us a (slightly visionary)view of what building a strong product team is.

INNOVATION

• “Lean Startup” by Eric Ries
  This book turned the MVP into a buzzword. Eric Ries presents a systematic process to iterate/validate the question: Are we building the right thing?
• “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel
  This book is a provoking discussion with great ideas about startups mechanics. Thiel’s philosophy topics are arguable (at least). It is an excellent book because it provokes thinking about not so obvious, relevant issues.

I hope this list adds value to you. If you have more suggestions, let me know. I will this list updated.

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