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.

Interviewing

Getting a product job is hard. Product roles differ by company, industry, and stage. How do you prepare for an interview that can ask about a wide range of disciplines that people dedicate their entire careers to? It’s important to prepare rigorously and have frameworks to help manage the seemingly infinite possibilities.

The Product Manager Interview

Although this book is geared to candidates for Big Tech roles, it is valuable nonetheless for any product management candidate. It emphasizes the need for product managers to demonstrate structured thinking and method.

The PM interview, like any competitive job such as management consulting case questions or investment banking technical interviews, requires rigorous preparation. The book features real questions and covers a range of topics that you will see — from design thinking, estimating, strategy, to the dreaded technical interview.

Cracking the PM Interview

This book is a practical summary of the day-to-day of the product role and comprehensive tips for the interview process. It has many real questions to practice.

The content is geared to Big Tech Companies but can help any PM candidate. This book may be particularly valuable for people trying to get their first product management job or transitioning to a product role.

The technical interview section is particularly helpful. Candidates pursuing less technical product management roles may find it to be overkill, but it never hurts to learn the covered material.

Product Management Concepts and Methods

The books below cover a range of product management-related topics into actionable frameworks. There are many great books out there (which I’ll add over time), but let’s start with a few of my favorites:

Lean Product Playbook

I have yet to find a more articulate, accessible, and practical book for product managers. This is one of the books that I recommend most often to new product managers. It introduces important frameworks and tips based on empirical learnings from an accomplished product leader.

Product Management’s Sacred Seven

This more recent book is ambitious in scope. Some may argue that it scratches the surface, but I think for newer PMs (and experienced PMs looking to solidify their knowledge), this book finds a great balance in breadth and depth.

The Sacred Seven synthesizes many insights and modern practices used by top-tier Silicon Valley companies and is worth a read to chip away at blind spots.

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 (not opinions), 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 (and engineers).

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.

Double Diamond Design Process

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

Validating Product Ideas

Ambitious in scope, this book is a valuable overview of key user research concepts and techniques. This book is wonderfully executed and a great starting point for any product manager, designer, or entrepreneur. You can learn practical techniques and common mistakes to avoid.

The Design of Everyday Things

This book is a classic and one that all product designers and product managers should read. Despite being a dense read, the book is packed with insights on the impact of design decisions. It teaches key principles and valuable lessons through the use of everyday objects, including the classic discussion of the “Don Norman door” (why are so many doors so poorly designed?).

Product designers and software engineers are both builders leveraging different but complementary systems — human psychology and technical systems. By improving your understanding of psychology and design systems, you can become a better partner to product designers and front-end engineers when solutioning.

Don’t Make Me Think

Steve Krug is an O.G. (like Don Norman) with several books worth checking out. “Don’t make me think!” is a mantra that I say often at work (and in my personal life, to be honest). This book explains the subtle power of design, and how seemingly small choices can scale into great joy or frustration.

Technology

Computer Science Distilled

I applaud this book’s attempt to shotgun as many foundational concepts into less than 200 pages. This high-level primer is useful for product managers looking to get more technical. It scratches the surface but is a good starting point to pursue further study.

How the Internet Works

Do not be the technology product manager who does not really understand how the Internet works (I was guilty of this earlier in my career). This book is a non-fiction graphic novel that makes a complex topic fun and accessible.

Mythical Man Month

Tap into great wisdom on software engineering and project management in this classic. You’ll find yourself nodding in agreement as you read about common misconceptions (e.g., Brooks’ Law) and challenges associated with large, complex software projects.

Other Resources

• Web Architecture 101: Short overview on modern web apps that I find myself sharing regularly. PMs who want to improve their understanding of systems design may appreciate the basic architectural concepts described.
• Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule: This is a classic Paul Graham article on understanding the difference between how creative vs. business people work. Hopefully this article will help you understand why some dread your meetings and influence your approach to working with engineers and designers.
• Machine Learning | An Introduction: This is a helpful primer on important ML concepts. The article is a good jump-off point for further study.

Analytics

Lean Analytics

Lean Analytics offers a good overview of understanding and applying key metrics. It describes the need to find the right metrics for right now, the One Metric That Matters (“OMTM”), and explores common metrics for popular tech business models, such as ecommerce, SaaS, freemium apps, and multi-sided markets.

Pirate Metrics

Dave McClure articulated a simple but powerful framework for understanding key startup metrics. Although the framework is geared to consumer-oriented businesses, its insights are valuable nonetheless. This framework ties into effective goal setting (e.g., assigning an owner of a key metric to move) and acknowledges the importance of the user and business journey going hand-in-hand.

Entrepreneurship

A product manager needs to think like an entrepreneur and business owner. How do you create value when there are infinite possibilities? Where do you even start?

A common mistake that product managers make is over-emphasizing skills in product development when they should be improving their proficiency in the problem space, business model development, and customer development (depending on the role). PMs should focus on the highest leverage activities, not just slinging features.

The Startup Owner’s Manual AND/OR The Four Steps to the Epiphany

The Startup Owner’s Manual is an incredible resource that is more of a textbook on entrepreneurship than another non-fiction business book stretching to fill 200 pages. It is incredibly information-dense and might be tough to read from cover-to-cover but is well worth the effort. Product managers who can finish, understand, and practice lessons from this book will stand out from other PMs.

The Lean Startup

The Lean Startup is considered a classic in Silicon Valley, synthesizing the principles of business model design, customer development, and agile engineering. Building on the work of Steve Blank, it advocates a revolutionary mindset and systematic approach to starting new ventures.

This book popularized the concept of the MVP, one of the most misunderstood and abused concepts in product management.

The E-Myth

A seminal book for its time, The E Myth shared many insights that have since become accepted as best practices. Although some parts may feel dated, the principles described are invaluable. Of particular note are lessons learned about the many pitfalls entrepreneurs face when first starting. Having baking skills will not equip you to run and scale a bakery. Learn to scale your business by validating your business “prototype.”

This book may be particularly useful for PMs who work for small or early-stage businesses.

Steve Blank’s Blog

This blog may not be as actively maintained these days but is a trove of empirical lessons on entrepreneurship. There are numerous concepts to dive into, including, “Get out of the building!” PMs need to fundamentally change their approach to product from inside-out to outside-in to seek customer feedback and facts. The best products are not brainstormed in a conference room and pushed onto the market, they are pulled out by customers in the field.

Leadership

High Output Management

One of the best books I’ve read on management. This classic is full of practical wisdom, such as setting effective goals, conducting productive meetings and one-on-ones, and defining roles and responsibilities. This book is a must-read for any leader.

The Captain Class

This book is entertaining and informative (even if you are not a sports fan). The book cites specific examples at the highest level of competition. The leadership qualities described have influenced my expectations of PMs, including being a player-coach. I expect PMs to constantly push intel to team mates, acting as a router of information so that their team can make the best decisions and operate at the highest level.

Leadership Strategy and Tactics

This book is written by a former Navy Seals leader and is full of valuable lessons about developing as a leader. I appreciated the themes about humility, subduing one’s ego, and the ultimate challenge of finding balance when the stakes could not be higher.

I will add more must-read books, articles, and resources for product managers in different skill areas.

Please revisit this page!