On My Shelf with Alejandra Arroyo — Product Manager at Bnext (Madrid, Spain)
About me
Little Alejandra back in Caracas, Venezuela, loved to experiment, construct things manually, and meet people. Now, I have the honor of doing these as a Product manager in the tech industry in Spain. I am stirred for product management, behavioral economics, marketing, and building a better world!
On my shelf
Tuesdays with Morrie
An Old Man, A Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson
by Mitch Albom
My opinion
I couldn’t start this section without mentioning one of my favorite books: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. Despite not being a book you would find in the “product/tech-related” section, for me this book represents the values that need to be present both in the products I am involved in and in my life. This book is a memoir that recalls a series of visits Albom made to his former sociology professor, Morrie, and the life learnings they share each Tuesday. They speak about a culture founded on love, devotion for the community, acceptance, and creating something inspired on purpose and meaning.
208 pages, Doubleday 1997
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
My opinion
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman is a smart and fascinating read. Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, analyzes how humans think and make decisions. He conveys irrationality, intuition, cognitive biases and how the human brain addresses this within two systems -system 1: fast and intuitive; and system 2: slow, analytical. As a product manager, I believe this is a stupendous book as it makes you realize people do not have an introspective view on their decision process and what they say motivates them is often not exact. Acknowledging this information will thrive us to be better observers and unpuzzle data to leverage more accurate adjudications.
512 pages, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011
Delivering Happiness
A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
by Tony Hsieh
My opinion
Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh goes in the line as well as what for me the product culture should be built from. Here you would join the journey of a Hsieh, a successful investor and entrepreneur that created tech businesses focusing on making users, the team and himself happy. This read will leave you thinking about other -kind- way of building a product.
253 pages, Grand Central Publishing 2010
How Google Works
by Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg
My opinion
How Google Works by (former Google CEO) Eric Schmidt is a book that boosts my energy. It not only reminds me of my amazing intern time at Google but also to one of the moments where I felt more creative, thanks to the work environment. This read covers the Google culture: one that promotes a climate for innovation, excellence, free-thinking, and collaboration, all key values I believe every product manager should advocate for.
304 pages, Grand Central Publishing 2014
The Mom Test
How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you
by Rob Fitzpatrick
My opinion
The Mom Test: How to talk to customers & learn if your business is a good idea when everyone is lying to you by Rob Fitzpatrick is a quick win for everyone who wants to validate an idea through a conversation. As a product manager, I am really moved by listening to users, competitors, investors, friends and family and understanding what- and why- they think, feel, and need . But it is inevitable to say there is zero bias when doing so. This short but very pragmatic book by Fitzpatrick is an eye opener on how to conduct these initial talks -and therefore improve the discovery process- for novice groundworkers.
136 pages, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2013
INSPIRED
How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
by Marty Cagan
My opinion
Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan is always a reference book product managers should read. Despite being very popular, I want to recall how much I like not only Cagan’s good advice on how to achieve product market fit, but that he opened his best seller to portrait “profiles” on real and successful product managers’ stories.
368 pages, Wiley 2017
Our series “On my shelf” features product people from all over the world who are passionate about reading and sharing their best book recommendations with the community. If you want to join the movement and share your reading list with others send us a message. Let’s get better together 📚.
