On My Shelf with Katharina Friesen — Group Product Manager at Personio (Munich)
About
Group Product Manager who has spent quite a few years leading product development, using different methods, and who loves operating at the core of a product organization. Interested both in product methods and leading teams, helping people grow and develop themselves, creating products that will change the world in a positive way while always focussing on what matters the most — the user.
On my shelf
Never Split the Difference
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
by Chris Voss
My opinion
As a Product Manager, you are not only negotiating when it comes to your salary or promotion. Being a Product Manager means often to find a compromise between what you think should be done, technology, design, customer success and often the upper management. But sometimes the way to go is not a compromise. This book helped me a lot to increase my pitching methods and negotiating skills for private and business cases in a very simple way.
288 pages, Harper Business 2016
I’m Afraid Debbie From Marketing Has Left for the Day
How to Use Behavioural Design to Create Change in the Real World
by Morten Münster
My opinion
Working in an agile environment and in a fast-growing startup, I thought I am doing well in change management, setting OKRs and also motivating my team. But this book helps to also increase your ability to manage unexpected outcomes in case something turns out completely differently than planned. It comes with a lot of practical examples and is written in a humorous way.
269 pages, Gyldendal Business 2019
Surrounded by Idiots
by Thomas Erikson
My opinion
Being the interface between almost every department in an organization puts you into the position to deal with a lot of different people on a daily base. I really liked this book unlike many other communication books as this one goes into the detail to help you identify different personality types using examples, their behaviour in different situations, how to deal with them, manage them and communicate with them in an effective and suitable way for that specific type. It gives excellent insights into how each personality type thinks and what triggers them to react in a certain way. Especially for leadership, this is crucial knowledge.
304 pages, St. Martin’s Essentials 2019
When Coffee and Kale Compete
by Alan Klement
My opinion
At first glance Job Stories and the JTBD framework seem very easy to understand. While reading this book I had a lot of eye-opening moments which not only helped me to write more tangible and more emotional job stories or communicate user needs to my team better but also to really understand what my user want to achieve and how I can help them better to do so.
229 pages, NYC Press 2018
The PM Library series “On my shelf” features Product Leaders from all over the world who are passionate about reading and sharing with the community. If you want to join the movement and share your reading list with others send us a message or fill out the following form. Let’s get better together 📚.
