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Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams
In today's lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it's rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don't?
This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource.
In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore:
Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics
The best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company's evolution
Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders
This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource.
In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore:
Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics
The best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company's evolution
Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders
246 pages, Paperback
Published June 27, 2017
613 people are currently reading
3,416 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
January 23, 2018
I was so excited for this book, but it turned out to be an absolute chore to read. The valuable insights were few and far between, the tone was lifeless, the structure was bizarre with lots of repetition, quotations from practitioners felt randomly thrown in.
I'm lucky to live near the Pluralsight headquarters and have heard Nate Walkingshaw and other Pluralsight PMs speak about their processes. I got so much more insight from a one hour talk than from this entire book. There also is a level of passion for their work which doesn't come through at all in these pages.
It's too bad, because Product Management as a discipline is finally getting the respect it deserves. But this is not the book it deserves.
I'm lucky to live near the Pluralsight headquarters and have heard Nate Walkingshaw and other Pluralsight PMs speak about their processes. I got so much more insight from a one hour talk than from this entire book. There also is a level of passion for their work which doesn't come through at all in these pages.
It's too bad, because Product Management as a discipline is finally getting the respect it deserves. But this is not the book it deserves.
June 30, 2017
Product Leadership is the perfect companion to Marty Cagan's book Inspired (a PMs bible, read it if you haven't already). People new to product leadership will undoubtedly learn a lot from Product Leadership, and experienced product leaders will be inspired and learn a great deal as well.
August 15, 2017
Great book on product that leaves out the jargon and fine details of what that really matters in the longer run. It is more of a career companion code book that you go back to refer to again to ensure you're roughly on the right track.
September 7, 2017
What inspired me to read this book was interviews with more than 100 product managers and how they built awesome products. Unfortunately, this book didn’t live up to my expectation. More details down below but first some pros of the book.
This book is good compilation of what product management is all about. It even takes it a step further to explain product leadership and share how it’s different from product management. If one is starting out in product management, this can be a good beginning point.
Now on why I think this could have been better. First, there is nothing new in this book. If you have spent few years in product management and have read some books already (likes of Lean Startup, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Hard things about hard things) or read/watched online stuff (likes of Sam Altman series), the only thing that this book serves is to refresh some of those concepts.
Second, I felt that the writing style was too verbose, making it boring to read. Few ideas were repeated throughout the book. For example, part 2 of the book calls out how a PM is different across various organizational states, that is startup, emerging and enterprise, but there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the ways a PM would perform his job. Instead of this, exact difference in each of these would have been a better way of putting things together.
Third, the USP of this book was interviews with more than 100 Product Managers. These interview snippets spread across the book seem to be just touching the surface with no real-life examples of why they feel so and/or any practical actionable items for readers. This makes all concepts and ideas look weak and half-cooked.
Fourth, some of the concepts attributed to product leadership are true for general management. Example of these include, how to hire a team, buy vs build decisions, how to work with external partners etc.
Overall 2 out of 5 for me.
This book is good compilation of what product management is all about. It even takes it a step further to explain product leadership and share how it’s different from product management. If one is starting out in product management, this can be a good beginning point.
Now on why I think this could have been better. First, there is nothing new in this book. If you have spent few years in product management and have read some books already (likes of Lean Startup, The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Hard things about hard things) or read/watched online stuff (likes of Sam Altman series), the only thing that this book serves is to refresh some of those concepts.
Second, I felt that the writing style was too verbose, making it boring to read. Few ideas were repeated throughout the book. For example, part 2 of the book calls out how a PM is different across various organizational states, that is startup, emerging and enterprise, but there doesn’t seem to be much difference in the ways a PM would perform his job. Instead of this, exact difference in each of these would have been a better way of putting things together.
Third, the USP of this book was interviews with more than 100 Product Managers. These interview snippets spread across the book seem to be just touching the surface with no real-life examples of why they feel so and/or any practical actionable items for readers. This makes all concepts and ideas look weak and half-cooked.
Fourth, some of the concepts attributed to product leadership are true for general management. Example of these include, how to hire a team, buy vs build decisions, how to work with external partners etc.
Overall 2 out of 5 for me.
January 5, 2020
I feel the title of this book is kind of misleading - it could also be called “Product Management 101” or something like this.
It covers a lot of ground and shares very valuable insights and practices which are not only useful for product leaders, but everyone working in a product-related environment. It’s fundamental and specific, tactical and strategic. It explains desired relationships and models for product teams, either within a startup, an emerging or enterprise organisation.
I wish this book would be a mandatory read for product managers, developers and designers to better understand each other and the product development process.
It covers a lot of ground and shares very valuable insights and practices which are not only useful for product leaders, but everyone working in a product-related environment. It’s fundamental and specific, tactical and strategic. It explains desired relationships and models for product teams, either within a startup, an emerging or enterprise organisation.
I wish this book would be a mandatory read for product managers, developers and designers to better understand each other and the product development process.
August 31, 2017
This book has many valuable notes and talks! It reviewed various teams and companies and interviewed with their leaders. Another part of the book is going through the basic of product management and partially UX.
However, this book can be much better and deeper. For instance, it covers the metrics that product managers need to use in their product performance evaluation, but the details are not deep enough to give you a practical ground. This gets annoying sometimes while you reading the chapters and you feel, you just scratching the surface!
However, this book can be much better and deeper. For instance, it covers the metrics that product managers need to use in their product performance evaluation, but the details are not deep enough to give you a practical ground. This gets annoying sometimes while you reading the chapters and you feel, you just scratching the surface!
Want to read
February 23, 2018کورس مدیریت محصول. برای ایجاد بیگ پیکچر در ذهن pm
Read
December 3, 2018Didn't finish.
September 7, 2017
Amazing book on product leadership and product management. Insightful, practical tips and guidelines drawn from industry leaders.
The book genuinely inspired me to learn more about PM and seek out challenges to take it to the next level - Product Leadership!
The book genuinely inspired me to learn more about PM and seek out challenges to take it to the next level - Product Leadership!
November 11, 2017
The ABC of product management.
August 30, 2019
Really good!
Recommended to all people doing product: managers, engineers and designers. Really easy to read and concise chapters with useful and clear concepts.
Recommended to all people doing product: managers, engineers and designers. Really easy to read and concise chapters with useful and clear concepts.
May 6, 2019
Not worth reading. Very high level and not very insightful if you've worked in product management before. The book has a tendency to state the obvious (things along the lines of "having a product strategy is critical") and the pulls quotes from people to support these rather obvious statements. Not sure I learned much from this book.
August 31, 2018
There are some bad reviews of this book. I understand some of the reasons, like the constant repetition of some concepts that are quite clear to understand. But the ones related to how these concepts can be already found in other places are not relevant to me. The main issue of this book is that the title and blurb generates some expectations that are not fully covered. Many of the chapters summarize what a product manager is. The ones that focus on actual product leadership are actually descriptions of what a leader should do, regardless of whether she is a technical, project or product leader. Soft skills, who to hire, how to handle partnerships... are all treated in a way that is useful in this and other scenarios.
I would have appreciated less summarization of basic pm concepts, less repetition and more focus on how product and leadership can go together. But it's a interesting book with some good insights.
I would have appreciated less summarization of basic pm concepts, less repetition and more focus on how product and leadership can go together. But it's a interesting book with some good insights.
July 7, 2017
The mark of a successful career advice/strategy book is how many pages I've folded the corner of to come back to later and there's lots in this volume on running Digital Product teams. Wide range of interviews and examples, my only criticism would be (and this based on personal need) wanting more on working enterprise/traditional orgs.
November 3, 2020
This book not only explain the role change from “project mangament” to “product managemnet” but also layouts the role of “product leadership”. It states that not every manager has the atributes of a leader, but all leaders has all atributes of a managers. From that view the authors extremly centers a focus on customer experience from end-to-end.
But in order to deal to the high throughput of ideas, teams should connect the product vision and goals with product roadmap, not only doing feature after feature. In order to be great, the product should not be seen as a bunch of features, but something that organizes all the star arround, meaning that other subjects as part of product (the product itself), so, talking about people, process, expectation, markenting, sales, operational, politics. Everything defines the product.
It realizes a true pressure about team building and concepts that people should be empowered to delivery value to customers. It turns out the product leader should concern more about results of the others than his personal results. Individuals on high-performing task leverages the team and company results.
A deep look on qualitative results and not only the quantitive seems necessary in the "post-lean-agil world". People are to fixed on metrics but are not taking into account a more human view about of what be made.
I loved this work because has a lot experience from the authors and they also brings the vision from people inside other companies. I’m Lucky to have a printed copy of this one!
Just great...
December 29, 2018
For some reason, this book just didn't jived with me.
One is definitely the overall quality of the paperback, structure and these weird black and white low quality photos?? And other one is the quality of writing, mental models this book is trying to create and its substance. Compare to something like https://strategyzer.com/books/value-p..., which oozes character and thoughful content.
Half of Product Leadership is just absolutely basic observations on the industry, it seems more like a book for some CEO from a 00s trying to wrap their head around things, not a professional's handbook this is marketed to be. Around 40% of book's content are overviews on what's agile, waterfall, history of product marketing in the 60s, concepts like lean and usability testing. Jeez guys. Y-A-W-N!
The "meat" of the book then are basically summaries from the few business leaders. These are all pretty forgettable companies and again, trivial facts of software development. I except you guys talk to Apple, 37Signals, Uber, Tesla.... Where's that Elon Musk interview?
This is a waste of time for A LOT of money. Steer away.
One is definitely the overall quality of the paperback, structure and these weird black and white low quality photos?? And other one is the quality of writing, mental models this book is trying to create and its substance. Compare to something like https://strategyzer.com/books/value-p..., which oozes character and thoughful content.
Half of Product Leadership is just absolutely basic observations on the industry, it seems more like a book for some CEO from a 00s trying to wrap their head around things, not a professional's handbook this is marketed to be. Around 40% of book's content are overviews on what's agile, waterfall, history of product marketing in the 60s, concepts like lean and usability testing. Jeez guys. Y-A-W-N!
The "meat" of the book then are basically summaries from the few business leaders. These are all pretty forgettable companies and again, trivial facts of software development. I except you guys talk to Apple, 37Signals, Uber, Tesla.... Where's that Elon Musk interview?
This is a waste of time for A LOT of money. Steer away.
January 31, 2020
I enjoyed to explore the experience from nearly 100 PMs from various famous companies like Intercom, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Adobe, etc. However, it didn’t elaborate a deep detail information about product development itself. As a new player in product management, I discover basic things from it. But after read Goodreader’s reviews, I would like to say that if you have read some of books about product management/ product leadership/ product development or joined some course about this field, then you will find that this book was bored.
The book was easy to follow and well-structured combination in explaining the product leadership. In general, it talked about an explanation of product leadership itself, discovering a concept of product journey and team; creating the matrix measurement of successful product; and learning the different approaches as of product leaders in startup, well-known company and enterprise.
The following paragraph is a summarize of this book from my perspective. Here some points that I noted:
Starting with the definition of a product leadership and management. The product leadership and the product management are not the same thing, but they are inextricably linked. The product leadership discovers and decides what kind of products that the team should build based on costumers or markets need, whether the products are valuable, usable and feasible for users. The product management, however is the intersection between business, UX (user experiences), and technologies. A product manager must be experienced in at least one of them when running the development process of products. When developing the products, understanding the problems are the key. We have to really know what kind of problems that we want to solve or what customers really need from our products.
In order to create successful products, it is important to consider a product principle, a vision, a strategy and a roadmap. The product principle will be a guide of every decision in the team. The sample principle can be like “ship to learn” which mean shipping as fast as possible as we can learn from users. Different with the product vision which is a big picture of where our products are going to deliver and for whom we create them. It can be long term period or timeless. From it, we can take a red line to create the product strategy. In the other hand, the product strategy could be a value proposition, feature area, and business goal. Moreover, the product strategy will be better if it is only a year or less. Next is the product roadmap. The product roadmap is a plan for executing the strategy as the exactly action items for each team members in the product development. The time period of road map is the shorter one, maybe around six months. Then lastly, the combination of product principle, the vision, the strategy and the roadmap will drive us to actual releases.
Releasing the product to customer is not an individual work. Behind every great product, there is a great team working together in the same page from a starting point to the end point of the product roadmap. Furthermore, developing a product is not only about a product itself, but also developing the trust between all of the team members. The team may consist of product leaders or managers, designers, engineers, marketing team, and of course users. Removing one of them cause the output different.
The next thing is about how to measure whether the product we create is success or not. At the first steps, a product leader has to define what kind of matrix to measure the success. This part depend of the problems to be solve. The most common samples can be in statistical approaches such as DAU (daily active users), UU (user usage), NPS (net promoter score), or costumer satisfaction survey. If it is related to UX, we can put big data and design in the same page of measurement.
The last topic about different types of product leader based on the scope and environment of companies such as in the startup, emerging organization and enterprise:
The Startup: The product leader must be evolving as quickly as possible because in the early stage of startup, the strategy or plan tend to be ignored. Moreover, it is hard to plan the future. The team members in the startup are small and sometimes feel the ambiguity of their roles. They spent most of the time for testing new ideas, collecting users feedback otherwise they just shipping and learning. They mostly just ask forgiveness instead of permission in the organization. Another thing to add is a speed. The speed is everything because funding is short. Maybe they only have one years or less for show their investor, so there is no time for overthinking.
The Emerging: When the company grows, the number of team will grow as well. Then it will become more challenging part of emerging organization to manage the team. The product leaders need to train new employee about product development process. The product leaders are not only responsible for managing things but also people. The product leader also need to prove the case for why the company need to create the features/products. The challenge is the balancing of knowledge of business need, costumer feedback and data.
Enterprise Organization: Innovation is the key of enterprise especially when they have established product. The harder part is to deliver values to customers while growing new market and focusing to the most interesting costumer segment. One of the important skills for product leader in enterprise is a communication. It is not only to their teams but also to high level people, marketing people and sales teams.
These all that I could write in summarizing the “Product Leadership”. It is my first review and summarize the book I have read. Our understanding might be different, so if you want to know more, I encourage you to read it by yourself.
Thank you
The book was easy to follow and well-structured combination in explaining the product leadership. In general, it talked about an explanation of product leadership itself, discovering a concept of product journey and team; creating the matrix measurement of successful product; and learning the different approaches as of product leaders in startup, well-known company and enterprise.
The following paragraph is a summarize of this book from my perspective. Here some points that I noted:
Starting with the definition of a product leadership and management. The product leadership and the product management are not the same thing, but they are inextricably linked. The product leadership discovers and decides what kind of products that the team should build based on costumers or markets need, whether the products are valuable, usable and feasible for users. The product management, however is the intersection between business, UX (user experiences), and technologies. A product manager must be experienced in at least one of them when running the development process of products. When developing the products, understanding the problems are the key. We have to really know what kind of problems that we want to solve or what customers really need from our products.
In order to create successful products, it is important to consider a product principle, a vision, a strategy and a roadmap. The product principle will be a guide of every decision in the team. The sample principle can be like “ship to learn” which mean shipping as fast as possible as we can learn from users. Different with the product vision which is a big picture of where our products are going to deliver and for whom we create them. It can be long term period or timeless. From it, we can take a red line to create the product strategy. In the other hand, the product strategy could be a value proposition, feature area, and business goal. Moreover, the product strategy will be better if it is only a year or less. Next is the product roadmap. The product roadmap is a plan for executing the strategy as the exactly action items for each team members in the product development. The time period of road map is the shorter one, maybe around six months. Then lastly, the combination of product principle, the vision, the strategy and the roadmap will drive us to actual releases.
Releasing the product to customer is not an individual work. Behind every great product, there is a great team working together in the same page from a starting point to the end point of the product roadmap. Furthermore, developing a product is not only about a product itself, but also developing the trust between all of the team members. The team may consist of product leaders or managers, designers, engineers, marketing team, and of course users. Removing one of them cause the output different.
The next thing is about how to measure whether the product we create is success or not. At the first steps, a product leader has to define what kind of matrix to measure the success. This part depend of the problems to be solve. The most common samples can be in statistical approaches such as DAU (daily active users), UU (user usage), NPS (net promoter score), or costumer satisfaction survey. If it is related to UX, we can put big data and design in the same page of measurement.
The last topic about different types of product leader based on the scope and environment of companies such as in the startup, emerging organization and enterprise:
The Startup: The product leader must be evolving as quickly as possible because in the early stage of startup, the strategy or plan tend to be ignored. Moreover, it is hard to plan the future. The team members in the startup are small and sometimes feel the ambiguity of their roles. They spent most of the time for testing new ideas, collecting users feedback otherwise they just shipping and learning. They mostly just ask forgiveness instead of permission in the organization. Another thing to add is a speed. The speed is everything because funding is short. Maybe they only have one years or less for show their investor, so there is no time for overthinking.
The Emerging: When the company grows, the number of team will grow as well. Then it will become more challenging part of emerging organization to manage the team. The product leaders need to train new employee about product development process. The product leaders are not only responsible for managing things but also people. The product leader also need to prove the case for why the company need to create the features/products. The challenge is the balancing of knowledge of business need, costumer feedback and data.
Enterprise Organization: Innovation is the key of enterprise especially when they have established product. The harder part is to deliver values to customers while growing new market and focusing to the most interesting costumer segment. One of the important skills for product leader in enterprise is a communication. It is not only to their teams but also to high level people, marketing people and sales teams.
These all that I could write in summarizing the “Product Leadership”. It is my first review and summarize the book I have read. Our understanding might be different, so if you want to know more, I encourage you to read it by yourself.
Thank you
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2019
Wonderful overview of what it means to build software products and teams.
First key point: the best product leaders tell a story about the product in the context of a customer’s success.
Second key point: "Product Leads" are leaders and not just managers.
I ❤️ this! "Dream in years; plan in months; evaluate in weeks; ship daily." —DJ Patil
Product leaders live at the intersection of business, technology, and UX/design. Deep experience in at least one of these, passionate about all three, and conversant with practitioners of all three. As people-first communicators, they get people to rally behind a vision, even without formal authority.
First key point: the best product leaders tell a story about the product in the context of a customer’s success.
Second key point: "Product Leads" are leaders and not just managers.
Product Lead’s job is not to constantly manage or direct, but lead the team by clearly articulating the goals. They provide context (via customers, market landscape).
I ❤️ this! "Dream in years; plan in months; evaluate in weeks; ship daily." —DJ Patil
Product leaders live at the intersection of business, technology, and UX/design. Deep experience in at least one of these, passionate about all three, and conversant with practitioners of all three. As people-first communicators, they get people to rally behind a vision, even without formal authority.
July 28, 2017
Unfortunately this book didn’t offer any interesting insights to me. The content is focused on the absolute basics of product management and general leadership. There’s a lot of repetition. Many of the quotes by product leaders aren’t very valuable, as they too are focused on the very basics of product leadership.
I didn’t find interesting real world examples and anecdotes that I had hoped for. The book describes product leadership in a very abstract way. That results in abstract and shallow recommendations.
The premise of this book was highly interesting, but the content is disappointing.
I didn’t find interesting real world examples and anecdotes that I had hoped for. The book describes product leadership in a very abstract way. That results in abstract and shallow recommendations.
The premise of this book was highly interesting, but the content is disappointing.
April 19, 2019
Good to start with, although raw around the edges — as the discipline itself
It is great to see one of the first, if not the first, books on Product Leadership! Being certainly useful and extensive, it also feels a bit raw and unprocessed, and quite a difficult read. It could benefit from more drive and positivity, better organisation and less repetition.
It is great to see one of the first, if not the first, books on Product Leadership! Being certainly useful and extensive, it also feels a bit raw and unprocessed, and quite a difficult read. It could benefit from more drive and positivity, better organisation and less repetition.
July 13, 2017
if you have been in product leadership for a while it does not add so many new ideas lr concepts. I have the feeling that if I were new to the job it may have been more valuable
April 19, 2018
Good for first time PMs. Lot of ideas about how to build products. As for me, I did not learn anything significant/new.
November 11, 2019
In my efforts to grow into my professional role as Product Manager, I jump into some O’Reilley publications, which seem to be the contemporary textbook-like gold standard of the practice, at least in the tech world.
Product Management is described as sitting at the center of UX, tech, and business. Product managers need to lasso everything together to meet release targets, satisfy customers, and contribute to overall business objectives and revenue streams.
One of the most valuable sections was about strategy, vision, and roadmap, which is an area that a lot of tech-oriented product managers seem to stumble at, being more construction-oriented. The vision, succinctly put is said to have these elements:
—A timeless description of what value the organization aims to deliver
—A vision disconnected from specific technology or trends
—Separate documents to describe the user goals and the product goals
—A roadmap of what the big themes or stages of product delivery will be
—Connections between the stages of delivery and the value being delivered
I'm still trying to figure out if this is a proper checklist for executing product management duties, or if these are just things to "keep in mind for now."
I suppose that takes me to the next useful section, about metrics and success criteria. One key insight was that " If none of your current metrics align as closely as you would like to the overall goals you are working toward, this could be a critical signal that you need to change what you are measuring and how you are measuring it. "
The most relevant part of the book for my situation was the section about product leadership in the "Emerging Organization," where the scrappy do-it-all McGyvers of product development needs to transition from a "Technical Master" to a "People Leader."
This seems to require not only maturity on the part of the company but also on the part of the manager. I certainly fill the pullback into "let's make stuff now," at the expense of the cat herding that is inherent to product organization which faces a variety of stakeholders.
The final concept that stuck with me was about moving from product "management" to full "leadership." I'm not quite sure what that all means in practice, but I think I like the idea of it. It still underscores the discomfort I find between "leadership" being all about "talking" and not "doing." "Talk is cheap," right? Maybe not. The HPPO (Highest paid person’s opinion) tends to be the most valuable, for good or for ill.
Product Management is described as sitting at the center of UX, tech, and business. Product managers need to lasso everything together to meet release targets, satisfy customers, and contribute to overall business objectives and revenue streams.
One of the most valuable sections was about strategy, vision, and roadmap, which is an area that a lot of tech-oriented product managers seem to stumble at, being more construction-oriented. The vision, succinctly put is said to have these elements:
—A timeless description of what value the organization aims to deliver
—A vision disconnected from specific technology or trends
—Separate documents to describe the user goals and the product goals
—A roadmap of what the big themes or stages of product delivery will be
—Connections between the stages of delivery and the value being delivered
I'm still trying to figure out if this is a proper checklist for executing product management duties, or if these are just things to "keep in mind for now."
I suppose that takes me to the next useful section, about metrics and success criteria. One key insight was that " If none of your current metrics align as closely as you would like to the overall goals you are working toward, this could be a critical signal that you need to change what you are measuring and how you are measuring it. "
The most relevant part of the book for my situation was the section about product leadership in the "Emerging Organization," where the scrappy do-it-all McGyvers of product development needs to transition from a "Technical Master" to a "People Leader."
This seems to require not only maturity on the part of the company but also on the part of the manager. I certainly fill the pullback into "let's make stuff now," at the expense of the cat herding that is inherent to product organization which faces a variety of stakeholders.
The final concept that stuck with me was about moving from product "management" to full "leadership." I'm not quite sure what that all means in practice, but I think I like the idea of it. It still underscores the discomfort I find between "leadership" being all about "talking" and not "doing." "Talk is cheap," right? Maybe not. The HPPO (Highest paid person’s opinion) tends to be the most valuable, for good or for ill.
March 12, 2020
Going to have to agree with the naysayers on this one.
I wanted to like this book a lot. Unfortunately, it exists solely as an exercise in confirmation bias. If you are a product manager, then most of this will or should seem like second nature to you. If you are not a product manager, then there is no discernible content to educate you on what being a product manager actually means.
Sound too harsh? Here's a passage I encountered while I was speed-reading to the end:
"Great product management 'is about change, and change demands leadership,' says A____'s M___ G____. 'Therefore, today's product managers and designers must be leaders. Go from being producers of artifacts to champions of a connected society. The best ideas and solutions come from multidisciplinary teams where everyone feels like they contributed to the process. Everyone is creative. Make everyone part of the creative process.'"
There is absolutely nothing falsifiable about any of that. By what criterion am I a 'champion of a connected society?' How do I know if I have a team where everyone feels like s/he contributed to the process? I've worked on teams where people's creative ideas are terrible (especially mine.) How do we determine whether we're involved in a giant exercise in self-gratification? Again, there's no actual content to determine any of that, just vague, self-referential pleasantries.
So that this seems more like constructive criticism and not internet-inspired trashing, I think this book should be viewed as a product. Who are the customers? People who are aspiring product managers? People who are existing product managers? If so, in what industry? Different industries have different expectations about what product management entails. This book seems like a well-intentioned attempt to address all audiences simultaneously, and ends up saying little of value to any of them. As other reviewers have mentioned, the authors of this book have interviewed a ton of people to write this book. Maybe they can't say anything candid, but 99% of them only discuss vague generalities (one pleasant exception is Mike Brown on page 109, who provides an excellent specific example of focusing on the wrong problem the the cost of doing so.)
I'd love to read the mirror inverse of this book: where the interviewees only recounted specific anecdotes of their successes and failures, and no one tried to distill anything into abstract concepts. Then I think I would get a lot of valuable case-studies about what it means to make product-based decisions.
I wanted to like this book a lot. Unfortunately, it exists solely as an exercise in confirmation bias. If you are a product manager, then most of this will or should seem like second nature to you. If you are not a product manager, then there is no discernible content to educate you on what being a product manager actually means.
Sound too harsh? Here's a passage I encountered while I was speed-reading to the end:
"Great product management 'is about change, and change demands leadership,' says A____'s M___ G____. 'Therefore, today's product managers and designers must be leaders. Go from being producers of artifacts to champions of a connected society. The best ideas and solutions come from multidisciplinary teams where everyone feels like they contributed to the process. Everyone is creative. Make everyone part of the creative process.'"
There is absolutely nothing falsifiable about any of that. By what criterion am I a 'champion of a connected society?' How do I know if I have a team where everyone feels like s/he contributed to the process? I've worked on teams where people's creative ideas are terrible (especially mine.) How do we determine whether we're involved in a giant exercise in self-gratification? Again, there's no actual content to determine any of that, just vague, self-referential pleasantries.
So that this seems more like constructive criticism and not internet-inspired trashing, I think this book should be viewed as a product. Who are the customers? People who are aspiring product managers? People who are existing product managers? If so, in what industry? Different industries have different expectations about what product management entails. This book seems like a well-intentioned attempt to address all audiences simultaneously, and ends up saying little of value to any of them. As other reviewers have mentioned, the authors of this book have interviewed a ton of people to write this book. Maybe they can't say anything candid, but 99% of them only discuss vague generalities (one pleasant exception is Mike Brown on page 109, who provides an excellent specific example of focusing on the wrong problem the the cost of doing so.)
I'd love to read the mirror inverse of this book: where the interviewees only recounted specific anecdotes of their successes and failures, and no one tried to distill anything into abstract concepts. Then I think I would get a lot of valuable case-studies about what it means to make product-based decisions.
September 20, 2018
A good book that sums up what matters most in product leadership. Contrary to some beliefs, hard skills are not at the top of the list. The most critical attributes of a product leader are:
– Highly Collaborative: They know how to work effectively with others to move the company's missions forward. Their high level of empathy makes them great at understanding what motivates others and tapping into that to align everyone on the mission at hand.
– Solid Communicator: Leaders, especially product leaders, need to be able to simplify and narrate stories. The business plan, the product vision, the company positioning, etc, are at the end of the day narratives that need to be told and evangelized. Leaders have to be able to do that effectively.
– Inspiringly Motivator: Seeing beyond the existing product is one of every single leader's responsibilities. To get people to see that vision, a motivation and inspiration are key.
– High Integrity: Goes without saying. Integrity is everything, leader or not.
– Highly Collaborative: They know how to work effectively with others to move the company's missions forward. Their high level of empathy makes them great at understanding what motivates others and tapping into that to align everyone on the mission at hand.
– Solid Communicator: Leaders, especially product leaders, need to be able to simplify and narrate stories. The business plan, the product vision, the company positioning, etc, are at the end of the day narratives that need to be told and evangelized. Leaders have to be able to do that effectively.
– Inspiringly Motivator: Seeing beyond the existing product is one of every single leader's responsibilities. To get people to see that vision, a motivation and inspiration are key.
– High Integrity: Goes without saying. Integrity is everything, leader or not.
November 11, 2019
Interesting but.... The insights from leaders in the field are great but not greatly detailed. The index of sources is amazing; a huge rabbit hole to lose yourself down. If you are an aspiring product person it is worth reading but if you want practical guidance there are other books eg "Inspired" by Marty Cagan I reviewed a few weeks ago.
Covers 3 main areas...
How to create sucessfull teams
How to guide your team from startup to enterprise
Strategies and tactics for working with everyone else outside of the core team.
“This book is not a read-once handbook to be followed to the letter. Neither is it a step-by-step guide on how to be a product manager. It’s a framework for product leaders to give their challenges some guardrails and avoid the mistakes made by the many that have come before.”
Covers 3 main areas...
How to create sucessfull teams
How to guide your team from startup to enterprise
Strategies and tactics for working with everyone else outside of the core team.
“This book is not a read-once handbook to be followed to the letter. Neither is it a step-by-step guide on how to be a product manager. It’s a framework for product leaders to give their challenges some guardrails and avoid the mistakes made by the many that have come before.”
October 12, 2018
I identify myself about leadership not being "officially recognized as part of the job" but being necessary.
One idea jumps from the introduction:
I always felt somewhat uncomfortable in an organization, being either "a programmer" or "a lead developer" just because of that.
My mindset is people who do the hard work should deserve the reward, so why is that the "leader" position is higher than the "doer"?
I felt uncomfortable giving someone else some work to do, and because of that, I felt engaged in preparing someone else's work, then reviewing carefully, but then where was my value? Was I an extension of someone else's core work?
One idea jumps from the introduction:
Ultimately, the job of the manager or leader is to get results through other people.
I always felt somewhat uncomfortable in an organization, being either "a programmer" or "a lead developer" just because of that.
My mindset is people who do the hard work should deserve the reward, so why is that the "leader" position is higher than the "doer"?
I felt uncomfortable giving someone else some work to do, and because of that, I felt engaged in preparing someone else's work, then reviewing carefully, but then where was my value? Was I an extension of someone else's core work?
June 20, 2019
I got this book thinking I was going to know more about how to build top-notch products, but instead I got an eye opener story about leadership, healthy work environments and how these elements create the foundation to deliver premium solutions. And that of course applies to every single department within a company, but here -when you have to influence without any power- recruitment, training and "attention to the person behind the employee" are critical to create cohesive, committed and passionate teams.
A great reading on pushing the business boundaries while keeping and nurturing healthy, transparent and safe work spaces.
At the end, great products come from great people.
A great reading on pushing the business boundaries while keeping and nurturing healthy, transparent and safe work spaces.
At the end, great products come from great people.
December 30, 2022
Verbose without a lot of substance. The book mentions interviewing over 100 product managers, but they’re really just tidbit quotes that are sporadically sprinkled throughout the book. For someone entirely new to the PM role, the book might be somewhat useful — as it does describe a brief history of how the role emerged, the importance of communication with different stakeholders and business functions, the importance of product vision and aligning the team with that vision — but I still would not recommend it as there are better alternative resources that accomplishes the same thing more succinctly. Did not finish
January 13, 2019
Surprisingly, there are still not many books on the important no-longer-burgeoning field of Product Management. I’ve previously reviewed the popular Marty Cagan book “Inspired”, which is a decent “Product Management 101” introduction to the field. Product Leadership is a very solid “PM 201” level course, this time focusing much more on the “management” aspect than the tactics of product development. A lot of the content in this short book is interviews with product managers about their experiences, primarily team management and cross-department collaboration.
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