Tier ranking Product Management books

The good, the bad, and the ugly...

We recently relaunched our Product Guild, which had been on hiatus whilst our entire Product team was in a ‘red phase’ of delivery. After a lot of hard work, and some very exciting new releases, we’ve got a bit of time to reflect and come back together as a team, to discuss our Product craft and raise our heads above the day-to-day. And, what better way to kick off the new Guild than to listen to me rant and rave about the vast selection of Product books available for your reading pleasure. There’s an enormous, overwhelming selection of books around to help you develop as a Product person, and some of the best aren’t even specifically in the Product domain - so here’s a review of my favourites to help guide you if you’re just starting out, or looking for some new inspiration.

If you’re a book person who spends time on the internet, like me, you’ve probably come across the Tier List format which I’ve used to categorise my books. I’ve given it a bit of a Product twist, using MoSCoW to group my books into Must Read, Should Read, Could Read and Wouldn’t Read:

So, let’s jump into the Ms!

Must Read

My first ‘top pick’ for Product Managers is ‘How to Measure Anything’. I came across this book during a very early product training course I was lucky enough to attend, and we spent a really insightful session discussing how to find the smallest amount of data required to de-risk a decision, or prove an assumption. I find that a lot of product teams want to wait until they have ‘perfect’ data to make a decision, or to feel that the data available to them is inadequate in some way, and they end up unable to move forwards towards their outcomes. This book will teach you wonderful techniques for measuring things you didn’t think you could validate, such as the Rule of Five, which states that if you take 5 random data points from a population, there’s a 93% chance that the median will lie between the smallest and largest values. This is a great book for PMs looking to build the speed and confidence of their decision-making.

Next on the Must Read pile is ‘The Mom Test’, a short book which is perfect for anyone who wants to learn more about UX research, understanding customers better, or just needs a refresher on seeing things from the customer’s perspective. It will teach you integral skills and habits which a great PM needs, give you guidance on the right types of questions to ask in interviews, and will make you feel humbled when you realise how nice people are willing to be about your product to your face, whilst secretly thinking your idea is rubbish!

I’ve discussed ‘Sources of Power’ before on my blog, and it absolutely makes the Must Read list. It’s not a book from the tech world, but gives an amazing insight into how people make decisions in high-pressure situations, based on detailed, narrative studies from people operating in emergency situations, where you can’t always take the time to make a pro and con list. I’ve learned so much about what ‘product intuition’ means from this book - and next time you ‘just know’ what the right answer is, you can tell people that you’re using a ‘recognition-primed decision model’.

‘Time to Think’ has also made an appearance on my blog before, in the context of running a new type of retrospective. This is a great book for learning active listening techniques, which are crucial for managing stakeholder relationships, getting the best out of a group of people in a workshop, and being attentive to your customers during interviews and feedback sessions. ‘Future Ethics’ is another book I’ve discussed before, which sits slightly outside what you’d normally read in the tech sector. This philosophy book is crucial reading for anyone who is inflicting experiences they have designed on any users, as it gives brilliant insight on how your product decisions shape people’s experiences and the impact they have on people’s lives.

Finally, two books that you might have come across: ‘Never Split the Difference’ and ‘Start With Why’. ‘Never Split the Difference’ will teach you some excellent negotiating techniques, including how a hard-sounding ‘no’ can often be a more fruitful foundation than a soft, disengaged ‘yes’. ‘Start With Why’ is a classic for getting started with product strategy, creating a clear vision and bringing your team together around it - and, if you’re not a fan of reading, you can watch the handy TED talk version.

Should Read

Another UX classic, ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ is a fantastic primer in UX principles, which you can summarise by saying - if the user has to think about this, I’ve done something wrong. It’s perhaps a little out of date with some of the web usability examples, but still a really solid choice. ‘Storytelling with Data’ is a great follow-up read to ‘How to Measure Anything’, if you’re a really data-focused PM. It has some excellent insights into how to make your charts as readable as possible, focusing attention on the most important information only. If you have an important stakeholder presentation coming up, it’s an excellent reference.

‘Inspired’ is a product classic and makes the list for a reason; it’s probably the first book you ended up reading as a product manager. It’s not an M for me for two reasons: firstly, because most people have already come across it, and secondly, whilst the content is excellent, it was a little too focused on organisational structure to be really useful to me in my early career. The rest of the SVPG blog is always worth a read.

Two other non-technical books finish off the S-tier list. ‘Thinking Fast and Slow’ is another great book on decision-making, and will help you identify moments when you are using quick, intuitive System 1 decisions, when methodical, slower-paced System 2 thinking might serve you better. ‘Privacy is Power’ is another philosophy book, this time with a focus on how companies collect, use and exploit customer data. It’s well worth reading, as it will make you more responsible with the data you choose to collect on your customers, but, fair warning, it may make you afraid to go on the internet ever again.

Could Read

‘Sprint’ is the first entry on my Could Read list. It’s not here because I didn’t enjoy it - it’s a fantastic book, with lots of excellent workshop structures and guidance for quick, effective prototyping and validation. It’s here because I’ve read it so many times, and I’ve never been given the budget for a full 5-day design sprint; the best I’ve got is 2 days, and even that was for a large, multi-disciplinary initiative with a multi-million ARR tag. However, it’s a super useful book to have for reference and dip in and out of.

‘The Lean Startup’ and ‘Zero to One’ were two of the earliest books I read in my product career. They have some solid foundations and principles, including sharing your ideas early, and iterating based on quick feedback. However, I’ve never worked significantly in a start-up small enough to make these books really critical, or even as a PM in the Innovation space. My sweet spot is scale-ups, with a focus on product growth and platform development. If you’re in a different product space from me, these may well be higher up your list.

I read ‘The Anatomy of Peace’, ‘Radical Candor’ and ‘And the Next Question Is’ on recommendations from coaches I follow. I enjoyed them all; ‘The Anatomy of Peace’ has a wonderful story about conflict resolution, but it dragged a little for me, and I think there are better books out there to help guide you on stakeholder management. Similarly, ‘Radical Candor’ will give you great guidance if you’ve ever found yourself shying away from giving much-needed direct feedback, but it’s a little more relevant for line managers than product managers. ‘And the Next Question Is’ is a useful read, but as it is primarily a list of well-formed, open-ended questions, it’s better as a reference book.

Finally, ‘Weapons of Math Destruction’ has some similarities with ‘Privacy is Power’, in that it discusses the unethical use of personal data to drive black-box algorithmic decision-making, which is often completely invisible to the people it affects. It gives sobering, insightful examples from the insurance, healthcare and justice systems, and it gave me a new appreciation for working in a regulated industry. However, it’s more of an interesting side-read than a critical piece for PMs to pick up.

Wouldn’t Read

And finally, the Wouldn’t Read picks. Remember, this is my opinion only - your mileage may vary!

I re-read ‘Empowered’ last year for a workplace training course and, dear reader, I did not finish it. The short sentences and paragraphs made me feel like I was reading the Daily Mail, and didn’t get deep enough into interrogating the concepts to be engaging. The training we did based on the concepts was very interesting, but for me, this book falls into the classic sequel trap of fleshing out something that could have been a good blog post.

‘Build’ was another big disappointment for me; the author has an incredible track record and I was excited to read about his principles and thought processes. Sadly, I was treated to repetitive read all about how wonderful and amazing he is and how fantastic his life is, and I didn’t learn as much as I was hoping to.

Finally, ‘Product-led Growth’ and it’s sad cousin ‘Product-led Onboarding’ should really be my bibles, being in the growth space. Unfortunately, they are boring, re-treading old strategies that have been discussed much more effectively in blog articles. Read Elena Verna or your other favourite growth blogger instead.

Upcoming Reads

Believe it or not, I haven’t read everything, and I got some great recommendations from my team in our Guild session which are on my list:

• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy

• Impact-First Product Teams - we’re looking forward to having the author, Matt LeMay, attend an upcoming session to discuss this book with our team!

• Blue Ocean Strategy

• The Cold Start Problem

• Crossing the Chasm

What else would you recommend for new or developing product managers to read? Let me know in the comments!