10 Books All Product Managers Should Have On Their Desk
Product Management Books & Resources
Product Managers and product leaders continually search for engaging resources to contribute to their knowledge and effectiveness. After all, who doesn’t want to be successful in their careers? To help you reach this level of success, we have recognized a mix of books from both our portfolio and many others that can help increase your product management acumen. While not all targeted for product managers, we have found these books to be accessible, helpful, and filled with tools to contribute to the success you deserve.
The Product Manager’s Desk Reference 2e by Steven Haines
The Product Manager’s Desk Reference (2e) culminates over 20 years of product management. This book is easily relatable to product managers at any stage in their career. It’s easily accessible content provides the knowledge, tools, and insight you need to establish yourself as a cutting-edge product manager who contributes measurably to your company’s success.
In this definitive product management guide, the world-renowned product management thought leader Steven Haines clearly illustrates the entire product life cycle, from beginning to end. The Product Manager’s Desk Reference (2e) is packed with an array of best practices and helpful hints that are critical to the efficient management of products.
Read This Before Our Next Meeting: How We Can Get More Done Al Pittampalli
Skim through this fast read to gain tips on how to make your limited time as a product manager the most productive. Al Pittampalli provides a solution to increase efficiency and urgency with fewer, shorter, more purposeful meetings with “The Modern Meeting Standard”. Read This Before Our Next Meeting will help bring awareness to both product managers and leaders to help make the most of your time in the office.
Managing Product Management by Steven Haines
An essential resource for product management leadership, Managing Product Management lays the groundwork for moving Product Management out of a supporting role and establishing it as a vital, strategic partner with other business functions. Be sure to check out our workshop for the managers of product managers based upon this book, Managing and Implementing Product Management.
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
Written for product managers, designers, marketers and entrepreneurs, Nir Eyal wrote an informative how-to guide for building better products. Hooked does an incredible job in explaining how product managers can include consumer psychology in product development to generate rewarding products. Most of all, we love the Book Notes that he has included on Medium and the action-inducing “Do This Now” section of each chapter.
The Product Manager’s Survival Guide v2 by Steven Haines
The first and most comprehensive book about how to get started as a product manager, The Product Manager’s Survival Guide provides best practices, practical on-the-job advice, and a step-by-step blueprint for succeeding in Product Management. Whatever your level of experience–whether you’re a novice product manager or seasoned Product Management leader–you’ll find everything you need to make consistent positive impacts on your business.
The Startup Playbook: Founder-to-Founder Advice From Two Startup Veterans by Rajat Bhargava (Author), Will Herman
More often than not, successful product managers run their product portfolio like a start-up with a strong entrepreneurial mindset. Written by Rajat Bhargava, and Will Herman, the Startup Playbook is full of advice and guidance from entrepreneurs who share both success stories and moments of utter failure. This book is filled with major lessons, tips, and advice to help product managers gain an entrepreneurial mindset and shift the product odds in their favor.
How to Wash a Chicken: Mastering the Business Presentation by Tim Calkins
As a product manager, chances are, you have been put in front of a meeting to present your roadmaps, budgets, strategic vision, and more. While this book may not directly written for Product Managers, you will find it this playbook incredibly useful to help you present with great success. As one of the top professors at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, Tim Calkins, understands how to captivate a room. He empowers readers a playbook filled with tips, tricks and processes to help you present with confidence and conviction.
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
This cult book on innovation from marketing guru and bestselling author Seth Godin, has a simple message. Be remarkable. The ‘Purple Cow’ method argues that the only way to cut the hyper-clutter of products and advertising today is to innovate something new, unique and remarkable that people just have to talk about – like a purple cow. This book will push and inspire product managers to develop remarkable, customer-centric products.
The Business Acumen Handbook by Steven Haines
The Business Acumen Handbook is written to help managers understand the pillars of their company’s business, and to operate more effectively and efficiently. This book helps guide you across the corporate terrain to gain an appreciate for the interconnectedness of all parts of the business, how to process reams of data, collaborate with others, and contribute to the strategic goals of the firm. This book provides the critical foundation of business acumen that all product managers need for success.
What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services by Anthony Ulwick
World-renowned innovation guru, Anthony Ulwick, explains the technique of outcome-driven innovation to create breakthrough products and services. What Customers Want challenges everything product managers have learned about being customer driven, to dig deeper, get more creative and gain a stronger understanding of what customers really want.
Our portfolio of product management books offers you the ability to hone your craft with just-in-time templates, examples, and guidelines. These books are the perfect companions to our product management workshops. To continue to hone your product management skills we offer 3-day public product management workshops that are available to individual product managers. For a customized team setting, we also offer a portfolio of product management workshops to help your team advance their action.