5 (rather unusual) Product Book Recommendations

January 25, 2017 in Product

The How to Web crew asked me to recommend 5 product books that would help novices step up their product skills. My proposals are captured in the video below:

If you prefer text and links here there are:

1. Inspired by Marty Cagan

I started with a classic product book. Inspired is one of those books that I would expect all product managers to read. Cagan is a one of the most respected product guys, mainly because he was managing products (at companies like HP and ebay) well before product management became a thing. Read this book if you are thinking to get a job in this field and want to start with core concepts, like the difference between product and project management.

2. Value Proposition Design by the Strategyzer Group

This is the sequel to the famous "Business Model Generation". It is a very colourful book with more pictures than words. But it provides a system that would help a product owner to identify the needs of the customers and to build a product that would satisfy these needs. Pretty basic but some of the topics are quite deep and the book offers a good list of checkboxes for any product manager to follow. Did I mention it has pretty pictures? Yeah ... if you consider getting the Kindle version I would advise against it.

3. The Cucumber Book by Matt Wynne

This is development book focused on writing automated tests in Rails. From this point of view, 80% of the book can be ignored by a product focused reader. However, the first part was transformative for me as it forced me to describe product functionality in terms of user behaviour not by its interface. It will not get you to the level of describing the jobs of the product, but it is definitely a step in that direction.

4. Creativity Inc by Ed Catmull

This is not your typical product management book, but Creativity Inc is a remarkable book non-the-less. It deals with the culture that enables a company like Pixar to make hit after hit. If you worked in bringing products to market then you should now how complicated it is to get the number of slam-dunks that Pixar got. This book is giving you the recipe for the secret sauce. It may not work for your company or you may not be in a position to dramatically influence the culture but at least you will know what it takes to get to that level.

5. Masters of Doom by David Kushner

Now this is a weird recommendation. Before you close the tab give me some time to explain. Yes, this is the book about the making of Doom, that game where you run around with a gun and shoot monsters. But that game revolutionised gaming and it is one of the most successful products in the history of software. The book explores the the dynamic of the team in great detail thus giving you backstage access to the creation of the game. It's an entertaining book that should get you pumped and ready to go.

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The Problem with Strategic Initiatives

June 15, 2016 in Product

Most strategic initiatives are trying to solve (perceived) company problems. And that’s the problem right here. Company problems (usually fueled by paranoia) are NOT customer problems. This lack of alignment is the fundamental strategical error that leads to all sort of tactical blunders. The root cause is the fear of missing out. It is caused or accentuated by managers leading by looking in the rear mirror and getting freaked out by competitors moves or new tech trends.

The Product Manager: Between the Vitruvian Man & the Manbearpig

May 22, 2016 in Product

These popular “definitions” of Product Management can make us (product managers) feel nothing less than incarnations of the Vitruvian man. In a business world full of Dilbert characters we are nothing less than a representation of the perfect, well balanced biz man. Heck, we are like Linus Torvalds, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos combined. We rock!

In the real world however, things could not be further from the Messiah-Like figure all these articles can led us to believe.

Product manager’s guide to impulse buying

March 02, 2016 in Product

Most of the time we buy products we do it based on their appeal. We rarely ask about how good do they fit our daily lives.

The marketers behind most products wanna sell to you the idea of a better you. Buy these Nike shoes and you will be fit. Buy Microsoft Office and your productivity will soar. We seem to believe that our lack of fitness or productivity comes from a lack of better tools.

People building products may know about the jobs-to-be-done framework. In a nutshell the theory is people are deploying your products to get certain jobs done. This framework can easily be applied to making smarter purchases.

Understanding Product Debt: How to avoid the mistake all product people make

April 19, 2015 in Product

Thanks to Ward Cunningham, the metaphor technical debt is quite a well-understood concept. It means you are borrowing time by writing messy code, not worrying about scaling, documentation or other items required for a quality release. You go quick and dirty to release early but all that bad code will incur debt. And there will be a time when you need to pay that debt back - with interest.

I think the parallel with the product design world is a welcome addition. I frequently find myself using the term product debt but I also get the sense that very few people know what I am talking about. Like technical debt, product debt is inquired when you make short term product decision with an expensive long term consequence.

Face2face Customers Interviews

April 09, 2015 in Product

Over the years, I had numerous calls with clients or potential customers over Skype. I went with a remote solution mostly because of distance. That was important as most of the people I wanted to talk to were not nearby. Heck, they were not even in the same country as me. Skype was simple, it saved me time and money.

I am starting to appreciate real-life customer interviews. I am doing them more and more and I believe the level of insight you can gain from a face2face discussion is fundamentally better. Why is that?

These tips will make you a better product guy

July 07, 2014 in Product

Leaving the click-bait title aside this will be an article about writing good specs

This year I learned something that I kinda guessed already: The biggest benefit of keeping a journal is not archiving your experiences. Very few people take the time to read what they wrote 5 years ago. The biggest benefit is in the writing process alone. Writing helps you clarify your thoughts and feelings. According to science: writing accesses your left brain, the analytical and rational, so your right side is free to create, brainstorm or mix ideas.

Journaling and writing specs have a lot in common. The benefits for me are strikingly similar.

Product Tank

March 18, 2014 in Product, Entrepeneurship

Why isn't Bucharest more like Silicon Valley? It's a loaded question that I get asked under many forms. The reality is I don't have an answer. And I don't think there is a simple one. There are many contributing factors but there is one I that I think Romania (and Europe in general) misses the most: product people.

Whistling a symphony

October 07, 2013 in Entrepeneurship, Product

As I am writing this I feel I am wasting time. I had the same feeling a day ago. I was writing another long email (you could call it a memo but I hate the term) to the whole uberVU team. It was a long, deep and (I hope) clear email about how I look at things and why we are doing something instead of something else.

In that couple of hours I could have spec'ed a new feature, look over some metrics or have a client interview . You know ... the stuff we usually associate with work. But instead I spent all that precious time writing an email.

But looking back it is probably the most important accomplishment of the day.