Recommended books for Product Managers [ongoing]
By: Rafael Rakhman
Tags: Books, Product Management, Top 5, Product Manager, Top 10

I love reading books, and since I’m a slow reader I appreciate good books and good reading recommendations.

You could find that I’m attracted to books about product management, user experience, psychology, self-improvement, and more.

Selecting the best book is almost impossible, and it mostly depends on what you are looking for.

I created a list of my top 5 books that I would recommend reading and 5 more books (6–10) that would be at the top of the list if it wasn’t full already.

It will be updated each time a top 5 book is replaced

My Top 5 books

Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones. It includes lessons on Product Coaching, Product Staffing, Product Team Topology, Product Vision, Product Strategy, Product Objectives, and more.

One of my favorite paragraphs is: “In companies with the feature team model, those features are usually coming from stakeholders, so the stakeholders view themselves as ‘the client,’ and they view the product team as ‘the hired IT resource.’ It’s another way of saying that the purpose of the feature team is to ‘serve the business.’ Yet, in an empowered product team, the purpose of the product team is to serve the customers in ways customers love, yet work for the business.” Hooked by Nir Eyal. A highly recommended read for B2C product managers.

The main thing I took from the book is that there are two types of triggers: the first one being external and quite simple, and if possible, we would use it until an internal trigger is created, which is when a habit is established.

One of my favorite paragraphs is: “Emotions, particularly negative ones, are powerful internal triggers and greatly influence our daily routines. Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation” The Hard Thing About The Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz. In his book, Ben shares his story and the difficulties that he had faced as an entrepreneur, a CEO, and a venture capitalist. There are plenty of uncomfortable truths about entrepreneurship and leading a company. I’m grateful to Ben that he shares such intimate challenges that leaders face regularly.

A few of my favorite quotes are: “Innovation requires a combination of knowledge, skill, and courage. Sometimes only the founder has the courage to ignore the data; we were running out of time, so I had to step in: “I don’t care about any of the existing requirements; I need you to reinvent the product and we need to win.”

“Note to self: It’s a good idea to ask, what am I not doing?”

“Take care of the people, the products, and the profits in that order” Microcopy: The Complete Guide by Kinneret Yifrah. This isn’t a book that’s meant to be on a shelf; it’s a practical tool that should be within a hand’s reach on your desktop.

The book provides instructions on how we should communicate with users before, during, and after the action we want them to complete. In addition, it’s a fun read that includes plenty of examples. I would highly recommend this book for Product Managers, Marketing Product Managers, and Designers. Getting Things Done by David Allen

In his book, Allen’s premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax. Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity and unleash our creative potential.

This book gave me a lot of practical tools for managing tasks, managing my time, and freeing my mind to focus on things that matter.

A few of my favorite quotes are: “If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.”

“Things rarely get stuck because of lack of time. They get stuck because the doing of them has not been defined.”

“There is one thing we can do, and the happiest of people are those who do it to the limit of their ability. We can be completely present.”

The next 5 books (6–10)

Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear. It’s a book for people who are trying to acquire a new habit or to get rid of a bad habit.

One of the quotes I liked most in this book was: “One day an elite coach visited our gym. He had worked with thousands of athletes during his long career, including a few Olympians. I introduced myself and we began talking about the process of improvement. “What is the difference between the best athletes and everyone else?” I asked. “What do the really successful people do that most don’t?” He mentioned the factors you might expect: genetics, luck, talent. But then he said something I wasn’t expecting: “At some point, it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over… The only way to become excellent is to be endlessly fascinated by doing the same thing over and over. You have to fall in love with boredom.” The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. This is a great book to focus on and put things into perspective.

My favorite quote is: “If this is the only thing I accomplish today, will I be satisfied with my day?” Agile Product Management With Scrum: Creating Products That Customers Love by Roman Pichler. This book is an indispensable resource for anyone who works as a product owner, product manager, or expects to do so, as well as executives and coaches interested in establishing agile product management.

A few of my favorite quotes are: “Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, ‘Innovation is not about saying yes to everything, it’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features’”

“An item is valuable if it is necessary for bringing the product to life. If that’s not the case, the item is irrelevant it is excluded from the current release or product version… decide if the product could still achieve the desired benefits without the item”;

“There is a German proverb that nicely summarizes the central idea of retrospectives: Selbsterkenntnis ist der erste Schritt zur Besserung, which means ‘Reflection is te first step toward improvement’” The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries.

The book teaches the Lean approach that is common in the last few decades where startups need to continuously build, test, and learn fast before they ran out of money.

A few of my favorite quotes are: ”The big question of our time is not Can it be built? but Should it be built? This places us in an unusual historical moment: our future prosperity depends on the quality of our collective imaginations.”

“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”

“Reading is good, action is better.” INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan. Many consider this book as the bible of Product Management; It is definitely a worth reading book that reviews briefly all of the aspects of “good” product management.

A few of my favorite quotes related to advices the author gives about product evangelism: “Share learning generously — after every user test or customer visit, share your learnings — not just the things that went well, but share the problems, too. Give your team the information they need to help come up with the solution.”

“Spend time with your team — if you’re not spending significant face time with your designer and every designer and every engineer on your team, then they can’t see the enthusiasm in your eyes.”

Other books I read

Cracking the PM Interview : How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology by Gayle Laakmann McDowell

: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology by Gayle Laakmann McDowell Indistractable : How to control your attention and chose your life by Nir Eyal, Julie Li.

: How to control your attention and chose your life by Nir Eyal, Julie Li. Influence Without Authority by Allan R. Cohen and David L.Bradford

by Allan R. Cohen and David L.Bradford Zero to One : Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters.

: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel, Blake Masters. Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

by Yuval Noah Harari Ship It: Silicon Valley Product Managers Reveal All by Product School, Nathan Thomas, Gabriela Araujo, Roy Cobby

by Product School, Nathan Thomas, Gabriela Araujo, Roy Cobby Predictably Irrational : The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely

: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely The Upside of Irrationality : The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely

: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home by Dan Ariely The Honest Truth About Dishonesty : How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely

: How We Lie to Everyone — Especially Ourselves by Dan Ariely Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations by Dan Ariely

My next two reads:

Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

Once in a while, I will update the list with my latest readings.

I would appreciate good reading recommendations in the comments section.