Nina-no-Burogu

Product Management

30 Mar 2018 | Reading, Professional Development

For the last two years, I’ve been toying with the idea of finding a Product Manager job. It seems to fit with my current role at work, even if we don’t distinguish ourselves with specific titles. We’re all “Systems Analysts”, and some of us do “Development” while the others do “Business Analysis”. That’s about as detailed as we get.

I went to one meetup event hosted by Product School, and I’ve been watching the video recording of the conference they hosted last week. I’ve read a lot of articles, like this one about product managers being the ‘Jack of all Trades’. If I want to be serious about it, I need to figure out how to present myself, what skills I need to grow, and what kind of role I want. This ties into potentially doing a side consulting gig too. Do I focus on being the product manager or developer?

Recommended books from various lists:

  • Classics
    • The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
    • The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
    • The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks
    • Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein
    • Positioning by Al Ries and Jack Trout
    • The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
    • Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
    • A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
    • Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
    • Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore
    • Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
    • Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
    • The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen
    • On Writing by Stephen King
  • PM-specific
    • Cracking the PM Interview by Gayle McDowell
    • Product Leadership by Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson and Nate Walkingshaw
  • Dev
    • XP Explained by Kent Beck
  • UX
    • The User Experience Team of One by Leah Buley
  • Other
    • Inspired by Marty Cagan
    • The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper
    • Sprint by Jake Knapp
    • The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig
    • High Output Management by Andy Grove
    • The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
    • Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne
    • The Captain Class by Sam Walker

Articles:

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