Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback” as Want to Read:
The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
by
The missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love
The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful pro
...moreGet A Copy
Kindle Edition, 336 pages
Published
May 27th 2015
by Wiley
(first published March 16th 2015)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
The Lean Product Playbook,
please sign up.
Recent Questions
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

I am a 24-year old product owner for an educational mobile app company and this book has been incredibly helpful for me as I learn about how to develop products. I come from a non-technical background and have only been the PO for a couple of months, so I have looked for any and every book to help me out.
This title says it all because it really is a playbook for how to go about building the product. I found it to be much more practical than the Lean Startup and here are some of the key takeaways ...more
This title says it all because it really is a playbook for how to go about building the product. I found it to be much more practical than the Lean Startup and here are some of the key takeaways ...more

Great read for product management. Beginner or seasoned in product management? Doesn't matter. I'd definitely suggest it either to learn more or remind yourself some of the basics.
...more

Apr 09, 2017
Sebastian Gebski
added it
No star rating as this is just the synthesis of previous "Lean series" books, mainly Lean Startup & Lean UX. It's well written, but there's barely any genuine & original content, except of 1 full chapter which is a real-life case of product pivot (very interesting, TBH).
So if you've already read other books in the series, you can easily skip this one. Otherwise, it's not a bad way of getting familiar with the idea - none of synthesised topics feel too shallow, which makes this book quite a good ...more
So if you've already read other books in the series, you can easily skip this one. Otherwise, it's not a bad way of getting familiar with the idea - none of synthesised topics feel too shallow, which makes this book quite a good ...more

A great read for entrepreneurs and PM's. Crystallises the whole process reduces uncertainty in one of the most important part of your startup's journey.
...more

For software, the product itself is intangible code, often running on servers that the customer never sees. The real-world manifestation of software products that customers see and use is the user experience (UX)
Customers and their needs, which you can target but can't change
See the difference between problem space and solution space.
Strategy Means Saying “No”
Usability answers the question, “Can customers use your product?” Delight answers the question, “Do customers enjoy using your product?” ...more
Customers and their needs, which you can target but can't change
See the difference between problem space and solution space.
Strategy Means Saying “No”
Usability answers the question, “Can customers use your product?” Delight answers the question, “Do customers enjoy using your product?” ...more

Really liked this book. I've been a PM for a few years but mostly learned on the job. I wish I had read this when I first started. It allowed me to take a step back and see how everything is supposed to be working together.
I especially like the section of the Kano Model and scoring Must Have / Performance / Delighter features against competitors for a MVP. A lot of times, I think I've launched MVPs that are too "minimal". ...more
I especially like the section of the Kano Model and scoring Must Have / Performance / Delighter features against competitors for a MVP. A lot of times, I think I've launched MVPs that are too "minimal". ...more

Very clear and concise methodology towards building a new product. It is not so much for Series C startups and beyond as much as it is for the earlier stage startups. Loved the logical flow in which the book is written. It is almost like a train journey starting from the idea station to the destination station of "live product"
...more

After this book, I'm feeling like I was really dumb. Now I understand how product development works and, most importantly, how to validate product-market fit
...more

It's a good book for people trying to initiate as a Product Manager in a tech company. It gives you the best practices to have a product-market fit with your product.
...more

Mar 12, 2017
Ilia
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Ilia by:
Tim Herbig
Shelves:
product-management,
public-library
if you only read one product management book, read this one. longer review coming, but this has the best overview and gives you a lot to work with right away.

Great book. Really does a great job at walking through the full product development lifecycle from a product management standpoint. Great and practical focus on how to bring minimum viable product to market; how to run a beta to gather feedback, etc.
I also like that it's not limited to startups; most of what's in here is applicable to both startups and more mature businesses.
If you're a fan of Steve Blank's approach to product management, this is a great companion (and is better written than the ...more
I also like that it's not limited to startups; most of what's in here is applicable to both startups and more mature businesses.
If you're a fan of Steve Blank's approach to product management, this is a great companion (and is better written than the ...more

One of the thing Olsen address so well in this book is how to quantify - put into a measurable metric - qualitative user stories to reinforce decision and determine priority in building product features. I'm a product builder and a marker launcher who came from creative agencies and market research agencies background; I think his methods are consistent with the principals I've applied at my previous roles
...more

What this book essentially does, is taking Ries' lean startup methodology and applying it to NPD, in an extremely practical manner (going into details like booking rooms for user testing). It touches briefly, and again very practically, some related topics such as agile development. All in all, a good book for novice Product Owners and startup founders.
...more

If you already in project management, business analysis, and UX design It could give you information that you already know, however, It's the essence of everything on design, UX, project and product management.
...more

A good overview for new product managers but quite 101 for experienced PM's who do a lot of reading about the craft of product management. May be better served going to Mind the Product or something similar and reading the blog posts.
...more

It's the ultimate toolbox for product design and a encoclypedia about how to apply them. However, I sometimes miss depth in the respective mindset. If you're new to product design, start with Marty Cagan's "Inspired" and use the Lean Product Playbook as your box full of toys.
...more

This book provides very practical steps in how businesses and teams can apply Lean Startup principles so that they can build a product that has good "product market fit".
The advice and practices described in this playbook are centered around the product market fit pyramid, which lays out 5 concrete steps that build on each other.
Starting with the lowest and most foundational these are:
1 ...more
product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market - Marc Andreessen
The advice and practices described in this playbook are centered around the product market fit pyramid, which lays out 5 concrete steps that build on each other.
Starting with the lowest and most foundational these are:
1 ...more

This is the manual for product manager in a modern day start-up, presenting the thinking which mostly successful PMs are likely already practicing, and offering learnings for the aspects they may not yet be. It’s a great book to have on your shelf and refer to, as you move from one phase of product development to another.
The underlying model is the Product-Market Fit Pyramid, which consist of (from the top):
* UX
* Feature Set
* Value Proposition
* Underserved Needs
* Target Customers
The top three la ...more
The underlying model is the Product-Market Fit Pyramid, which consist of (from the top):
* UX
* Feature Set
* Value Proposition
* Underserved Needs
* Target Customers
The top three la ...more

In an effort to increase my professional development In the product management space, I picked up this book to try to understand what good product management is, and what makes products succeed.
I was immediately impressed by the organization of the book. The text is broken down by core concept, starting with the area of the product incubation process, then moving on to product development and optimization. Some parts were more relevant than other parts, as much of it was specific to website-ori ...more
I was immediately impressed by the organization of the book. The text is broken down by core concept, starting with the area of the product incubation process, then moving on to product development and optimization. Some parts were more relevant than other parts, as much of it was specific to website-ori ...more

Nice book and very simple in essence.
And a few parts that resonated with me the most:
“In a nutshell: qualitative learnings helps you define your product and quantitative helps you optimize your product. You need both ... to create a successful product.”
“The size of your current business becomes less relevant; instead, how quickly you can learn from customers and iterate becomes the basis of competition. Speed is a weapon.”
“My definition of product-market fit is that you have built a product that ...more
And a few parts that resonated with me the most:
“In a nutshell: qualitative learnings helps you define your product and quantitative helps you optimize your product. You need both ... to create a successful product.”
“The size of your current business becomes less relevant; instead, how quickly you can learn from customers and iterate becomes the basis of competition. Speed is a weapon.”
“My definition of product-market fit is that you have built a product that ...more

I’m a software engineer at a big tech company who’s trying to learn more about the product management space. Several of the concepts Dan introduced were already familiar to me from work, and are likely familiar to others considering the year of publication. I started this book soon after finishing Inspired by Marty Cagan.
The Lean Product Playbook is heavy on general processes but light on details. For example, Olsen spends several pages describing the interaction between importance and satisfact ...more
The Lean Product Playbook is heavy on general processes but light on details. For example, Olsen spends several pages describing the interaction between importance and satisfact ...more

Excellent overview of the lean product development methodology
The author covered topics such as defining the targeted market segment, identifying underserved needs, determining the value propositions, developing and testing the MVP, identifying key metrics, and product optimization.
I especially enjoyed reading the sections about 1) differentiating the problem space and the solution space and 2) writing down the business formula and breaking it down to define the most important metric to work o ...more
The author covered topics such as defining the targeted market segment, identifying underserved needs, determining the value propositions, developing and testing the MVP, identifying key metrics, and product optimization.
I especially enjoyed reading the sections about 1) differentiating the problem space and the solution space and 2) writing down the business formula and breaking it down to define the most important metric to work o ...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Dan Olsen is an entrepreneur, consultant, and Lean product expert. He is also the author of The Lean Product Playbook, the missing manual on how to apply Lean Startup to build products that customers love. Learn more at http://leanproductplaybook.com/.
Dan earned a BS in electrical engineering from Northwestern and an MBA from Stanford. He also earned a master's degree in industrial engineering fr ...more
Dan earned a BS in electrical engineering from Northwestern and an MBA from Stanford. He also earned a master's degree in industrial engineering fr ...more
Related Articles
San Francisco is a gold rush town. There aren’t many books about people in their 20s who move to Silicon Valley with dreams of earning a living...
33 likes · 1 comments
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there.”
—
3 likes
“The Lean Product Process consists of six steps: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Define your value proposition Specify your minimum viable product (MVP) feature set Create your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers”
—
0 likes
More quotes…