The Product Book: How to Become a Great Product Manager

by Product School, Josh Anon, Carlos González de Villaumbrosia

"No one asked you to show up." Every experienced product manager has heard some version of those words at some point in their career. Think about a company. Engineers build the product. Designers make sure it has a great user experience and looks good. Marketing makes sure customers know about the product. Sales get potential customers to open their wallets to buy the product. What more does a company need? What does a product manager do?

Based upon Product School’s curriculum, which has helped thousands of students become great product managers, The Product Book answers that question. Filled with practical advice, best practices, and expert tips, this book is here to help you succeed!

Product School offers product management classes taught by real-world product managers, working at renowned tech companies like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal, Netflix and more. The classes are designed to fit into your work schedule, and the campuses are conveniently located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction, Design, Technology, Entrepreneurship, Technical

314 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 30, 2017

Reviews

[Curiosbag · Rating 4 out of 5]

A darn near perfect book on product management give step by step on how to implement world-changing-idea into a product and execute it to the market. I am specifically expected to learn how to launch and the framework that provided in this book is exactly what I’m looking for. No non sense and bullsh*. Plain informative and easy to follow/understand stuff. Although the lessons are from the high end people from Google, Facebook, Netflix etc., so the adaptation frameworks here are most likely for those formal startups and companies that has proper teams eg engineer, sales, marketing, product, but for those indie startups that you do everything on your own, you need to also learn to do product management the indie way. This book only tell you a great steps but not the hacking. All in all it’s a great book and I highly recommend.

[Sashko Valyus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книга на тверду «четвірку». Загально покрито все чим займається продакт від постановки бачення і кастомер девелопменту до роботи з дизайнерами і девами. Зрозуміло, шо детально розглянути всі методи роботи по кожному пункту вартує окремої книги.

Раджу розглянути книгу більше як стартову точку, шоб зрозуміти які речі треба покрити під час роботи.

[Maria Nikolaeva · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book captures the complete journey that takes place while building the product.
Describes a lot of key examples based on real situations, which can be used in day-to-day activities of PM.
It is great for ppl who are planning to start as a PMs or for those one who would want to gain additional knowledge.

[Andrew Balyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ця книга це чудовий, легкий і не перевантажений огляд і вступ в основи управління продуктами.

Книга без «води», з купою класних прикладів, описує кожен аспект роботи «продакт менеджера» (правда дуже поверхнево) починаючи від стратегічного планування і закінчуючи випуском продукту на ринок.

Книга не дуже підійде людям, які працюють в цій галузі або вже трохи цікавилися цією темою.

Але вона точно зайде всім то хоче перейти в цю галузь або цікавиться загалом професіями в IT (наприклад, вона буде супер для студентів).

[Barun Patra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published by Product School, this is a book that focuses on a lot of basic actionable throughout and as PMs getting the basic stuff figured is what is the most important. Will come in very handy if you are planning on moving to the Product Management role.

[Samin Anvari · Rating 4 out of 5]

برای آشنایی با مبانی مدیریت محصول حتما به کسی که علاقه داشته باشه در این حوزه مطالعه کنه پیشنهادش میدم. زبانش هم خیلی روان و قابل فهم بود.

[Eduardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

If don't know what a product manager is, this is your book. If don't know what a product manager isn't, this is your book. If you don't know how a product manager does her/his job, this is your book. If you don't know how a product manager has to deal with other roles in any and all of the steps of concept, development, and launching of a product, this is your book. If you don't like just conceptual books and need good examples to understand the theory, this is your book. If you don't believe in just one point of view of a subject and ask for professional perspectives, this is your book.

The Product Book brings the seal of the Product School, and it doesn't just clarify about the role, but works as a guide for product managers, newbies or experienced ones.

[Margarita Artemyan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, the book is mostly good for those who are newcomers in product management, but even for those who have experience its just quick read book (took 6 hours to complete) to recall all the processes and know-how things! The book tells how the PMs should work with UX and development teams and put an emphasis on the fact that even though PMs are not supposed to do sketches or write code but still its better for PM to have a domain knowledge and expertise.
I would like to see more examples of real products from big companies.

[Boni Aditya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of all the books that Product School, this one is the best, all others don't come anywhere near the value add that this one book provides.

The books deals with every aspect of digital product manager in one stretch end to end.

There is a lot of value add.

It captures the complete journey that takes place while building the product. Of course this book isn't the end all for product management but it is a very good place to begin.

As opposed to reading tons of product management books and collecting pieces from 10 - 20 different books, this one book acts as a curated reference guide.

[Bhavy Khatri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This give me a pretty good idea about what does PM do, what their responsibilities are, how they represent the customers, how to resolve conflicts with other team members? It broke a lot of myths about PM such as oh they only create PPTs, they only set up meetings. Beyond that also explained the product development cycle in great detail and the role of PM in each phase. It explained in great detail about the phases in PDC where PM is directly responsible such as
- Strategically understanding the company
- Creating an opportunity hypothesis
- Validating your hypothesis

[Manoj Kumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to the Product School team for publishing this book. The book added valuable insights, reasoning with examples that touched almost all aspects required in a Product Management role. Start with this book if you're kickstarting your PM journey or aspiring to get into Product Management. Also, remember that a typical PM might not be able to implement or get involved in many of the mentioned aspects in their job.

[Harish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great PM guide with lot of key practical take aways which can be used in day to day activities of PM across multiple types of organisations. Clearly lays out the entire product cycle in 8 major processes in each of the chapters, which helps in ensuring you build products that customers really use and love.

Validate and Execute chapters can be used as reference for setting up metrics and analytics, feature audits, etc. which for me has more practical applicability. Chapter tips and references from key product personnel and literature helps in better understanding of the customers life cycle!

[Roberta Poderyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good overview of full product management cycle. While some books like Inspired could be beneficial for both PMs, designers, UX or other roles, the Product Book is focused on PMs. Good book recommendations inside touching some topics just on the basics, but providing a good path where to get that knowledge further.

[Vikas Pissay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic! While this is not an in-depth guide to product management, it is definitely a great place to start. The entire product lifecycle has been captured and briefed enough to make you understand and get you sufficiently curious. The book also offers a lot of touch points to pick up for further reading. All in all, a superb book for every PM and non PM alike.

[Gustavo Reis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although filled with common sense, it's a very nice and thorough book. Also, it's free, so I won't complain too much. 3 stars.

[Dimos Raptis · Rating 4 out of 5]

That book had been waiting in my reading list for a while. At the time I got to read it, I had been working as a software engineer professionally for a decade, so I had the chance to collaborate closely with many product managers. I decided to read it to get an idea of what their work looks like in a bit more detail and see if there are ways I can make their life easier. This books was exactly what I was looking for, it goes through the various phases of building a product - from identifying the right opportunities to hypothesis validation and working with the various teams to build & launch product as well as evaluate its success and next iteration steps. For people with extensive experience on product management, this book will probably not have much insight to offer. But, it's a nice and easy reading for someone looking for an introduction to the field.

There were only a few small details I disagreed with (warning - spoilers),but overall I really enjoyed reading it:
- When talking about collaboration between a product manager and the engineering team, the author recommends that the product manager should be a bit more proactive when the engineering team consists of mostly junior engineers and provide advice on areas, such as testing. I am not sure this is a recommendation I would support, since I believe software engineers should be mentored and guided by someone with experience on the field although I appreciate the author's sentiment.
- When talking about agile methods, the author implies that following Scrum ties a team to a release schedule that is aligned with the end of the sprint. However, this is not necessarily true. I have worked in several teams in the past, where we were following Scrum and Continuous Delivery at the same time, deploying new software when it was ready and I can say we did it without any issues at all.
- At some point the author says that "adhering to a lean methodology means minimal testing is done for a product/feature". That's also something I wouldn't support. Lean is all about minimising work that does not provide a lot of value, it's not about doing sloppy work. That might look pedantic, but it can make a big difference to the culture of a team and the quality of a product.

[Andreea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when it came out after going to several Product School events in San Francisco. It's a nice introduction to the world of product management for those who are new to it. It's informative, but not necessarily practical.

Product management isn't a brand new field (retail companies have had product and product portfolio managers for a long time), but this book was on trend for when software product management became a fast-growing and well-paid discipline in the US. It's good, but I wouldn't call it a classic as the field evolves so fast and it's hard to keep up.

My version felt a bit repetitive, had some spelling mistakes and contained some strange claims that distance PMs from the people they're supposed to work with and reinforce stereotypes. To paraphrase, engineers are almost seen as a kind of a curiosity and necessary evil to projects.

[Dragan Nanic · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is envisioned as a comprehensive overview of a product management role and what that role entails. It is written for the students without any prior knowledge of it and as such is geared more towards brief explanations and practical examples. It does not dwell into alternatives or difficult problems and is filled with gems like:

Engineering is hard, and every product needs engineers. Given that, their skills are incredibly in demand and talented engineers are worth their weight in gold!

Worthwile as a starting point for further research.

[André Pimentel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good option for anyone wants to become a Product Manager. This book has great examples to work with developer's team, Design, stakeholders, marketing and many more.

With basic and medium/advanced examples to planning a Product development lifecycle, Product metrics and launch the first version of your product or a new feature.

If you want to learn about Product Management, I'd recommend this book for you.

[Sara Tae · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very good for people who want to know about product management, but know nothing. But it's not for those who have some experience on the subject. Though it goes through all the important topics, it is not the most pleasant book to read on the matter

[Phuc (Tony) Le · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great book for Product-Market fit type

[Siham Khanji · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this amazing book...
It was not easy, this is my first technical book, but it was enjoyable.

[Janani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amazing content considering it's free. A little editing will push it to the next level. Even suggestions from a few dedicated readers will improve this MVP and squash a few bugs.

[amir husen · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Romualdas Isoda · Rating 5 out of 5]

People considering becoming product managers think of Product School, the world’s first tech business school. Product School offers product management classes taught by real-world product managers working at Google, Facebook, Airbnb, LinkedIn, PayPal and Netflix.

Issue. Some can find those services super expensive as it costs thousands of USD. However, the great thing that Product School offers is The Product Book by Josh Anon and Carlos Gonzalez de Villaumbrosia.

3 key takeaways of The Product Book:
# PM may be all-in-one role or contain specific business strategy and execution functions only. Product manager, Project manager, Program manager, Engineering Program Manager (EPM), Product Marketing Manager (PMM) are “similar but different” positions.
# Product Management Triangle. Three main domains most of the PMs deal with are those of Product Design, Product Development and Product Marketing.
# Team Postmortem. Product development life cycle does not end with shipped product. Sure, you are welcome to celebrate successful product launch. However, assessing how things went ensures that you gather feedback, letting people feel their concerns are heard, and think about how to do better in the next cycle. A team postmortem meeting can be a powerful tool to do that.

[Harald Blikø · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book gives a high level - although superficial - walkthrough of the product managers process (in an idealized world). The target audience for this book seems like people that want to be product managers, but have never had a job involving product development. The author himself writes product management is a generalist profession, but the book and the school it’s written on behalf of tries provide a specialist adaptation of it.

It’s a quick read and gives you a narrative to keep you entertained, but it just feels derivative. A better education would be to start with product management on Wikipedia and open a new tab for each concept you find interesting or unfamiliar. You’ll quickly learn the breadth, and your ignorance of, the topic. But at least you’ll have the chance to get some more details on the topics your weak in.

[Madeline Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book download as a resource from a course I purchased. As for the content I found it useful conceptually but I came across the issue of noticing quite a few spelling/grammar errors.
My other issue was that the digital ebook wasn't a single pdf but a zipped folder where each chapter was broken into separate PDFs and the figures references were also in their own folders, which was a bit cumbersome to navigate.
I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about product management but I'm pretty sure that you could find a primer of this quality by searching for PM-focused blogs and podcasts. You can also snag a copy by attending a Product School Facebook live event and typing "book" when they offer it.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book served as a 50,000-foot overview on what goes on in the life of a product manager. I'm completing my final semester at a school in NC and must begin recruiting soon, so there's no time like the present to pound down a half dozen books on product management. I technically got it over the summer but didn't have a reason to read it until I stumbled across an impromptu networking session with Google. Anyway, the book got a little bit repetitive at places, and most of the diagrams shown are not brand new material, just material shown in different ways. However, the book wouldn't be complete without them - the 5Cs, the 4Ps, and the business model canvas, for example, all come to mind - so it was nice to see them in a book outside of my classroom learnings.

[Aditya Kasture · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chose the book for a start into the world of Product Management. The term was very vague in my mind for the longest time and I wanted the picture to crystallise in my head about what it is that 'Product Managers' do with their time. The concepts explained in the book are thorough and references have been given from good books to provide frameworks that are fundamental, yet give you a good sense of what the role is meant for. I read it almost like a textbook and I'm happy with the picture in my head now: It's still hazy as it has the missing element of experience but the skeleton has been formed

[Mike Shoss · Rating 5 out of 5]

After joining the Product School Toronto cohort I was recommended to read this book as part of the curriculum. It’s safe to say that the curriculum made this book. I would argue that its almost as good as a replacement for taking the course.

It’s supposed to be used to supplement the course but a lot of the key features that are touched it in the eight week program are also covered in this book. Of course you will be missing all of the real world examples that the teacher provides but if you’re thinking about taking the course I would highly recommend reading this first.