Unlock your product management potential and achieve breakthrough performance for your products and company! If you're looking for an effective and proven approach to product management – one that recognizes that the majority of product managers enter the field with little or no training and must learn through trial and error – this is the book for you. Take Charge Product Management guides you step-by-step along the product management path with tips, tactics, and tools to make you and your products more successful. Whether you're a new or experienced product manager, or a seasoned executive leading a team of product managers, this hands-on guide arms you with best practices to optimize your time and effectiveness and increase your value. Learn how to: • Understand what's expected of you at each stage of your company's growth • Add value to your organization by understanding your executives' expectations • Evaluate the range of product management approaches available • Gather the mission-critical information you need to succeed • Develop an effective vision for your offering • Align your organization behind your product decisions • Form cross-functional teams and synchronize with the development team • Shift from reactive to proactive product management • Document your results

To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs

In this instant New York Times Bestseller, Geoff Smart and Randy Street provide a simple, practical, and effective solution to what The Economist calls “the single biggest problem in business today”: unsuccessful hiring. The average hiring mistake costs a company $1.5 million or more a year and countless wasted hours. This statistic becomes even more startling when you consider that the typical hiring success rate of managers is only 50 percent. The silver lining is that “who” problems are easily preventable. Based on more than 1,300 hours of interviews with more than 20 billionaires and 300 CEOs, Who presents Smart and Street’s A Method for Hiring. Refined through the largest research study of its kind ever undertaken, the A Method stresses fundamental elements that anyone can implement–and it has a 90 percent success rate. Whether you’re a member of a board of directors looking for a new CEO, the owner of a small business searching for the right people to make your company grow, or a parent in need of a new babysitter, it’s all about Who. Inside you’ll learn how to • avoid common “voodoo hiring” methods • define the outcomes you seek • generate a flow of A Players to your team–by implementing the #1 tactic used by successful businesspeople • ask the right interview questions to dramatically improve your ability to quickly distinguish an A Player from a B or C candidate • attract the person you want to hire, by emphasizing the points the candidate cares about most In business, you are who you hire. In Who, Geoff Smart and Randy Street offer simple, easy-to-follow steps that will put the right people in place for optimal success.

How many pizzas are delivered in Manhattan? How do you design an alarm clock for the blind? What is your favorite piece of software and why? How would you launch a video rental service in India? This book will teach you how to answer these questions and more. Cracking the PM Interview is a comprehensive book about landing a product management role in a startup or bigger tech company. Learn how the ambiguously-named "PM" (product manager / program manager) role varies across companies, what experience you need, how to make your existing experience translate, what a great PM resume and cover letter look like, and finally, how to master the interview: estimation questions, behavioral questions, case questions, product questions, technical questions, and the super important "pitch."

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 products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking. Despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt Lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing. If you are interested in Lean Startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. This book describes the Lean Product Process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. It walks you through how to: Determine your target customers Identify underserved customer needs Create a winning product strategy Decide on your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Design your MVP prototype Test your MVP with customers Iterate rapidly to achieve product-market fit This book was written by entrepreneur and Lean product expert Dan Olsen whose experience spans product management, UX design, coding, analytics, and marketing across a variety of products. As a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. His clients include Facebook, Box, Hightail, Epocrates, and Medallia. Entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find The Lean Product Playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource.

Create a winning game plan for your digital products with Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age, 2nd edition. Using a wide range of proven techniques and tools, product management expert Roman Pichler explains how to create a winning product strategy and actionable roadmap. Comprehensive and insightful, the book will enable you to make the right strategic decisions in today’s dynamic digital age. If you work as a product manager, Scrum product owner, product portfolio manager, head of product, or product coach, then this book is for you. What you will learn: * Create an inspiring vision for your product. * Develop a product strategy that maximises the chances of launching a winning product. * Successfully adapt the strategy across the product life cycle to achieve sustained product success. * Measure the value your product creates using the right key performance indicators (KPIs). * Build an actionable outcome-based product roadmap that aligns stakeholders and directs the product backlog. * Regularly review the product strategy and roadmap and keep them up-to-date. Written in an engaging and easily accessible style, Strategize offers practical advice and valuable examples so that you can apply the practices directly to your products. This second, revised, and extended edition offers new concepts, more tools, and additional tips and examples. Praise for Strategize: "Strategize offers a comprehensive approach to product strategy using the latest practices geared specifically to digital products. Not just theory, the book is chock-full of real-world examples, making it easier to apply the principles to your company and products. Strategize is essential reading for everyone in charge of products: product executives, product managers, and product owners." Steve Johnson, Founder at Under10 Consulting. "Whether you are new to product management or an experienced practitioner, Strategize is a must read. You are guaranteed to get new ideas about how to develop or improve your product strategy and how to execute it successfully. It’s an essential addition to every product manager’s reading list." Marc Abraham, Senior Group Product Manager at Intercom.

Unlock your product management potential and achieve breakthrough performance for your products and company! If you're looking for an effective and proven approach to product management - one that recognizes that the majority of product managers enter the field with little or no training and must learn through trial and error - this is the book for you. Take Charge Product Management guides you step-by-step along the product management path with tips, tactics, and tools to make you and your products more successful. Whether you're a new or experienced product manager, or a seasoned executive leading a team of product managers, this hands-on guide arms you with best practices to optimize your time and effectiveness and increase your value. "Take Charge Product Management is a great read to understand both the field and the role of product management. However this book goes further with valuable lessons for all product managers to master including; product lifecycle management, aligning development and product management goals, and establishing process around business outcomes. It's a truly enjoyable read." - Greg Cohen, author of Agile Excellence for Product Managers "I wish I had this book 10 years ago when I had started my career...but what is nice about this book is that I know I will continue to use it for the next 10 years of my career." - Silicon Valley Product Management Association Book Review Take Charge Product Management is "a great, easy-to-read introduction that includes a lot of good tips and nuggets of wisdom about how to operate effectively within an organization as a product manager." - Jeff Lash, How To Be A Good Product Manager "Geracie is teaching through a fundamental tool that all product managers should know, "the user persona/user story." If only text books were written like this, learning would be easier, more relevant, and much more enjoyable." - Boston Product Management Association Book Review "Greg Geracie has compiled a thoroughly "user friendly', 232-page compendium of instructions, advice, commentary, insights, tips, tricks, tools and techniques for adding value...a complete course under one cover! "Take Charge" fully lives up to the promise of its title and is enthusiastically recommended reading!" - The Midwest Book Review "Greg Geracie's book Take Charge Product Management does an excellent job of explaining why the role of a product manager is so central to the successful integration of a company's business functions. I also found Greg's description of the Agile software development process and its impact upon product managers to be particularly insightful." - MIT Professor Steven Eppinger co-author of Product Design and Development "Take Charge Product Management is easy to read with a nice casual style to the writing. It's clear that Greg has lived through much (if not all) of Sean's experiences himself during his career and is now imparting the wisdom gained to the next generation of new Product Managers." - Saeed Khan, On Product Management "Geracie nails it with Take Charge Product Management. The book's format really brings home the tools and processes that are required to become a leader in any organization's product management function. Take Charge Product Management should be the new bible for all product managers!" - Kevin Maguire, General Manager, Philips Healthcare About the Author Greg Geracie is the President and Founder of Actuation Consulting, LLC., providing product management advisory services, training, and consulting to organizations nationwide. Actuation Consulting is the culmination of over 23 years' experience in product management and marketing leadership positions for start-ups, private equity-backed ventures, mid-sized companies, and multi-billion dollar corporations.

In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource. In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore: Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics Best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company’s evolution Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Your one-stop guide to becoming a product management prodigy Product management plays a pivotal role in organizations. In fact, it's now considered the fourth most important title in corporate America—yet only a tiny fraction of product managers have been trained for this vital position. If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people who hold this essential job—or simply aspire to break into a new role—Product Management For Dummies gives you the tools to increase your skill level and manage products like a pro. From defining what product management is—and isn't—to exploring the rising importance of product management in the corporate world, this friendly and accessible guide quickly gets you up to speed on everything it takes to thrive in this growing field. It offers plain-English explanations of the product life cycle, market research, competitive analysis, market and pricing strategy, product roadmaps, the people skills it takes to effectively influence and negotiate, and so much more. Create a winning strategy for your product Gather and analyze customer and market feedback Prioritize and convey requirements to engineering teams effectively Maximize revenues and profitability Product managers are responsible for so much more than meets the eye—and this friendly, authoritative guide lifts the curtain on what it takes to succeed.