Amazon.com: Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams: 9781491960608: Banfield, Richard, Eriksson, Martin, Walkingshaw, Nate: Books

I purchased the book because I was eager to learn more from Nate Walkingshaw. Nate has been one of the strongest voices behind some of the explosive growth in the Utah product management scene and his insights have been very helpful to me. I learned a lot from the book and will keep it as a desk reference.

Pros:

* The book provides an excellent broad overview of a number of product management concepts – a great 30,000 ft view for product leaders
* They cover some key principles of product leadership that are rarely covered in other product books and forums like: hiring, team-building, career pathways, and other leadership concepts.
* The ideas in the book are well-supported by experienced practitioners and there are a number of references to people worth following and books worth reading.
* Because the book ties everything back to being customer-centric, it’s a good reminder (even if you’re an experienced product builder) to research everything and always let the customer voice win.
* The intense focus on tying everything you do in product back to three key variables: usability, feasibility, and sellability (value) was a good reminder for me.
* The three chapters on how product management differs within different contexts (startup, growth, and enterprise orgs) were extremely valuable.

Cons:

* There were so many interviews that went into the book – it would be nice to have a larger view into those conversations. Publishing raw interview transcripts, for example, would be amazing.
* Many of the people who were interviewed have amazing stories to tell, and it would be nice to have a more visibility into those stories.
* The partner ecology chapter was missing a piece for me – I was hoping that it would dive more into things like business development style partnerships, integrations, and other ways for businesses to work together to go-to-market with experiences they couldn’t otherwise deliver alone.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone in product management or in any type of leadership role in a product-driven organization. While none of the concepts were new to me, it was a healthy reminder of the tools we use to build customer-centric products.