My Product Management Learning Path

Continuous Learning

The people who inspire me:

• Melissa Perri - her podcast is my absolute favorite resource, especially when she answers questions in a “Dear Melissa” session
• John Cutler - his Beautiful Mess newsletter helped me see myself as a fellow deep thinker product leader (and I subscribe via Omnivore so I can read at my own pace)
• Shreya - I love his principled approach and thoughtful summaries. He’s inspired me to be clearer in my communication (he calls it “product editing”)

The most influential people I keep an eye on (listening / reading some of their work):

• Silicon Valley Product Group - a lot of great content from the 2010s that are becoming more common today
• Lenny Rachitsky - also has a popular newsletter but I like his podcast the most

Essential history that filled in a big gap for me:

• The Collision of Product Management and Product Ownership

Digging deeper — this has an infinite amount of stuff to learn:

• https://practicahq.com/topic/product-management

Educational Resources

Specific to landing a product job:

• Lewis C. Lin’s 2 Week Product Management Interview Preparation Plan helped me fine-tune my product thinking along with the books he lists in there (especially https://www.lewis-lin.com/decode-and-conquer)

Foundational:

• Inspired (by the creator of SVPG)
• Lean startup

Advanced (and last I knew a core practice at Microsoft):

• The Customer-Driven Playbook: Converting Customer Feedback into Successful Products

For books, I consider the following great foundational knowledge:

• Lean startup:

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MM7HY8?plink=KiooiY7ufrgKWz4y&ref=adblp13nvvxx_0_6_ti
  

• Lean customer development for essentials of talking to customers to validate product ideas:

  
  https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Customer-Development-Building-Customers/dp/B08VL4XRBY/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lean+customer+development&qid=1613761407&sr=8-1
  

• Lean analytics for deep dive on metrics:

  
  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089XB8T3H?plink=Suy5zM6YOx4Zlzdp&ref=adblp13nvvxx_0_4_ti
  

The following is a deep dive on the approach we use
in the developer division for researching and validating products (this
is also a great primer for our interview process):

• https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Driven-Playbook-Converting-Customer-Successful/dp/149198127X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2FRDWBJ4AACT2&dchild=1&keywords=customer+driven+playbook&qid=1613761523&sprefix=customer+driven+pl%2Caps%2C234&sr=8-1

I also like this book from google, it’s an alternative perspective on the design process with a lot of helpful ideas:

• https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X/ref=pd_sbs_18?pd_rd_w=mVlj1&pf_rd_p=409c42e8-023e-4951-9f77-4c63073a4537&pf_rd_r=SYJMCKSKSBVHQCYKGMBA&pd_rd_r=48515b8e-4b0e-4b72-bc2e-898980e08f87&pd_rd_wg=KNsKV&pd_rd_i=150112174X&psc=1

Watch

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheProductAngle/videos

Keep Reading

• Read and work through Decode and Conquer

• Read Lean Analytics

• Read Inspired

Revisit regularly

The Lean Analytics Cycle- Metrics Hypothesis Experiment Act - Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik