Learning Resources for Aspiring PMs

I am a PM and I get asked all the time about how to get started and what you should know. So, I decided to create a list and share it broadly.

Here are some resources:

What is a Product Manager? Roles and Responsibilities

Behind Every Great Product - Marty Cagan

Four Key Product Principles from WeChat’s Creator

Develop Your Empathy and Create Better Products

Ryan Hoover on How to Develop Products People Love

What is an MVP?

ClassPass’ Founder on How Marketplace Start-ups Can Achieve Product-Market Fit

Every Product Needs a North Star Metric: Here’s How to Find Yours

Rules of Flow for Product Management: AirBnB Case Study

Stakeholder Management for PMs

Starbucks Doesn’t Sell Coffee: This Is The Secret to Unbelievable Growth

Good product manager, bad product manager - Ben Horowitz

I hope it helps some of the aspiring PMs.

2 Likes

Thanks a lot for sharing. There’s tons of great blogs/twitter too

Even a very experience PM should always go back to the basics and read these once a while… keeps you oriented!

Thank you both for sharing. There is some real legends in there!

I came across this impressive list created Sachin Rekhi on his blog - Top 100 Resources for Product Managers | Sachin Rekhi

It very nicely breakdown the resources in separate groups. Have a look -
[Credit - Sachin Rekhi]

The best way to take advantage of this collection is to dedicate 10-20 minutes each day to read through a post or two and work your way through the whole collection. Once you have you’ll undoubtedly have a deep understanding of the role and what it takes to be a great product manager.

Overview
The following section includes posts that cover the fundamentals of what product management is, what the role entails, and gives you a high-level understanding of the skills you need to succeed as a product manager.

Vision
One of the key responsibilities of a product manager is to define and evangelize the vision for their product. A compelling vision articulates how the world will be a better place if you succeed. I’ve found the best way for a product manager to learn to articulate a vision is to immerse themselves in a collection of compelling product visions as inspiration for their own. Below is a collection of my favorite vision narratives from a variety of successful technology companies over the past two decades.

Strategy
Another incredibly important aspect for product managers to master is defining and iterating on your product’s strategy. A compelling strategy details exactly how you’ll dominate your market and is constantly refined until you find product/market fit. This collection of posts cover many dimensions of putting together a compelling strategy for your product.

Design
Design is the third critical dimension of product management. A compelling product design delivers a useful, usable, and delightful experience to your customers. A product manager complements the work of the designers they work closely with by facilitating customer research, generating and prioritizing a roadmap, gathering and spec’ing functional requirements, and everything in between. This collection of essays sheds light on each of these aspects of the product manager’s role in designing great products.

Execution
The final but most important dimension of product management is execution. Relentless execution ultimately determines whether you’ll make your vision a reality. This involves everything from core project management responsibilities, to leveraging analytics for making data-driven decisions, to leading the overall R&D team, and so much more. This collection of essays provides an overview of each of these execution activities.

Growth
We can’t simply build a product and hope users will come. Instead, we need to take a systematic approach to attracting the right users to our product and continually optimize our experiences to deliver value to those users faster. These essays explore exactly how to go about building your product’s growth engine.

Leadership
Product management is ultimately a leadership role amongst the product development team and developing your leadership skills is tantamount to success in the role. These essays touch upon some of the unique aspects of product leadership.

A Career in Product Management
Starting and then navigating a career in product management still remains fairly amorphous for many. These essays dive into the details of getting your first product management role and ultimately navigating a career path.

This topic was automatically closed after 180 days. New replies are no longer allowed.