Junior PMs is a stage when you have less than 2 years of experience, and the goal is:
- to get a good exposure to different kinds of products;
- to understand what impeccable execution means;
- to learn about different functions in the product team and how they come together to drive impact.
Before you move on to the next stage, you should have a clear view on how to use marketing, data analysis and user research to understand what product you should build and why, and how to work with engineers and designers to build the right one.
Inspired: How to create tech products customers love by M.Cagan
If you could only read one book at this stage, take this one. A holistic view on product development and a close up of the most important parts.
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by T.Brown
An introduction to design thinking and how it is used to inspire innovation in business.
How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business by D.Hubbard
For PMs, it is essential to understand how to use data to make decisions. If you are still at the very beginning of this path, this book will allow you to build a strong foundation for developing such a skill.
Predictably Irrational by D.Ariely
Understanding human behaviours is at the core of product management. This book lays the foundation for understanding human irrationality, biases and perceptions. If you want a more in-depth and scientific view, follow up with “Thinking, Fast and Slow”.
Don’t make me think by S.Krug
A classic on usability and why it matters for the business. If you need to do usability testing by yourself, follow up with “Rocket Surgery Made Easy”.
The power of habit by C.Duhigg
Learning about habits is essential for building retentive products. Use this book to build an initial understanding of how habits are formed, and follow up with “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” for more practical examples, or B.J.Fogg’s Behaviour Model (for example, this) for more scientific details.
Articles/posts
- What distinguishes the Top 1% of product managers from the Top 10%?
- Working backwards
- Bad Managers Talk, Good Managers Write
- The Agony and Ecstasy of Building with Data
- The only metric that matters
- What are the best ways to prioritise a list of product features
- Experiments at Etsy and Airbnb
- On writing product specs
- How to start a startup (YouTube) – episodes 4-8, 16
- Intercom on Product Management
- Intercom on Jobs-To-Be-Done
- A collection of articles from the Harvard PM course
No Flame No Game 