Below is a reading list for product managers at all levels (in no particular order), including several recent must-reads that can add fresh perspectives to your role as a product manager and product owner. I’d also recommend product designers and product developers to dive into some of these books.
You’ll see quite a few key themes emerging from the below books. Here’s a quick list
- Move beyond the feature factory mindset
- Focus on continuous discovery and customer-centricity
- Build a product-trio (product, design, engineering) fostering collaboration across functions
- Leverage various types of data to validate your assumptions
- Test and learn – continuous experimentation is needed
- Focus on impact and goal alignment (OKRs)
- Build stickiness into your products
- Create empowered and accountable teams
Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love by Marty Cagan
Originally published in 2008 with a second edition some 10 years later, Inspired remains foundational for those seeking to understand the basics of product management and the art of building products customers love. Cagan’s insights on creating empowered teams and focusing on customer needs are just as relevant today as ever.
“The best product teams are not simply feature factories. They know how to discover and deliver products that solve real customer problems in ways that meet the needs of the business.”
Buy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Designing for Growth by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie
Design thinking is a critical component of the product management lifecycle. The authors share a four-phase framework: “what is?”, “what if?”, “what wows?” and “what works?” providing a toolkit to ideate, prototype, and scale customer-centric products. It’s a great resource for all managers that sit within the product-trio to infuse creativity and innovation into structured product development.
“Design thinking is about accelerating innovation to create better solutions to the challenges facing business and society.”
Buy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen
Olsen’s book offers a hands-on approach to achieving product-market fit through lean principles. He provides a structured guide on iteration, customer feedback, and step-by-step tactics for creating products that hit the mark. It’s a book every product manager should revisit as the market continually redefines what “fit” means. The book also shares some great models, including a very useful one called the AARRR framework created by Dave McClure – it takes you down the flow from acquisition to retention, referral and revenue of your product.
“Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.” Bruce Lee
Buy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri
Perri examines the common pitfall of focusing on output over outcomes and provides a pathway for creating a product-led organisation. Melissa highlights how this “build trap” aka feature-factory, often stems from a misunderstanding of product management’s role, a lack of alignment between strategy and execution, and an over-reliance on roadmaps that prioritise outputs over outcomes. For managers seeking to move beyond feature-focused development to delivering genuine value, this book is a must-read and goes hand-in-hand with Teresa Torres’ book, Continuous Discovery Habits.
“Building the wrong thing really well is still building the wrong thing.”
Buy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres
Teresa Torres offers a transformative approach for product teams aiming to integrate customer insights consistently throughout the product development process. With her “Opportunity Solution Tree,” Torres provides a visual framework to help teams explore, prioritise, and validate customer problems and solutions. She emphasises the importance of building regular discovery habits, like conducting ongoing customer interviews and experimenting frequently to stay aligned with user needs. This book is essential for product managers looking to make customer discovery a core part of their workflow, fostering a culture of continuous learning and customer-centric decision-making.
“The best way to mitigate risk is to tackle it head-on with fast, small bets.”
Buy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
OKRs: Measure What Matters by John Doerr & Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke
These classics on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are invaluable for product managers aiming to set and track ambitious yet achievable goals. Both Doerr and Wodtke explain how OKRs help teams focus on what’s most important, align efforts, and track progress with clear, measurable outcomes. Wodtke’s book is however better, in my humble opinion, at helping bridge the gap between theoretical OKR frameworks and their practical application.
I’ve personally dealt with OKRs and their implementation challenges and these books helped with some of the key challenges – from aligning on shared OKRs, breaking down company silos to implement OKRs by making OKRs cross-functional and focusing on outcomes and not outputs which helped move away from feature-factory syndrome. Change isn’t easy; it takes time.
“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”
Buy Measure What Matters from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Buy Radical Focus from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
The Product Book by Carlos González de Villaumbrosia and Josh Anon
This is an all-encompassing guide for those entering the field or seasoned product managers looking for a refresher. Covering everything from defining product vision and working with cross-functional teams to using data for informed decision-making, this book gives aspiring and seasoned product managers practical tools to drive and manage successful products while also strengthening their strategic, technical and leadership skills.
“A good product manager is the CEO of the product.”
Buy this book from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
In this book, Eyal introduces the “Hook Model,” a framework for creating products that engage users through a cycle of trigger, action, reward, and investment while also diving into the ethical considerations surrounding them. Behavioural design, when applied correctly, can help product and design teams create products that meet users’ needs and also foster long-term engagement – something Hooked focuses on.
“To change behaviour, products must ensure the user feels in control. People are more likely to engage with products that empower them rather than restrict them.”
Buy this book from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Lean Startup has always been one of my go-to books, whether I’m wearing the product manager hat or the entrepreneur hat. It gives you a structured yet adaptable path to bring impactful products to market. The book introduces lean principles that emphasise rapid experimentation, iterative development, and learning from customers in the “build-measure-learn” cycle. Ries’s scientific approach to product development remains applicable to startups and established enterprises alike.
“The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.”
Buy this book from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Experimentation Works by Stefan Thomke
This book doesn’t just focus on experimentation being a driver for innovation and business success; it also focuses on how companies can foster a culture of testing, learning and adapting by running experiments…and as a well known strategist once said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, and culture (& mindset), when it comes to testing is critical to embedding experimentation in an organisation’s decision-making process.
“Experimentation isn’t just a tactic, it’s a philosophy of how to learn.”
Buy this book from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE
Outcomes Over Output by Josh Seiden
This one is definitely a challenge in product management across industries, be it ecommerce, fintech, online gambling, online media etc… being fixated on release cycles and shipping features. Seiden’s call to focus on outcomes is refreshing and helps teams focus more on creating value for the business and meeting customer needs. This book reminds product managers to align their work with customer impact rather than output alone. I recommend pairing this with the OKR books above.
“Outcomes are the changes in customer behaviour that drive business results.”
Buy this book from: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Amazon DE