Top Product Management books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Product Management books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Product Management

Understanding the concepts of Product Management starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Shape Up

Shape Up is coming out of the product factory Basecamp. Having been in business for over a decade, both as agency and product company, they have developed a unique and well-tested approach to product management.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Building For Everyone: Expand Your Market With Design Practices From Google's Product Inclusion Team

This book makes publicly available for the first time the same inclusive design process used at Google to create user-centric award-winning and profitable products. Author and Head of Product Inclusion Annie Jean-Baptiste outlines what those practices look like in industries beyond tech with fascinating case studies.

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Measure What Matters: OKRs

OKRs are well-established in data-driven organizations. This book by John Doerr talks about what OKRs to use and how to implement them right to focus on the right things.

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The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage

The Experience Economy marks the debut of an insightful, highly original, and yet eminently practical approach for companies to script and stage compelling experiences. In doing so, all workers become actors, intentionally creating specific effects for their customers.

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Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams

In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Experience Economy, Updated Edition

It offers new rich examples—including the U.S. Army, Heineken Experience, Autostadt, Vinopolis, American Girl Place, and others—to show fresh approaches to scripting and staging compelling experiences, while staying true to the very real economic conditions of the day.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Product Management Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Product Management, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how diffi…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products

"EMPOWERED is full of actionable straight talk for anyone looking to understand how the best product teams operate. The book demonstrates that great product companies aren't made by magic–the structure and leadership of the whole product development organization creates the environment for success."

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Art of Product Management

Released in 2008, the Art of Product Management has truly stood the test of time and is among the top-selling management books, even today! A must-have in the library of any fresh product manager.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Product Leadership

What's better to build your understanding of product management than to build your very own product? This book walks you through how venture studios like Google Venture launch products fast and successfully.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback

This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice. The Lean Startup movement has contributed new and valuable ideas about product development and has generated lots of excitement. However, many companies have yet to successfully adopt Lean thinking.

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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Having many varied roles on my own path to product management (engineering, sales, marketing, co-founder) I was lucky enough to have great mentors and coaches that guided me along my journey. From the initial CTOs/GMs at Intel that advised me to understand marketing and sales (beyond engineering), to really learning …

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Started my career in aerospace as a systems engineer before converting to product management at Google. Over my time at NASA, Google, Uber, and others I've built a successful toolkit of approaches to diverse and complicated product problems. I specialize in mentoring career transitions into product management and converting teams …

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