Discover the Best Bill Book Format for Product Management

Best bill book format for Product Management

and uh welcome to another playbook uh this one is is on a topic that i obviously enjoy a lot books uh five must read book for product managers right now you could argue and sort of ask why five and why not 10 or 15 and you know why these specific five books as opposed to hundreds of other books which which are really really helpful for product builders for engineers for designers or product managers but you know one has to when you're building a list one has to start somewhere and i consider these five books that we'll be discussing in today's video uh as the most important books that you could perhaps read you know if you want to develop your skills as a product builder there are a whole bunch of other books which are equally important maybe perhaps more important but these are the five books that i think will have a can have a potentially a big impact on your career and your ability as a product builder so let's jump in the first book is william zinser's classic on writing well now i consider writing a very important product manager superpower right and this probably deserves a separate video on why writing is important but writing is the way in which product managers communicate to their teams communicate to everyone within their organization and this is how work gets done right whether it's setting up the vision and strategy for your products or whether you're writing memos or you're writing emails or whether it's about coming up with tactics the decisions that you make and how those decisions are captured and how those decisions are communicated or if it's about execution it's actually coming up with product requirement documents and spec documents and specification documents and sharing it with your team and sort of making sure that what you have in your mind right what collectively the team has in their mind is actually built right in the exact same way so communicating through the written word with clarity and brevity is is a core pm skill so if you want to become a good product builder whether you want to be a great engineer you want to be a good designer you want to be a good pm do develop the ability to write well and on writing well is a phenomenal book it's not the longest book in the world uh it's it's very to the point and gives phenomenal lessons on learning the craft of writing non-fiction really really well next is this is this is one of those books which is it's like the biggest well-known secret in the world pretty much anyone and everyone who loves reading books and who are successful in one way or the other have read this book and used this book and despite the fact that so much is written and said about this book i don't know why this book is not a much bigger hit than it it it should be this book is is is is a gift it genuinely is a gift so if you want to understand how people's minds work the kind of biases that they suffer from please go and read robert cialdini's classic book influence right the psychology of persuasion it's almost sort of one has to give a caveat to people that this book can be used for a lot of evil purposes right this book could be you could take the learnings of this book and become an evil marketeer if you so wanted to but it the book has so many nuggets of truth that in terms of understanding the human mind in terms of understanding how people's psychology works and how human beings work this book is phenomenal and as a product builder it's very very critical for you to build consensus and influence decisions and influence people around you so that's an important part of the job and which is why i highly recommend that you read this book uh and imbibe its lessons uh in your day-to-day living right thinking now thinking is is a core product builder skill right as a pm your job is to think and daniel kahneman's thinking fast and slow i think it's it's a masterpiece it's it's the it's the bible of how human brain the human brain works and how human psychology works and how human beings solve problems right so whether you want to understand how the human mind works or if you want to understand the different ways in which people solve problems you know there are ways in which you sometimes work in a very reactive on the spot way and then there is more deliberate long-term thinking when should you be thinking on your feet and when should you be thinking in a more deliberate manner for all these things reading thinking fast and slow is is is a must read right to understand how the human mind works and to understand as a product builder when do you use these two very different gears in your mind thinking slow and then thinking fast i i personally do think that product builders have to do a lot more of the thinking slow bit but a lot of us were trained and uh you know through our schooling system as well as the way we gave exams etcetera in thinking fast even the interview process is actually more about thinking fast and less about thinking slow but in reality product builders have to sort of almost force themselves to think a little bit more deliberately and slow down the pace at which they are thinking about problems so do read this book to try and understand why these different gears are relevant to you as a product builder decision making now as a product builder day in and day out your job is to make decisions and the quality of the outcome is very dependent in that way on the quality of decision making right if you make more and more good decisions over a long period of time the quality of outcome will improve because the only thing in your control is the quality of your decision making the quality of outcome does depend on other factors which are not in your control like luck like how the market is functioning right so control the quality of your decision making that's the only thing you can do and as a product builder one of the big tasks that you have is decision making annie duke's book thinking in bets is is perhaps one of my all-time favorite books it's a book i've highly recommended it's a book i've created a playbook on also in the past so i i personally think it's it's a must-have for anyone who's in the tech world or who's in the product building world but it's definitely a must read for product managers so good decision making is at the heart of being a good product builder thinking in a probabilistic manner like a good poker player is a skill worth having uh and we can only improve the quality of our decision making we don't have control over the quality of outcomes and which is why this is a there's a critical book to read the last book the fifth book that i would recommend is carl newport's classic deep work now as a pm the classic sort of conflict that you would have is this conflict like uh that you know has been very famously called sort of the the maker versus manager dilemma uh right because part of you is a maker you build things you know in a very hands-on way you work with engineers you work with designers and you you know build a product but part of it and it's it's part of the title product manager part of it is managing right so and that involves these very short sort of bursts of meetings catching up with people building consensus getting them on the same sort of uh you know the same level as you making sure that everyone understands why we are building what we are building so you are in this classic conflict maker versus manager conflict uh right and the weird part is that the quality of your work is actually very dependent and the the your success is very dependent on working in a very deep meaningful way so really sort of putting your head down in a distraction-free way putting in the hours crafting a really uh you know good strategy coming up with a really good product product building is all about deep work right but the part of your job also requires you to sort of manage things and which is which is done in short bursts of sort of meetings which is essentially not deep work so you have to sort of play both these sites on a day in and day out basis which is you know you there's a lot of context switching and going from deep work to not doing deep work it affects engineers and designers in a big way we also live in in in in a world which is you know very heavy with distraction whether it's emails or slack messages etc so your ability to do deep work is very very critical all right so these are the five books that i recommend uh you know i hope you enjoyed this video and i i hope it makes sense if in in this year there are only five books that you're planning to read please read these five books and they will help you become better product builders they'll give you a way of thinking they'll give provide you a lot of frameworks which will help you improve as an engineer as a designer or as a product manager right and i hope you've been enjoying these play books i'll see you in the next one goodbye take care