Who is a product manager
This position is often called a mini-CEO, because the level of responsibility and duties of this person is very similar to what the “big” CEO does. The main task of a product manager is to understand what functionality needs to be developed for the product metrics (user engagement, page views, conversions, revenue, etc.) to grow, to set the task for the programming team, to control the execution and to understand whether the results are better/worse than expected. Then – do it iteratively several thousand times.

It is the PM who determines what changes will happen in the product, and it is the PM who is responsible for whether the business succeeds or whether the numbers go down. This is very interesting and very difficult. You have to combine the incompatible (for example, work simultaneously on monetization and user satisfaction) and understand a variety of areas (from advertising networks to front-end development). But the main thing is that PM is the one who has the ability to say: “I made the product that is used by millions” and PM is the one who will be asked if the product cannot be made.

What’s also interesting is that the product manager, if he is completely focused on his direct responsibilities, does not have his own tangible result of the work (personally written lines of code or made layouts in Photoshop).

So what exactly does a mini-CEO do? Ben Horowitz, one of the most legendary people in IT: Good PM/Bad PM, is the first person to answer this question. It was written 17 years ago, but it is still relevant today. Another great post by Ken Norton is 11 years old, but still almost as relevant as it was in 2005: How to Hire a Product Manager.

I’d also recommend a more recent article that talks about one of the key but overlooked functions of the product manager — being the point of communication across the company: Why doing nothing is a lot of work.

To summarize, the product manager should:

1) Define what the product should be
The main part of a product manager’s job is to define the direction in which the product should develop, which features should be removed and which should be added.

The industry is developing very quickly, so most of the knowledge should be taken from conversations with colleagues and competitors, from the analysis of their own and other people’s products and from thematic blogs. A strong product manager knows almost everything about his industry.

But there are fundamental books that are very helpful in understanding how to make a successful product:

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business – Habit is the foundation of any popular online product’s success, and the right product manager understands how it works. Also books can better understand themselves and their peers because it is habits that largely determine the way we live our lives.

The Lean Startup is a book you just have to read. I am not aware of any other way of working other than the one described in this book that can lead to results in a product company.

Only the Paranoid Survive is a wise book about how to work through dramatic changes in external factors. Since changing external factors are a constant in IT, this book is good reading for every PM.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose is a deeply personal book about how, by following your beliefs, you can build a great and successful business.

Thinking, Fast and Slow – A seminal book on how we think, make decisions, and why those decisions are often irrational.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future – important reading for inspiration to change the world. Little will help in your day-to-day work.

2) Managing the team.
Project team management is organized differently in different companies, sometimes the product manager has the team in direct supervision, sometimes not. I believe that the product can not be built in a matrix structure, and the team must report directly to the product manager; in most other companies the process is built differently. But in any case, colleagues, managers and subordinates have to be managed in some way to get the necessary results.

The main member of the right PM team is the PM himself. So it makes sense to start by working on your own productivity.

Buddha, Brain and Neurophysiology of Happiness. How to change lives for the better. Practical Guide – a great book on how to understand yourself a little better.

The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It- great book on how willpower works and what to do to get more control over your life.

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance- two important books on how and why people achieve their goals. If choosing, I’d recommend Grit – it’s more scientific and balanced.

3) Communicate.
A good product manager is an excellent communicator. You have to communicate with your team, with other teams, with the management, with people outside the company. Candidates need to be persuaded to join the team, investors need to be persuaded that the project has a future, developers need to be persuaded to work on Saturday. You have to lead rallies and read reports. More often than not, good PMs come from analysts, testers, or programmers who don’t have to talk to their colleagues very much. Therefore, this competence often remains underdeveloped and therefore requires separate attention.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic you need to know.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – a great book on how to recognize and use manipulation techniques.

Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal – an uncomplicated but useful book on how to get results from presentations and negotiations.

Does every PM need to read these books? Actually, no. There are hundreds of examples where cool products are created without a theoretical base and teams are run by people without formal education. But what I’m sure of is that reading good books hasn’t made anyone less competent yet.