Inspired
Why do some products make the leap to greatness while others don’t? Creating inspiring products begins with discovering a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. If you can’t do this, then it’s not worth building anything. • How do you decide which product opportunities to pursue? • How do you get evidence that the product you’re going to ask your engineering team to build will be successful? • How do you identify the minimal possible product that will be successful? • How do you manage the often conflicting demands of company execs, customers, sales, marketing, engineering, design, and more? • How can you adapt Agile methods for commercial product environments? Product management expert Marty Cagan answers these questions and hundreds more as he shares lessons learned, techniques, and best practices from working for and with some of the most successful companies in the high-tech industry. You’ll find that there’s a very big difference between how the very best companies create products and all the rest.
Stats for nerds
42recommend
49mentions
47people
2009–2023years
90% recommend10% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I am a technical product manager, used to be a software engineer, and made the switch a couple years ago now - wrote a bit about it here https://bobbiechen.com/blog/2021/11/28/moving-to-product-man... , but here's some more notes:
1. Actions - my manager also offered that I could spend more time doing something more product-oriented in a transition period. My team owned an internal tool for managing firewalls with many long-standing UX complaints, so I took the opportunity to redesign it - collecting and summarizing the past complaints, putting together a new design, and testing it with users. Then I implemented it myself, shipped it, collected relevant metrics, and made some tweaks for later feedback. This was pretty successful, I liked it, and I took the chance to switch to be a PM full-time when a new role opened on a different team in the department.
2. Resources - Inspired (Marty Cagan), and Escaping the Build Trap (Melissa Perri) are good starting points. My company also sent me to Pragmatic Institute training, which didn't cover new ground but did provide lots of template docs if that's your style.
3. A note of advice: going from dev to PM gives you certain strengths. You're naturally going to have a stronger opinion on developer-focused products, APIs, SDKs, etc., and better ideas of what's easy/hard/impossible to implement technically. This is good, but it's not a substitute for talking to your customers/prospects and engineering team. It's really important to actually talk to people, whether by video meetings or chat/email/doc comments.
Also happy to chat in more detail, I'm reachable by the form on the homepage of my website.
- The best advice is probably to learn as much as you can from different sources but also keep a pragmatic point of view that helps to select the things that apply to your situation. Very often, new leaders follow a recipe without paying attention to the organization's problems. (check the book “The First 90 Days” by Watkins; it may give you ideas to organize your initial approach).
As someone who went from engineering to product design, I observe that CTOs without a product vision are challenging to work with. For example, at a previous company, a CTO tried to implement the hard rule that every UI component should be in the shared UI library. But, even when I was leading the design system, that rule didn’t match how a product design process works. It caused delivery slowdowns and a degradation of the UX. I can bring up other examples, and the typical pattern is a leader looking at only one aspect or two without balance. Try to go beyond engineering and learn more about business and product design, which will help you prioritize engineering decisions. Some product-related books: Inspired by Cagan and Well-Designed by Kolko. Beyond engineering and product, as a C-level executive or director, people and hiring will be your primary concern. There are many management books, and I don’t have any particular to recommend (all of them will provide tools, but none is perfect: The Advantage and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Lencioni, The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim). I also enjoy taking ideas from biographical stories like Creativity Inc. by Ed Camull or Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda. Finally, a book I found funny and cynical but depicts big corps very well is “Management Stripped Bare” by Jo Owen.
- Congratulations on your new role as a ScaleUp CTO! Exciting times ahead with lots of learning.
I will recommend the following books. But more than books, you will probably require real talk with other people who are experienced in their sectors related to your tech stacks.
1. "The Phoenix Project" by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford - This book provides a fictional narrative about transforming an IT department, offering valuable insights into DevOps practices and the challenges of scaling technology within an organization.
2. "Team Geek" by Ben Collins-Sussman and Jennifer Greene - As a CTO, managing and leading your engineering team is crucial. This book focuses on building effective engineering teams, fostering collaboration, and maintaining a healthy work culture.
3. "High Output Management" by Andrew S. Grove - A classic in management literature, this book offers timeless wisdom on organizational management and leadership, with a focus on achieving high performance and scalability.
4. "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries - As a ScaleUp CTO, you'll likely need to embrace innovation and growth. This book introduces the principles of lean startup methodology, helping you navigate the challenges of scaling your company.
5. "Continuous Delivery" by Jez Humble and David Farley - Scaling your technology infrastructure while maintaining a robust and efficient development pipeline is crucial. This book delves into the principles and practices of continuous delivery and automation.
6. "Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love" by Marty Cagan - If your role involves product development, this book is a must-read. It provides insights into building products that resonate with customers and can scale effectively.
7. "Zero to One" by Peter Thiel - This book offers unconventional wisdom on startups and innovation, challenging traditional thinking. It's particularly relevant if you're leading a company in a competitive market.
8. "The Innovator's Dilemma" by Clayton Christensen - A classic in the field of innovation and disruption, this book can help you understand why successful companies often fail to adapt and how to navigate disruptive technologies.
9. "Good to Great" by Jim Collins - Scaling a company to greatness is a common goal. This book explores the factors that distinguish great companies from good ones and offers insights into leadership and strategy.
10. "Crucial Conversations" by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan - Effective communication is key for leadership success. This book teaches you how to have difficult conversations and resolve conflicts constructively, which is essential in a leadership role.
These books cover a wide range of topics, from technology management and leadership to innovation and personal development. Depending on your specific challenges and interests, you can select the ones that resonate with you the most to help you excel in your role as a ScaleUp CTO.
- I would recommend reading both Inspired and Empowered by Marty Cagan to help you think about your product journey. Very relevant to what you'll be building, and personally I found Empowered challenged me in ways that both made me uncomfortable and also better at my job as a Product Manager.
- > * anything by Marty vegan
Lol. Sorry about this, I was typing this on my phone while eating dinner.
Marty Cagan is the author. Inspired and Empowered are the books.
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