20 Best Books On Product Development (2023 Update)

A hot, new management approach called lean product development is emerging. it challenges the current management orthodoxy, enabling companies to achieve 5 to 10 times improvement in product development speed, quality and efficiency. this third book by a best-selling product development author lucidly explains the principles behind these new methods and shows readers how to apply them. winner of a 2009 best books award. quite simply the most advanced product development book you can buy.

Learn to design, build, and scale products consumers can’t get enough of how do today’s most successful tech companies―amazon, google, facebook, netflix, tesla―design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently than most tech companies. with sections on assembling the right people and skillsets, discovering the right product, embracing an effective yet lightweight process, and creating a strong product culture, readers can take the information they learn and immediately leverage it within their own organizations―dramatically improving their own product efforts. the first edition of inspired, published ten years ago, established itself as the primary reference for technology product managers, and can be found on the shelves of nearly every successful technology product company worldwide. this thoroughly updated second edition shares the same objective of being the most valuable resource for technology product managers, yet it is completely new―sharing the latest practices and techniques of today’s most-successful tech product companies, and the men and women behind every great product.

Develop a more systematic, human-centered, results-oriented thought process design thinking is the product development and management association's (pdma) guide to better problem solving and decision-making in product development and beyond. the second in the new product development essentials series, this book shows you how to bridge the gap between the strategic importance of design and the tactical approach of design thinking. you'll learn how to approach new product development from a fresh perspective, with a focus on systematic, targeted thinking that results in a repeatable, human-centered problem-solving process. integrating high-level discussion with practical, actionable strategy, this book helps you re-tool your thought processes in a way that translates well beyond product development, giving you a new way to approach business strategy and more. design is a process of systematic creativity that yields the most appropriate solution to a properly identified problem. design thinking disrupts stalemates and brings logic to the forefront of the conversation. this book shows you how to adopt these techniques and train your brain to see the answer to any question, at any level, in any stage of the development process. become a better problem-solver in every aspect of business connect strategy with practice in the context of product development systematically map out your new product, service, or business experiment with new thought processes and decision making strategies you can't rely on old ways of thinking to produce the newest, most cutting-edge solutions. product development is the bedrock of business —whether your "product" is a tangible object, a service, or the business itself — and your approach must be consistently and reliably productive. design thinking helps you internalize this essential process so you can bring value to innovation and merge strategy with reality.

Product management has become a critical function for modern organizations, from small startups to corporate enterprises. and yet, the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. in theory, product management conjures images of visionary leaders building beloved products. in practice, product management involves difficult conversations, frustrating compromises, and hard-won incremental gains. in this thoroughly revised and expanded edition, matt lemay provides real-world guidance for current and aspiring product managers. updated for the era of remote and hybrid work, this book answers the tricky questions you may have been afraid to ask about the strange, challenging, and rewarding work of product management. with this book, you'll learn: what the day-to-day work of product management entails–and how to excel at it why no job title or description will resolve the ambiguity of your role how to bridge the false dichotomy between strategy and execution why the temptation to focus on decks and documentation can be bad for your team (and for you) how to prioritize your time and pick your battles

But it's about much more than mechanics: it's about taking accountability and refocusing on value as the primary objective of all you do. in the professional product owner, two leading experts in successful scrum product ownership show exactly how to do this. you'll learn how to identify where value can be found, measure it, and maximize it throughout your entire product lifecycle. drawing on their combined 40+ years of experience in using agile and scrum in product management, don mcgreal and ralph jocham guide you through all facets of envisioning, emerging, and maturing a product using the scrum framework. mcgreal and jocham discuss strategy, showing how to connect vision, value, and validation in roi-focused agile product management. they lay out scrum best-practices for managing complexity and continuously delivering value, and they define the concrete practices and tools you can use to manage product backlogs and release plans, all with the goal of making you a more successful product owner. throughout, the authors share revealing personal experiences that illuminate obstacles to success and show how they can be overcome. define success from the "outside in," using external customer-driven measurements to guide development and maximize value bring empowerment and entrepreneurship to the product owner's role, and align everyone behind a shared business model use evidence-based management (ebmgt) to invest in the right places, make smarter decisions, and reduce risk effectively apply scrum's product owner role, artifacts, and events populate and manage product backlogs, and use just-in-time specifications plan and manage releases, improve transparency, and reduce technical debt scale your product, not your scrum use scrum to inject autonomy, mastery, and purpose into your product team's work whatever your role in product management or agile development, this guide will help you deliver products that offer more value, more rapidly, and more often. register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. see inside book for details.

Turn your platform into the next big thing with expert advice to scale and implement a proven growth roadmap across multiple channels – key features: gain expert insight about platform business models and how they're different to linear products – explore the end-to-end platform life cycle, from developing a strategy to measuring the outcome – follow real-life examples to discover the most effective growth strategies your platform – book description: scaling a platform is a lot different than scaling a product. this is why product managers developing or transitioning to a platform model are often facing completely new challenges – both technical and strategic. but if you want to build the next amazon, netflix, spotify, or a completely new type of platform, then you need to adopt a platform-first approach to change how you invent, develop, and market solutions. this is where effective product platform management comes in. – this book addresses product management as a critical pillar of platform development. it'll help you understand the difference between traditional and modern product management for platforms and even decide whether the platform business model is the way to go for you. – as you progress, you'll be able to build the right platform strategy, define the mvp, and focus on ongoing backlog prioritization for successful platforms. this book will also walk you through the practical steps and guidelines that can ease your organization's transition from linear products to platforms. – by the end of this platform product management book, you'll have learned the essential aspects of product management for building successful and scalable platforms. you'll also have a clear understanding of the next steps you need to take to perfect and execute your new platform strategy – and take on the world. – what you will learn: understand the difference between the product and platform business model – build an end-to-end platform strategy from scratch – translate the platform strategy to a roadmap with a well-defined implementation plan – define the mvp for faster releases and test viability in the early stages – create an operating model and design an execution plan – measure the success or failure of the platform and make iterations after feedback – who this book is for: if you're a product manager, product owner, product director, or a business executive working on a platform strategy and its day-to-day execution, then this book is for you. it will also be useful for change managers and program managers tasked with transitioning from products to platforms. you won't need any prior knowledge of platform strategy or platform transitioning before you get started, since the book covers all the basics – but taking notes to reflect on your journey as you work through the practical examples in this book is recommended.

Most new products fail. 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. despite their enthusiasm and familiarity with the high-level concepts, many teams run into challenges trying to adopt lean because they feel like they lack specific guidance on what exactly they should be doing. if you are interested in lean startup principles and want to apply them to develop winning products, this book is for you. this book describes the lean product process: a repeatable, easy-to-follow methodology for iterating your way to product-market fit. as a hands-on consultant, he refined and applied the advice in this book as he helped many companies improve their product process and build great products. his clients include facebook, box, hightail, epocrates, and medallia. entrepreneurs, executives, product managers, designers, developers, marketers, analysts and anyone who is passionate about building great products will find the lean product playbook an indispensable, hands-on resource.

There's a lot of waste in tech. billions of dollars of it. some say it's "just a part of doing the business of innovation" in hot new markets. – but waste is not inevitable anymore. – hypothesis-driven development (hdd) is an emerging approach to digital product management for both business people and engineers. it emphasizes rigorous, continuous experimentation as a way to both minimize waste and focus teams' creative capabilities in directions that drive growth and innovation. – in this book, alex cowan delivers a fresh new formula that helps teams reliably derive measurable value for a product or feature. rather than focusing on mere output, successful tech leaders (and companies) are using hdd to build smarter. work with your development team to deliver code securely, confidently, and with value-adds. use modern, cutting edge practices to drive growth, minimize waste, and innovate. – you can deliver business value and create great digital products. this book will show you how.

The first guide to scrum-based agile product management in agile product management with scrum, leading scrum consultant roman pichler uses real-world examples to demonstrate how product owners can create successful products with scrum. benefitting from pichler's extensive experience, you'll learn how scrum product ownership differs from traditional product management and how to avoid and overcome the common challenges that scrum product owners face. coverage includes understanding the product owner's role: what product owners do, how they do it, and the surprising implications envisioning the product: creating a compelling product vision to galvanize and guide the team and stakeholders grooming the product backlog: managing the product backlog effectively even for the most complex products planning the release: bringing clarity to scheduling, budgeting, and functionality decisions collaborating in sprint meetings: understanding the product owner's role in sprint meetings, including the dos and don'ts transitioning into product ownership: succeeding as a product owner and establishing the role in the enterprise this book is an indispensable resource for anyone who works as a product owner, or expects to do so, as well as executives and coaches interested in establishing agile product management.

Great products come from great designers using great development processes. but how does a novice designer become a great designer? and how does an ordinary development process become a great development process? fundamentals of product development explores the evolution of products from the beginning idea through mass-production. rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all process, it explores the theory behind product development and challenges readers to develop their own customized development process that is uniquely suited for their individual situation. in addition to theory, the book provides development case studies and a product development reference that introduces a wide variety of design tools and methods. in this 5th edition, the authors have increased the detail in the activity maps presented for each stage of development. these maps help novice development teams navigate the challenges of each stage, and remind experienced teams of activities and outcomes that should not be overlooked.also included in this edition are new development reference entries on cost estimation and targets, design reviews, multivoting, optimization, revision control, and storyboards.

S business owners." – omar zenhom, ceo, webinar – ninja"why did i just blow $300k promoting a whitepaper?" – s playbook. sure, sales cycles were long and acquisition was expensive, but that's how everybody grew their companies. – but after i helped launch a freemium product that went from 0-100k users in less than 12 months, i realized the traditional way of selling software was deeply flawed. – hi, i'm wes bush, founder of the product-led institute. – but what does it mean to be "product-led"? how do you know if a product-led growth strategy makes sense for your business? and most importantly, how do you execute it? you'll find answers to all of these questions inside this book. in addition, i'll also show you: how to save 3-6 months of development and hundreds of thousands of dollars by launching a free trial in 24 hours–and why you should do it (ch. 10) which huge mistake profit – well's patrick campbell says can "kill your growth and set you up for long-term failure"…and how to avoid making it (ch. 8) which of the 4 most common saa – s pricing strategies is the only one with long-term viability (ch. 9) what the "triple-a" sprint cycle is and how to use it to build a sustainable growth process–in just 1 month (ch. 15) the 3 apocalyptic "tidal waves" that are coming for saa – s companies–and what you must do to survive them (ch. 1) how to make free trial and freemium users hunger to upgrade to paid (ch. 9) the single biggest cause of leaky funnels and how to fix it, fast (ch. 10) which 7 people you need in your "tiger team" to run a successful product-led growth team (ch. 11) the #1 thing to improve right now to maximize your customer lifetime value (ch. so if you are a saa – s founder, key decision-maker, or marketer wondering what your next strategic step should be, order your copy of product-led growth today. "this is one of my favorite books of 2019." – zeno roch, chief product office, liferay cloud "a must-read book for saa – s founders, especially if you have a self-serve saa – s." – kaloyan yankulov, encharge "this book is epic. if you want to know more about how to build a product-led business, you need to read this. go. buy. it. now." – james gill, ceo, go – squared

As competition in the manufacturing sector intensifies, excellence in new product development has become a mandate. renowned author, educator, and lean product development expert ron mascitelli takes the reader through his event-driven lean product development process, from its beginnings in innovation, effective problem-solving, knowledge creation, and organizational learning, through to the rapid commercialization of highly successful products. this proven and practical approach balances all aspects of market success: customer value, profitability, time-to-market, and quality. specific topics covered in this event-driven lean product development framework include: – selecting and prioritizing new product opportunities that have a high probability of market success.- optimizing the productivity of finite development resources, and arbitrating resource conflicts in a multi-project environment.- implementation of a practical, flexible, event-driven process that ensures the highest degree of cross-functional collaboration at every stage in new product development.- managing the day-to-day efforts of developers and project teams through visual workflow management.- capturing the voice-of-the-customer in every new product by systematically identifying and ranking differentiation opportunities.- building a realistic project schedule that is created and owned by the developers themselves.- proactively identifying project risks and mitigating them through systematic (a3) problem-solving.- employing rapid cycles of learning and set-based design to close knowledge gaps and build a foundation of high-value knowledge for future projects.- implementing the production process preparation (3p) methodology to maximize the manufacturability and quality of each new product. mastering lean product development represents the definitive roadmap to achieving breakthroughs in speed, efficiency, and customer value for any firm engaged in new product development.

New product development is one of the most important challenges facing organizations today. the product development and management association (pdma) handbook of new product development 3rd edition provides an exceptional review of cutting edge topics for both new and experienced product development leaders. it offers a comprehensive and updated guide to the practices, processes and tools critical to achieving and sustaining new product/service development success in today’s world, delivering valuable information about the fundamentals as well as emerging practices such as venturing, virtual product development and the use of social media in npd. as the premier global advocate for professionals and organizations working in the fields of new product/service development, pdma has assembled in the handbook unique content on the critical aspects of product development success including its 2012 best practices research, lessons learned from its outstanding corporate innovator award winners and keys to success from organizations with proven innovation track records. the 3rd edition is an essential reference for anyone with responsibility for product development activities, from novices looking for fundamentals to experts seeking insights on emerging concepts, and is relevant for all functions and all product/service industries.

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 insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. authors richard banfield, martin eriksson, and nate walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. if you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource.

To stay competitive in today's market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer's needs. in this book, melissa perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. by understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. you'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.

Armed with this book, chemical engineers will have a collection of modern strategies for the design of chemical products and processes. it emphasizes a systematic approach and integrates product design more thoroughly throughout the chapters. new case studies on process design are included to make the concepts more relevant. the social aspects and economics of product design are introduced, and the stage-gate product development process is explored in parallel tracks for several chemical products. the accompanying registration card grants access to a companion website that also provides chemical engineers with numerous examples of the simulator input and output, with frame-by-frame instructions to discuss the nature of the models provided for the processing units.

How does magic happen? the ogilvy advertising legend—“one of the leading minds in the world of branding” (npr)—explores the art and science of conjuring irresistible products and ideas." a breakthrough book. wonderfully applicable to about everything in life." —nassim nicholas taleb, author of the black swan“veins of wisdom emerge regularly and brilliantly from these pages. don't miss this book.” —robert b. cialdini, author of influence – why is red bull so popular, though everyone—everyone!—hates the taste? humans are, in a word, irrational, basing decisions as much on subtle external signals (that little blue can) as on objective qualities (flavor, price, quality). the surrounding world, meanwhile, is irreducibly complex and random. this means future success can’t be projected on any accounting spreadsheet. to strike gold, you must master the dark art and curious science of conjuring irresistible ideas: alchemy. – based on thirty years of field work inside the largest experiment in human behavior ever conceived—the forever-unfolding pageant of consumer capitalism—alchemy, the revolutionary book by ogilvy advertising legend rory sutherland, whose ted talks have been viewed nearly seven million times, decodes human behavior, blending leading-edge scientific research, absurdly entertaining storytelling, deep psychological insight, and practical case studies from his storied career working on campaigns for am – ex, microsoft, and others. – heralded as “one of the leading minds in the world of branding” by npr, sutherland is a unique thought leader, as comfortable exchanging ideas with nobel prize winners daniel kahneman and richard thaler (both interviewed in these pages) as he is crafting the next product launch. his unconventional and relentlessly curious approach has led him to discover that the most compelling secrets to human decision-making can be found in surprising places:what can honey bees teach us about creating a sustainable business? how could budget airlines show us how to market a healthcare system? why is it better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong? what might soccer penalty kicks teach us about the dangers of risk-aversion? better “branding,” sutherland reveals, can also be employed not just to sell products, but to promote a variety of social aims, like getting people to pay taxes, improving public health outcomes, or encouraging more women to pursue careers in tech. equally startling and profound, sutherland’s journey through the strange world of decision making is filled with astonishing lessons for all aspects of life and business.

This book is a comprehensive and practical guide to the core skills, activities, and behaviors that are required of product managers in modern technology companies. product management is one of the fastest growing and most sought-after roles by job seekers and companies alike. people from nontechnical and technical backgrounds alike are eager to master this exciting new role. the influential product manager teaches product managers how to behave at each stage of the product life cycle to achieve the best outcome for the customer. product managers are under pressure to drive spectacular results, often without wielding much direct power or authority. if you don't know how to influence people at all levels of the organization, how will you create the best possible product? this comprehensive entry-level textbook distills over twenty years of hard-won field experience and industry knowledge into lessons that will empower new product managers to act like pros right out of the gate. this book methodically documents the tools product managers everywhere use to align their teams with market needs and organizational goals. from setting priorities to capturing requirements to navigating trade-offs, this book makes it easy. not only will your product succeed, you'll succeed, too, when you read the final chapter on advancing your career. let your product's success become your success!

Armed with this book, chemical engineers will have a collection of modern strategies for the design of chemical products and processes. it emphasizes a systematic approach and integrates product design more thoroughly throughout the chapters. new case studies on process design are included to make the concepts more relevant. the social aspects and economics of product design are introduced, and the stage-gate product development process is explored in parallel tracks for several chemical products. the accompanying registration card grants access to a companion website that also provides chemical engineers with numerous examples of the simulator input and output, with frame-by-frame instructions to discuss the nature of the models provided for the processing units.

What is a product manager without a product? nothing. that's why it's so very important that when a product is being developed that the product manager be involved. now exactly how best to go about doing that is an entirely different question. what you'll find inside: tracking your product development: what works, what doesn’t how do you know if your product is on track or in the weeds? a new way for product managers to discover breakthrough product features advanced job mapping for product managers the process from having an idea for a product to actually having a product is a long and treacherous road. so many things can go wrong that either cause the schedule to have to be extended or cause a product with the wrong features to be developed. a product manager needs to discover ways to stay involved in the process while at the same time not slowing things down. that being said, a product manager is not a project manager. there can be a number of similarities between the jobs, but a product manager is responsible for so much more than a project manager. the difference between the roles has to be understood and communicated to everyone who is involved in the creation of the product. the good news about product development is that it is something that has been done many times at other firms. by taking the time to study their successes and failures product managers can learn what they need to be looking for in order to detect development issues before they derail a development project. creating a way to map how a customer performs their job can provide the input that is needed for a development program. it can be all too easy to include or exclude features from a product that the customer will feel strongly about. taking the time to understand how your customer will use the product that you are developing is the key to creating a successful product. this book has been created to pull all of these ideas together into one place for product managers. by reading the book you will be able to discover just exactly what the role of a product manager should be during the product development process. by doing this, you can ensure that when it's all done, you'll have a product that your customer will want to buy.