I received a number of surprised looks when I explained I was at the AIPMM conference to learn about becoming a product manager. Part of this was because most attendees already had a product management or related job, but partly it may have been because product management is often an “accidental profession,” as Steven Haines puts it and not one many aim for.
His vision is to professionalize product management and as part of that he has written and recently released the Product Manager’s Desk Reference. I bought it sight unseen pre-release back in August based on the strength of the Introduction, from which he read at the conference.
Afterwards, I asked him what had been the most difficult part of the book to verbalize or to figure out.
He started with the meta point of view – that the most difficult part was turning a holistic process into a linear book.
Since product managers need to consider multiple perspectives and priorities and often are responsible for more than one product at different levels of maturity they need to think on multiple levels on a regular basis. However, books are, by necessity, linear. Something has to come before something else.
Steven said that the most difficult part to actually write was the chapter on strategy. He started out with 90 pages and had to condense it to 30 before pictures since the topic is often so amorphous.
The end result contains both a way to think about product strategy overall and a more specific outline for each step, including some familiar techniques, such as SWOT, and some considerations that are more specific to the field.
When I first received the book last month I dipped into a couple places, then started at the beginning. The writing is clear and the suggested actions for “Raising your Product Management Experience Quotient” at the end of each chapter are definitely going to be helpful. It’s much less intimidating than the 744 page count suggests, I promise. Another nice touch is the supporting material available at the Sequent Learning website.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to read further right now as I need to pick up an equally thick book, but one with denser word placement and thinner paper. It’s the text for my Management of Innovation and Technology course which starts on Monday. In the meantime I’ll leave the Desk Reference on the desk instead of placing it back in the bookshelf, as a reminder to return soon.
