About this list
Unless otherwise specified at the beginning of the title, every link on this list is an article.
Table of contents
The Shortlist
- What It Takes To Become A Great Product Manager, by Julia Austin via Harvard Business Review
- (Book) The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick
- (Book) The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact, by Chip and Dan Heath
- (Book) Technically Wrong, by Sara Wachter-Boettcher
High-Level Product Management
Product Vision
- Product Vision, by Joel Spolsky via Joel on Software
Personas
- Know Your Customers’ “Jobs To Be Done”, by Clayton Christensen et. al. via Harvard Business Review
- UX personas vs. marketing personas: what’s the difference?, by Justinmind via UX Planet
- How Many Customers Should You Interview?, by Justin Wilcox via Customer Development Labs
Product Roadmapping
- Guide to Product Planning: Three Feature Buckets, by Adam Nash
- Product Prioritisation 101, by Martin Eriksson via Mind the Product
- 20 Product Prioritization Techniques, by Daniel Zacarias via Folding Burritos
- Estimating, by Mitch Lacey via Microsoft Learn
- Before You Plan Your Product Roadmap, by Des Traynor via Intercom
- This Product Prioritization System Nabbed Pandora More than 70 Million Active Monthly Users with Just 40 Engineers, with Pandora CTO Tom Conrad, via First Round Review
- The Alternative to Roadmaps, by Marty Cagan via Silicon Valley Product Group
User Research
Journey Maps & Storyboarding
- (Diagram) The Elements of User Experience, by Jesse James Garrett
- When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps, by Kate Kaplan via the Nielsen Norman Group
- Journey Mapping Powers Better Design Thinking, by Jay Melone via Invision
- The UX Design Success Ladder. Achieving Meaningful Product Design, by Ward Andrews
- 5 Essential Components of Successful Customer Journey Maps, by Phil Goddard, Ph.D. and Kathleen Hoski - How Snow White Helped Airbnb’s Mobile Mission, by Sarah Kessler via FastCompany
- (Book) User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product, by Jeff Patton
Research Process
- (Book) Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy, by Cindy Alvarez
- (Book) Observing the User Experience: a Practitioner’s Guide to User Research, by Goodman et al.
- Survey Design Best Practices, by Survey Monkey
- (Book) Jobs to be Done: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation, by Wunker, Wattman & Farber
- (Book) Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, by Marty Cagan
- Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users, by Jakob Nielsen via the Nielsen Norman Group
- User Testing v. Usability Testing: the Recurring Mix-up, by Lindsay Burke via Fresh Tilled Soil
No-Tech Testing
- How to Listen to Customers, by Ken Norton via Bring the Donuts
- (Podcast) Handcrafted, Brian Cheskey (Airbnb), by Masters of Scale
- Concierge vs. Wizard of Oz Prototyping, by Tristan Kromer via Kromatic
- How to test the viability of your online business idea, by Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli
Talking to Customers
- 10 Things I’ve Learned About Customer Development, by Cindy Alvarez
- Improve Your Startup’s Surveys and Get Even Better Data, by Elizabeth Farrell-Nunge via GV
Design
User Experience (UX) Design
- (Book) Mapping Experiences: A Complete Guide to Customer Alignment Through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams, by Jim Kalbach
- (Book) The Inmates are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity, by Alan Cooper
- (Book) The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman
- (Book) Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, by Nir Eyal
- (Book) Sense & Respond: How Successful Organizations Listen to Customers and Create New Products Continuously, by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
- (Book) The User Experience Team of One: A Research and Design Survival Guide, by Leah Buley
- UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet, by Sarah Gibbons via the Nielsen Norman Group
- Designing the Conversational UI, by Matty Mariansky via A List Apart
Wireframe Critiques
- 9 Rules for Running a Productive Design Critique, by Jake Knapp via FastCompany
- (Google Doc) 23 Questions for Early UI Design
Usability Testing
- Usability Test Scripts, by Steve Krug
- How to Create Your First Wireframe, by Rosie Allabarton via CareerFoundry
- The 10 Commandments for Usability Testing For Mobile Apps via Proto.io
- Design Principles via the Interactive Design Foundation
- Turn User Goals into Task Scenarios for Usability Testing, by Marieke McCloskey via the Nielsen Norman Group
- Usability Tests in a Nutshell, Part 3: Creating Tasks, by Christine Perfetti
- Talking with Participants During a Usability Test, by Kara Pernice via Nielsen Norman Group
- (Book) Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems, by Steve Krug
- (Book) Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug
- Measure Twice, Cut Once: Introducing User Testing into Our Design Process, by Cole Derochie via Unbounce
- Six Steps to Ensure a Successful Usability Test, by Janice Redish via Center Centre
- Why You Should Test Your Mobile App With Drunk People, by Jenna Kagel via Fast Company
Technology
Software Development
- What All Software Developers Should Know About Software Development Methodologies, by John Sonmez
- (Video) Introduction to Scrum - 7 Minutes, by Uzility
- An Introduction to Modern Agile, by Joshua Kerievsky via InfoQ
- “Shipping Beats Perfection” Explained, by Ben Kamens
- Integrating Agile and UX Design, by Jonathan Follett via O’Reilly
- (Book) Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love, by Roman Pichler
Technical Knowledge
- 10 Tech Terms Even Non-Geeks Should Know, by Megan Rose Dickey via Business Insider
- Top 5 Technical Skills Every PM Should Know, by Colin Lernell via UserVoice
- Getting to “Technical Enough” as a Product Manager, by Lulu Cheng
- Cloud Computing Introduction, by Chris Woodford via Explain that Stuff
- What’s the Difference between Native vs. Web vs. Hybrid Apps?, by Gigvy via Gist
- Why Learn Computer Science? (How to Learn to Code Faster), by Mikke via Mikke Goes Coding
Mobile Development
Business
Product Requirements Documents
- Your MVP is Minimal, But Is It Viable?, by Alex Iskold
- How to write a painless Product Requirements Document, by Jerry Cao via UXPin
Working With Designers
- How to Work with Designers: A Cheat Sheet for Engineers and PMs, by Julie Zhuo
- Don’t Say This to a Designer, by Juhi Chitra
Working With Developers
- How to Work with Developers at Your Startup: A Guide for Non-Techies, by Abby Fichtner via The Hacker Chick Blog
- What a Freelance Developer Contract Should Include (w/ Templates) via Arc
- Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule, by Paul Graham
- 5 Best Practices for Working with Developers, by Stella Garber via Forbes
- How to Work with Freelance Software Developers, by Greg Jorgensen via Typical Programmer
- How to Work with Software Engineers, by Ken Norton via Bring the Donuts
- (Book) Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead the People Who Deliver Technology, by Paul Glen
- (Book) The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, by Frederick Brookers Jr.
- Engineers: So your PM Sucks? Here’s How to Fix It, by Ellen Chisa
Hiring
- Hard To Do, And Easy To Screw Up; A Primer On Hiring For Startups, by Julia Austin
- How to Find a Good Freelance Developer, by Mark Liu
- 5 Non-Technical Questions to Ask When Hiring a Development Firm, by Nick Kishfy via Mojo Tech
- Guide to Finding a Technical Co-Founder, by Vin Vacanti
- How to Hire Developer and Engineer ‘Unicorns’, by Ben Slater via VentureBeat
- How to Hire a Programmer to Make Your Ideas Happen, Derek Silvers
- The Anatomy of the Perfect Technical Interview from a Former Amazon VP, with Neil Roseman via First Round Review
- In-House vs. Outsourcing Software Development, by Ved Prakash via TechBullion
- How I Found a Great CTO, by Mariam Naficy via HuffPost
- A Tech Founder’s Guide to Finding a Non-Tech Founder, by Dharmesh Shah via OnStartups
Product Execution
Launch Planning
- Product Marketing vs. Product Management: The Similarities and (Big) Differences, by Aurelia Solomon via Drift
- 8 Elements of A Robust Product Launch Strategy, by Neil Patel via Forbes
- The 10 Most Disastrous Product Launches of 2017, by Guadalupe Gonzalez via Inc.
- Do Things That Don’t Scale, by Paul Graham
- Product Launch Checklists: They’re More Important Than You Think, by Maddy Kirsch
- 5 Pillars to Successful Product Release Adoption, by Nick Bonfiglio
- It’s time to update the marketing/sales funnel…Upgrade MQLs to PQLs!!, by Emmanuelle Skala
Product Demos
- Your Product Demo Sucks Because It’s Focused on Your Product, with Robert Falcone via First Round Review
- How to Make a Product Demo That Stands Out, by Oscar Santolalla, via Mind the Product
- Product Managers and the Product Demo, by Steve Johnson via Applied Frameworks
- Nine Things Product Managers Should Know About Supporting Sales, by Daniel Shefer via Pragmatic Institute
User Onboarding
- User Onboarding Strategies that Work – and Mistakes to Avoid, by Fiona Lee via Intercom
- UserOnboard.com teardowns, by Samuel Hulick
- Seven Onboarding Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make, by Bayram Annakov
Analytics
- The One Metric That Matters, by Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
- How to Choose the Right UX Metrics for Your Product, by Kerry Rodden via GV
- The Hierarchy of Engagement, Expanded, by Sarah Tavel
- The Growth Stacks of 2019, by Calvin French-Owen via Segment
- The Beginner’s Guide to Startup Analytics, by Shanelle Mullin via Neil Patel
- The Tools Early Stage Startups Need to Understand Their Customers, with Peter Reinhardt via First Round Review
- (Book) Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster, by Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
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