Product Management Essentials: Tools and Techniques for Becoming an Effective Technical Product Manager

Gain all of the techniques, teachings, tools, and methodologies required to be an effective first-time product manager. The overarching goal of this book is to help you understand the product manager role, give you concrete examples of what a product manager does, and build the foundational skill-set that will gear you towards a career in product management.

To be an effective PM in the tech industry, you need to have a basic understanding of technology. In this book you’ll get your feet wet by exploring the skills a PM needs in their toolset and cover enough ground to make you feel comfortable in a technical discussion. A PM is not expected to have the same level of depth or knowledge as a software engineer, but knowing enough to continue the conversation can be a benefit in your career in product management.

A complete product manager will have a 360-degree understanding of user experience and how to craft beautiful products that are easy-to-use, with the end user in mind. You’ll continue your journey with a walk through basic UX principles and even go through the process of building a simple set of UI frames for a mock app.

Aside from the technical and design expertise, a PM needs to master the social aspects of the role. Acting as a bridge between engineering, marketing, and other teams can be difficult, and this book will dive into the business and soft skills of product management. After reading Product Management Essentials you will be one of a select few technically-capable PMs who can interface with management, stakeholders, customers, and the engineering team.

What You Will Learn

• Gain the traits of a successful PM from industry PMs, VCs, and other professionals
• See the day-to-day responsibilities of a PM and how the role differs across tech companies
• Absorb the technical knowledge necessary to interface with engineers and estimate timelines
• Design basic mocks, high-fidelity wireframes, and fully polished user interfaces
• Create core documents and handle business interactions

Who This Book Is For

Individuals who are eyeing a transition into a PM role or have just entered a PM role at a new organization for the first time. They currently hold positions as a software engineer, marketing manager, UX designer, or data analyst and want to move away from a feature-focused view to a high-level strategic view of the product vision.

Table of Contents

Part I: Introduction: Getting Started
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Guiding Principles
Chapter 3: The End-to-End Product Journey
Chapter 4: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Umesh Unnikrishnan

Part II: Technical Foundations
Chapter 5: Understand the software stack
Chapter 6: SQL Quickstart
Chapter 7: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Vivek Bhupatiraju
Chapter 8: Analytics are everything
Chapter 9: Software Development Methodologies
Chapter 10: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Sean Ammirati
Chapter 11: Deconstructing System Design

Part III: Design Foundations
Chapter 12: Mindful UX
Chapter 13: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Leslie Shelton
Chapter 14: Rapid Prototyping
Chapter 15: The Good, The Bad, and The Unusable
Chapter 16: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Daniel Csonth

Part IV: Business & Management Foundations
Chapter 17: Playing the part
Chapter 18: Product Strategy
Chapter 19: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Amelia Crook
Chapter 20: Crossing the finish line
Chapter 21: Industry Spotlight: Q&A with Romy Macasieb