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HomeShop at BookSurgePoetryAnthologies (multiple authors)The Art of Product Management: Lessons from a Silicon Valley Innovator |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 10 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 found the following review helpful:
 Not a book, but a blog posts collection. Good content though. Mar 12, 2009
By Lev Kurts
The book is actually a collection of blog posts. This gives an appropriate impression - a number of loosely collected essays, not a real book in sense that Charles Petzold defines the real book: "the type that have traditionally been read sequentially in stretches of an hour or multiple hours without frequent interruptions" [...]. This kind of book implies that "the author has spent a lot of time arranging the material in the book into a coherent progression and logic",
which is not exactly the case here.
Some blog posts, included into the book, are pretty outdated, like articles from 2002 (in the SaaS part) - this is usually the case with books, compiled out of blogs. Problem is that blog is inherently a diary-like thing, so some posts are older then the others. And publisher require certain amount of pages ...
Some important items (like project management or requirements management systems) are missing in the relevant sections. This is another problem with books, derived from blogs: blog posts are usually written 'under influence' of the moment, so we tend to talk about things that are important to us today, not about all impotant things.
When you forget that this collection of essays takes the 'form' of the book, everything else is actully pretty fine. Essays are organized by topic and are pretty much independent of each other.
Interesting moments (extremely subjective):
-pretty good generic discussion of the place of product manager in the organization and "owning the gaps"
-nice argument about the balancing position of the product manager between engineering and sales
-good explanation of the differences between various roadmaps for various audiences
-book emphasizes the importance of what I call "necessary amount of beuracracy" or what the author calls "defensive processes"
BOTTOM LINE: A fair collection of essays. Probably nothing new for a veteran product manager. Maybe used, but not really, for a complete rookie,simply because of the fact that it's not a book, hence lack of coherence and flow. Definitely useful reading for a mid-start product manager.
[...]
 A great read for all product managers Sep 03, 2011
By Steve Johnson
"product management evangelist & guitar player"
In The Art of Product Management: Lessons from a Silicon Valley Innovator, Rich Mironov gives a series of quick articles designed for the busy product executive. Each short article tackles a single idea. One of my favorites is Mironov's analogy of product manager as parent of the product. He also explores where the product management role should report in the organization, roadmapping as a strategic planning tool, and techniques for understanding what customers really need in a product. Of particular note are the sections of pricing and packaging.
As another reviewer notes, some of the technologies and examples mentioned are now obsolete but the concepts remain true over time.
Mironov's breezy writing style is fresh and entertaining. The book reads more like a series of conversations than a college thesis, and offers practical advice that you can use right away.
The Art of Product Management is a great supplement to my own Strategic Role of Product Management which is more of an overview of product management.
Nice but not great Sep 13, 2010
By Gil
This is a nice book if you're new to product management but if you've been there for a while many chapters will look kind of obvious to you. Still it is an interesting read and many can learn from it.
I read this book after being a product manager for around 2 years and felt I should have gotten a different book instead but still, it didn't feel like a complete waste of money.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Valueable discussions of product management practices in agile processes Mar 16, 2010
By Thomas Fenrich
"Director Product Management, Yahoo!"
Crisply distilled collection of product management lessons, ample nuggets of wisdom for every situation and experience level. I've met Rich through the UC Berkeley Product Management education series, and found his insights rich with real-life experience and applicability. Valuable for anyone new to agile development methodology are the articles pertaining to how product management can drive and benefit from agile practices.
1 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Read this book! Apr 06, 2009
By Tabita Green
"Product Management Zen"
I just finished reading "The Art of Product Management" by Rich Mironov. This book is a compilation of some of Rich's "Sound Bytes" (monthly column on Product Management) organized into the following sections:
Falling in Love
Organizing your Organization
The Almost-New-New Things
Getting into Customers' Heads
What Should Things Cost
You can definitely see Rich's extensive experience with start-ups shine through the pages of this book. The entire first section talks about start-ups and things Products Managers should keep in mind when part of a start-up. Being in management, I thoroughly enjoyed the second chapter on organization. It's amazing how many places Product Management lives. I feel fortunate to work at a company where Product Management is its own department. The third chapter discusses "new" concepts such as SaaS and Agile. Rich has some very simple, yet powerful insights into the transition into both of these worlds. In chapter four, the author gets to one of the core concepts of Product Management. How do you get into your customers' heads and deliver solutions that solve their problems? This chapter includes some great reminders about why it is bad to stick around the office all the time. If you want to succeed in Product Management, you have to get out there and listen to your potential customers. The book concludes with a helpful chapter on pricing strategies. If you came from a technical background, like I did, this is probably not something you learned at school. Rich provides great tips for how to think about pricing and emphasizes that there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
In conclusion: I wish this book had been around when I started dabbling in Product Management. If you are new to Product Management or even if you've been in the profession for some time, this book is a gem. Read it!
See all 10 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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