13 Most Recommended Books by Our Community in 2020
In our series "On My Shelf" we feature industry experts, product managers and people working in tech and give them a platform to share their favorite books with our community. This is the core of PM Library and directly contributes to our mission - to inspire you with the best books out there that help you build better products. We are incredibly grateful to have such a fantastic community! In 2020 we had 44 people contributing 158 different book recommendations - thank you so much!
Here are the most recommended books in 2020:
Escaping the Build Trap
Why read?
Melissa Perri’s first book has the potential to become a real classic. In Escaping the Build Trap she focuses on the most common pitfalls Product Managers and companies fall into when releasing feature by feature instead of focusing on the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa — CEO of Product Labs and founder of the Product Institute — helps you to identify whether you are caught in the “build trap” and more importantly, gives you practical advice how to escape it. She brings together her year-long experience of building products and deep knowledge of how product-lead organisations work.
200 pages, 2018
Hooked
Why read?
Do you wish your users couldn’t live without your product? Through a simple but powerful how-to guide Nir Eyal shows how to convert users that engage with a product into users who’ll return to it again and again. If you want to get a glimpse into the mind of users you should read this book.
256 pages, 2014
Start with Why
Why read?
Simon Sinek shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
256 pages, 2011
Inspired
Why read?
In 2018 Marty Cagan published the second edition of his Product Management classic Inspired. It provides you with a deep dive into how the most successful product-driven companies work today, how they staff and structure their organization and how they develop and ship products customers will love. This book is for everyone at every stage and skill-level of Product Management — if you’re starting off with Product then this is your “bible”.
362 pages, 2017
The Lean Product Playbook
Why read?
The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice.
336 pages, 2015
The Design of Everyday Things
Why read?
The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how — and why — some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.
368 pages, 2013
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Why read?
In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives―and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.
512 pages, 2011
Factfulness
Why read?
When asked simple questions about global trends―what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school―we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future.
352 pages, 2018
Hacking Growth
Why read?
Written by two of the industry pioneers, this book is a comprehensive toolkit or “bible” that any company in any industry can use to implement their own Growth Hacking strategy, from how to set up and run growth teams, to how to identify and test growth levers, and how to evaluate and act on the results. Hacking Growth focuses on customers — how to attain them, retain them, engage them, and monetize them — rather than product.
320 pages, 2017
How To Win Friends And Influence People
Why read?
Dale Carnegie’s rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless bestsellers of all time, How to Win Friends & Influence People will teach you:
-Six ways to make people like you -Twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking -Nine ways to change people without arousing resentment
304 pages, 2010
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Why read?
A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.
304 pages, 2014
The Mom Test
Why read?
Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we’re supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it’s easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.
136 pages, 2013
Principles
Why read?
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business — and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision-making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve.
592 pages, 2017