A quick read, a good primer, and a good resource for a product manager's bookshelf.

Software Product Management Essentials by Alyssa Dver is a concise and fairly good book on software product management. It is a bit old school and waterfall development process focused, but it does give a good overview on many software product management topics. A similar and equally good book is The Product Managers Handbook, 3E. By far the best book of this genre is Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love.

Dver first describes what is a product manager (the product champion) and then details what are fairly typical development and product requirements processes. Many of these are out of vogue, but there is still valuable information here. She then goes on to describe the product delivery process, the beta testing process, and finally the product launch. The book is concluded by discussing product marketing, pricing, and going international. Its appendixes contain useful sample documents such as a Product Delivery Checklist and a Beta License Agreement.

One of the book's strength is its inclusiveness and conciseness. Do you need to have a passing knowledge on the 4 C's of pricing? Do you need a need to know a few basic ideas to consider for positioning? Then this may be your book: a quick read, a good primer, and a good resource for a product manager's bookshelf.