Product Manager? Building Software Products? Read Marty Cagan's Book Inspired

I have always been interested in how great software products are built. In the early 90’s, I took several  “software engineering best practices” courses at Boston University as part of my doctoral studies. Since then I have read many books and articles and have lead many software product development and product management teams. Now I even teach a course at Stanford on product management and the software product lifecycle. 

Marty’s Cagan’s book is by far the best book I have ever read on software product management, or really on how to build great products.

His general theme of discovering products that are “valuable, usable, and feasible” is brilliant. He discusses the role of the product management including contrasting it to product marketing, project management, design, and engineering.  He lays out a guideline for product management processes including how to succeed with agile methods, waterfall processes, in a start-up, and in large companies.  It is hard to believe he covers so many useful topics (cutting features vs. slipping dates, market research, innovating in large companies) and classic problems (confusing product management with product marketing) in this relatively short, very straightforward, and very readable book.

If you are a product manager or just want to learn how to build great software products, but this book!  Then buy one for everyone on your team, for everyone around you, and especially for your CEO. (Oh, you are the CEO; then what are you waiting for?)