13 product "thinking" books. The underrated edition.

Compiled this list for myself and my tech product development students. The books that shaped my thinking about building products over 30 years. Always wanted to read authors that made me think. They all did. A mix bag on mindset, process, timelines, markets, and motivation. Some of these are dated but still very relevant. Underrated and not recommended enough. Other than Glen Urban's product text book. They are all non-technical books that focus on asking answering the right questions. Please feel free to add yours to the list of underrated and forgotten classics from the space. 1. Gary S. Lynn. 2003. Block Busters, the 5 keys to developing great new products. Harper Paperback. How to focus and identify the core of a product or project. Stuff that we need to focus on that represent the soul of what we build. Gary calls them project pillars. Useful for differentiating between core and context. And prioritization. 2. Caser Hidalgo. 2015. Why Information Grows. Basic Books. Hard to read but great to listen book by Caser. Product Market Fit (PMF) is a search problem. The output is ordered information. The input chaos. Products are ordered information. How do you speed up the process of innovation. The role trust plays in facilitating flow of information and faster PMF search results. 3. Robert R. Pirisg.2008. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Mariner Books Classics. I haven't Zen on any recent booklists. Very dated. Originally written in 1974. Still powerful and relevant. Talks about quality. The difference between building and knowing. Between being a spectator and a participant. Heavy on philosophy, light on process. Still highly recommended. Anything that is still in print after 50 years, must have something to say. This one certainly does. Lots of potential for team fireworks if you sit down and start debating what Pirsig has to say. You will either love it or hate it. I loved it. 4. Steven Johnson. 2010. Where good ideas come from. Penguin A look through the history of innovation. Doesn't happen overnight. Builds up on prior work. Stands on the shoulder of giants. An idea is a network. Exposing ideas makes them more powerful. Expose ideas. Think MetCalfe's law on the value of network applied to ideas, products and innovation. 5. Stephen King. 2010. On writing. Scribner. If you are struggling with story telling and writing, sit down with the master to jot down a few tips on better, sharper, clearer writing. Also stories that work versus ones that don't. Recommended. Stephen wrote this after a hit and run left him bed ridden and knocked out for months. The book was therapy. He wrote it because the thought everything he had learnt about writing would be lost if he didn't share it. The world is a better place because of it. 6. Robert R. Pirsig. 2022. On Quality. Mariner Books. Pirsig again. If you had trouble finishing Zen, this one is much shorter and summarizes the same ideas in a book that you can finish in one night. Not a book. Just a collection of his notes, speeches, letters and articles. Published post his death. A lot of material dates back to the 60's. Only read if you loved Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. Skip otherwise. 7. Ed Freeman, et. al,.2007. Managing for Stakeholders. Yale University Press Ed teaches Business Ethics at the Darden School at UVA. The book focuses on the purpose of business. But a business cannot have clarity on purpose without products having intent and purpose. What is the intent and purpose of building and doing what you do. The intent and purpose questions are important questions to understand for product teams. Ed provides great context for both. Shorter and nice TEDx talk below if you don't want to read it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dugfwJthBY&t - Great for discussion on team lunches and product get togethers. 8. Andy Kessler. 2012. Eat People. Penguin Publishing Group. I have been a big fan of Andy for a long time. The book is 13 rules. Call them idea selection filters. A very easy, light, quick and fun read. My favorite rule. Embrace exceptionalism finally dissects what makes 10X talent, 10X talent. There is some real science behind the concept. Like Pirsig, heavy on thinking and philosophy, light on process. But a great read. This one is an all time favorite. 9. Geoffrey A Moore. 2008. Dealing with Darwin. Penguin Publishing Group and Geoffrey A Moore. 2002. Living on the Fault line. Harper Business. Grew up reading Geoffrey Moore. The two books that he wrote after Crossing the Chasm. Useful reference and context. 10. Glen Urban. 1993. Design and Marketing of new products.‎ Pearson. Glen was the dean at MIT Sloan School of Management for many years. This was the first book on product design I read in the 90's. The most comprehensive and scientific process focused book on product dev. A bit scary for some since it weighs in at 600 page and is fairly technical. Some dated elements but if you want to master product, at some point you will have to go back to Glen. 11. Michael Cusumano.1998. Microsoft Secrets. Free Press. Another MIT professor. Cusumano wrote two definitive books on the business of software. The first was Secrets. The second business of software. If you can find Secrets, read it. Dense, heavy and dated now but an important read for anyone who is serious about setting up, managing, running or being in the product function. 12. Bruce Greenwald. 2007. Competition Demystified,. Portfolio. Bruce used to teach strategy at Columbia. The book is a collection of cases from his Value investing and Economics of Strategic Behavior Course. The best case based book on competitive strategy. Still in print. 13. Steve Stockman. 2011. How to shoot video that don’t suck. Workman Publishing Company. Stumbled onto Steve's book while shooting a documentary short. But the book taught me so much more about shooting product and launch videos. An underrated classic. Easy to read and follow. We run a summarized day long workshop in our product course using Steve's recommendations applied to launch videos.