The best book on Product Management I have read. I felt like I was highlighting something on every page. It is a great overview of Product Management, mostly free of industry jargon, and a great starting point for anyone interested in what Product does (or should do). But it is also great for more experienced Product Managers, as there is a wealth of information in this small book. The 6 questions in the Appendix are priceless, and the footnotes lead to other sources to explore for further information.

I want to buy this book and give it to all of my Product co-workers, but have started by recommending it to my boss, who immediately went and bought a copy. ( )

Having seen the "product death cycle" before, this book helped provide some mental models that helped me understand some of the product miss-steps I'd personally seen in the past.

It identifies the importance of strategic product thinking, communicating strategy, finding the "real" problems to be solved, experimentation and focus on learning, and prioritisation.

The style is great, a good read for anyone interested in what a great, product led org should be thinking about. ( )

Presents a good case for a bigger role for product management at different levels/roles. Data-based, experimentation/learning to reduce risk, empowered to find solutions within given boundaries.
The "build trap" is the top-down, features-based delivery approach and organisation (incl rewards) without verification, learning, customer-contact, or empowerment.
Decries mindless agile (features only, product owner is just doing what they are told), which is not really what agile approaches have in mind, but which may be prevalent.

Describes various product manager roles at different organisation levels, how a business's strategy needs to be set at the appropriate level of detail and timescale to allow learning/experimentation at lower levels within given boundaries, how culture, reward systems, budgeting process, and CEO behaviour need to align. An example of a boundary: “You can go and experiment, but you can only spend $200K. Come back to us when you know more about what’s going on, and we’ll think about investing more.”

It presents the Product Kata - Understand direction (+success metrics) => Analyse current state => Set next goal => Execute (Problem exploration, Solution exploration (concierge, wizard of Oz, alpha & beta concept testing, Solution optimisation) => (back to start).
[https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/escaping-the-build/9781491973783/ch15.html] ( )