2022 Reading List: 5 Books Every Product Manager Should Be Reading

Since 2018, I’ve been releasing yearly reading lists of books with valuable lessons for product managers. Some of them delve directly into the art of product management, while others offer more general lessons on leadership, understanding customers, and human nature itself. Of course, you can’t go wrong with any of the books listed below, but you can also look back to my 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 lists for further inspiration. So, without further ado, we start with Empowered, a follow-up to one of my favorites from 2018.

5. “Empowered,” by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones

Inspired was one of my favorite books of 2018, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I’m starting my list off with Empowered this year. This book tackles a common misconception, the idea that successful product companies simply attract an overwhelming level of talent that allows them to outperform the rest.

While it’s true that not all teams were made equal when it comes to their talent pool, talent isn’t the difference-maker. Rather, successful companies empower their ordinary people to create extraordinary products, as the subtitle puts it. If you simply give your teams rote instructions they need to deliver, then a genius and a dilettante aren’t going to differ that much in what they create. The core message in Empowered comes across in a quote from the text;

“Give teams problems to solve, rather than features to build. Empower them to solve those problems in the best way they see fit.”

Freeing people to think about their work, devise and test solutions, and approach problems dynamically will unlock a creative potential you never expected. This is the core premise of Empowered, and the book makes a convincing argument in favor of its thesis. If you’ve already read and loved Inspired, you’re sure to enjoy this book as well.

4. “The Mythical Man-Month,” by Fred Brooks

Not every book that’s worth reading has to be a hot release of recent years. Indeed, The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks remains an insightful evisceration of common mistakes that many product managers continue making to this day. A man-month is a term that he invented for the book, although it’s obviously similar to the man-hour measure of labor.

The book is most famous for its provocative, quotable line that has become known as Brook’s Law; “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” You can’t break the value of creative, intellectual human labor down into ones and zeros. While a shortage of resources can hold back a project, it’s more often the case that underlying challenges with the project will result in additional resources, only adding to the confusion. Mythical Man-Month is an enjoyable read for anyone. Still, it remains a timeless and illuminating work that every project manager should have on their bookshelf.

3. “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” by Clayton Christensen

Everyone talks about innovation, but few people understand it as well as Clayton Christensen did when he wrote this book. He tackles several innovation-related challenges, such as the fact there are two fundamentally different types of innovation.

While incremental improvements to existing technologies can help the bottom line of your established company, this stands in contrast to the disruptive innovation that will force your company to adapt or die. Reading this book will give you a deeper appreciation of innovation, as well as a more long-term, strategic mindset in regard to change in the business landscape.

2. “Continuous Discovery Habits,” by Teresa Torres

Many teams have had the experience of chasing new frameworks, strategies, and concepts with the hope that success will follow. But, if you’re a product manager who’s been struggling to find an approach that works, Teresa Torres has a novel proposition for you. In Continuous Discovery Habits, her diagnosis is that product managers and their teams struggle to deliver consistently is a matter of underlying mindset.

The heart of the change in mindset that Teresa Torres recommends is the concept of continuous discovery. Unfortunately, most teams relegate discovery, conceptual breakthroughs, and innovative ideas to the beginning of the process and then shift back into development as usual. In Continuous Discovery Habits, you’ll learn about the value of infusing the quality of discovery into the whole process, as well as how to do so. Furthermore, the book lays out a means of building these habits for continuous discovery into your mindset, goals, and communication methods.

1. “Predictably Irrational,” by Dan Ariely

The minds of customers can seem unpredictable and irrational at times, but the truth is, none of us are perfectly rational. We all rely on heuristics and quick comparisons to make decisions, and our subconscious mind has many irrational ways of making decisions.

With Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely dives into these decision-making mechanisms and writes a book that’s illuminating, entertaining, and deeply helpful to any product manager. By reading this book, you can come to appreciate the quirks that guide people to make the decisions they do and incorporate this knowledge into your projects.