Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

To stay competitive in today's market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer's needs.

In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.

In five parts, this book explores:

• Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent
• How to set up a product organization that scales
• How product strategy connects a company's vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities
• How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework
• How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
  

  About This Book

  This book is for every product person. It’s for the senior in college who wants to be a product manager but doesn’t quite understand the full landscape of the job. It’s for the first-time product manager who was thrown into the fray and is looking for guidance. It’s for the product manager, just promoted to VP, who needs a guide to set up their organization so that it scales successfully. It’s for the leaders of large organizations who are looking to obtain that competitive advantage.

  The version of Escaping the Build Trap you are about to read is the fourth rewrite of this book in three years. It is a culmination of what I have learned about how roles, strategy, process, and organizational dynamics affect the value that a company can deliver.

  
  

  
  
  

  This book is a guide to getting out of the build trap with great product management. We look at what it means to become and be a product-led organization, which involves four key components:

   

  • Creating a product manager role with the right responsibilities and structure
  • Enabling those product managers with a strategy that promotes good decision making
  • Understanding the process of determining what product to build, through experimentation and optimization
  • Supporting everyone with the right organizational policies, culture, and rewards to allow product management to thrive
    

    Product details

    • Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media
    • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 29, 2018
    • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
    • Language ‏ : ‎ English
    • Print length ‏ : ‎ 200 pages
    • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 149197379X
    • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1491973790
    • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.9 ounces
    • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches