My Product Operations reading suggestions — Issue #13

I get quite a few requests from people looking to evolve as Product Ops professionals or from others interested in aspects of Product Ops. I thought it was about time I created a list of my suggestions before I lose track.

This list shows all the books that have helped me understand how to approach ways of working, change management, the design of product organisations and how product teams think.

I’ve listed them in alphabetical order and not in order of value they have brought to me. If I had to suggest only 5 books to read from this list its would be:

1. Working Backwards
2. Switch
3. Operations Management
4. Team topologies
5. The principles of product development flow

I hope this list is helpful to others and I’ll keep evolving this list as I read more.

Disclaimer: I am using affiliate links so I may earn a small percentage from purchases made.

The List

1. Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value
   By Melissa Perri
   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.
2. Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters
   By Richard Rumelt
   Clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world.
3. Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
   By Marty Cagan
   In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love―and that will work for your business.
4. Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business
   by David J. Anderson
   This book answers the questions:What is Kanban?Why would I want to use Kanban?How do I go about implementing Kanban?How do I recognize improvement opportunities and what should I do about them?
5. Operations Management
   By Nigel Slack, Alistair Brandon-Jones & Nicola Burgess
   Learn from world-leading experts Nigel Slack, Alistair Brandon-Jones and Nicola Burgess and benefit from their wealth of experience helping improve businesses of all shapes and sizes. Strategic in its perspective, the book offers a comprehensive and practical way to explore key concepts and see them in action through a plethora of international examples.
6. ReWork
   By David Heinemeier Hansson & Jason Fried
   From the founders of the trailblazing software company Basecamp, here is a different kind of business book — one that explores a new reality. Today, anyone can be in business.
7. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
   By Simon Sinek
   START WITH WHY asks (and answers) the questions: why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
8. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
   By Chip Heath & Dan Heath
   In Switch, the Heaths show how everyday people — employees and managers, parents and nurses — have united both minds and, as a result, achieved dramatic results
9. Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow
   By Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais
   Effective software teams are essential for any organisation to deliver value continuously and sustainably. But how do you build the best team organisation for your specific goals, culture, and needs?
10. The Culture Code: The secrets of highly successful groups
    By Daniel Coyle
    How do you build and sustain a great team?The Culture Code reveals the secrets of some of the best teams in the world — from Pixar to Google to US Navy SEALs — explaining the three skills such groups have mastered in order to generate trust and a willingness to collaborate.
11. The Culture Map
    By Erin Meyer
    An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life.
12. The Principles of Product Development Flow
    By Donald G. Reinertsen
    Reinertsen starts with the ideas of lean manufacturing but goes far beyond them, drawing upon ideas from telecommunications networks, transportation systems, computer operating systems and military doctrine.
13. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
    by Charles Duhigg
    In The Power of Habit, award-winning business reporterCharles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed.
14. Thinking, Fast and Slow: Kahneman, Daniel
    By Daniel Kahneman
    In his mega bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, world-famous psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think.
15. Who Moved My Cheese? : An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life
    By Spencer Johnson & Kenneth Blanchard
    This book shows how to anticipate change, adapt quickly, enjoy the change and be ready for more, so that you suffer from less stress and enjoy more success in life.
16. Working Backwards
    By Colin Bryar & Bill Carr
    Working Backwards gives an insider’s account of Amazon’s approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time, top-level Amazon executives.

Thoughts Unravelled by Hugo Froes @thehugofroes

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Join me as I unravel some of my thoughts on Product Orgs, Product Practices and the challenges I may face as Product Operations lead at OLX Motors EU