Software Product Management Essentials

Rating:
Summary: Very thin on material
Review: Dont waste your money on this one. As someone pointed out , it should be titled 'Software Product Management Topics'. Instead i found 'Product Managers Handbook' more detailed and relevant.

Rating:
Summary: You have to read this book!
Review: Excellent book. As an experienced product manager at a small software company, I found this book very practical and a great resource. The author gives great advice and tips that I haven't had time to consider. The book is very easy to read and it is quite evident that the author is an expert in product management.

Rating:
Summary: No fluff, just straight help for the SW PM
Review: I really appreciated the terseness and honesty this book presented. It does not have any fluff and does not make any bones about its strong focus on small and mid-sized software companies, noting that bigger companies have different needs and many other books cover that space. I didn't expect this book to go deep into any one topic simply becuase it clearly is pitched as a comprehensive overview of the roles and responsibilities of SW PMs. However, I was pleasantly suprised when I found that despite its short and easy read, Dver did dig into the details of several key topics such as product requirements, development processes, and cross-functional team management. While I have read many other books on product management, this one really kept close to the goal of giving me a number of very precise things I can do to be a better product manager - including providing actual templates such as an NDA and beta agreement. The price of the was easily book justified by those templates alone.

I plan on taking the Product Management Certification test soon and I agree with AIPMM that this book should be a part of every software product manager's collection. Unlike other generic product management books, it really gets to heart of software management within smaller, entreprenurial businesses.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: I recently read this book and unlike me normally, I felt it warranted my time to post a review and thank the author for making an otherwise uninspiring topic so easy and enjoyable of a read. I was recently promoted to product manager at my software company and had no idea where to start. Dver's book has given me excellent tips and templates to use and prepared me so I can hit the ground running. I almost wish I had read this book before when I was an engineer because it would have given me a better understanding of the overall process of product delivery and it would have helped me and my organization to better support the efforts of our product manager at the time.

I think that this book has been invaluable to me in my role and I will refer to it often. Most product management and marketing books I have seen are too high level where they discuss thoery but not practical ideas on what to do. Other books get too deep in areas that a product manager needs not be the expert but rather a participant. I appreciated the brevity of the overall book and found it also to be quite specific and descriptive where it needed to be. I think anyone who is a product manager can appreciate how valuable time is in trying to juggle the many aspects of a product - Dver understands this and it is reflected in the book and its writing.

Lastly, I also think that Dver captures well the fact that software is a very different product to manage and draws out these differences in each chapter's topic. I had read other product management and marketing books and they never seem to get that software is quite different and therefore needs to be managed differently. I also enjoyed having a reality check of smaller companies and what is done versus larger ones where they can afford to apply more resources and time towards marketing and sales. This book gave me a lot of excellent ideas on how to manage my product in a low-budget, resource-starved environment. That in itself is worth the price of the book.