At the end of each calendar year, I spend a bit of time cleaning house (figuratively, and sometimes literally). I look at the things that I have accomplished (or not), the tools that I have used (or not) and formulate a plan for the coming year.
This year, I realized that I was not spending enough time reading. Not reading for pleasure, but for professional and career growth. As a Product Manager, the majority of my time is spent on 3 things:
- Meetings
- Customer/Prospect Calls
- Product Documentation (MRDs, PRDs, Sales training, product evangelization, status reports, etc)
The first item on the list, meetings, is an occupational hazard of being a cross-functional manager, although I have made a concerted effort to limit my attendance at meetings where I have been invited only for informational purposes. I have even started leaving meetings where I don’t feel that my presence is adding any value.
The other items on the list, customer/prospect calls and product documentation are core functions of the Product Management role. We have to talk to users and we have to write up what we want our product(s) to be and show people how they work.
What I haven’t had a lot of time for is reading articles and books and blogs about technology related or adjunct to my product, Product Management/product process-oriented topics, or business-related information about the industry and the world. Each of these provides details and new and different perspectives that can (and do) help me be a better Product Manager and create better products.
In the past few weeks, I have spent a fair amount of time searching for and reviewing sources for this kind of information. I have listed some of them below.
Feeds (this link takes you to my OPML file, but I have listed the names of the Product Management-specific feeds below)
- ack/nak
- Buyer Persona Blog
- Cauvin
- Cool Products & Hot Companies
- Creating Passionate Users
- Grillin’ in the Storm
- How To Be A Good Product Manager
- How to Change the World
- Managing Product Development
- Michael on Product Management & Marketing
- NilsNet – A Product Manager’s Blog – Product Management
- On Be(come)ing Agile
- On Product Management
- One Yoxel
- Product Beautiful
- Product Management
- Product Management Tips – Bazaar Buzz
- Product Marketing Blog
- Product Matters
- ProgrammableWeb.com
- Requirements Defined – Seilevel’s Software Requirements Blog
- robgrady.com
- SVPG Blog
- The Product Management View
- Tyner Blain
- User>Driven
- Write That Down
In the offline world, I subscribe to or read the following publications (in no particular order except how I remember them):
- Fast Company
- Businessweek (subscription ending…I’m not a fan of their new format and the content hasn’t been that unique/engaging)
- The Economist (subscription just starting)
- Wall Street Journal
- NY Times (I actually read this online, but not via blog)
- Forbes
- The Pragmatic Marketer
- Wired Magazine (only sporadically; their writing is too pompous and don’t get me started on they layout)
As for books, you can see the ones that I am interested in getting to in The Productologist Store under the PMGT Books section. There are also more Product Development books that I am interested in, too.
You can see that a reading list of this size takes a considerable amount of time to wade through. I typically do cursory scans and then go back and dig deeper into the topics of interest, but it’s easy for the information to pile up.
What are your thoughts on how to keep on top of both your industry knowledge and tips, tricks, tools and techniques of the Product Management trade. I’d be interested in hearing about other Product Management forums/ blogs, as well as how you manage the information flow. Do you schedule time during the week? Do you save it for commute, travel or home time?
Inquiring minds want to know!