Cracking the PM Career: The Skills, Frameworks, and Practices to Become a Great Product Manager (Cracking the Interview & Career)

Great book for junior product managers and for renewing your knowledge

I started as software engineer out of college where I have great ambition but no direction in the software tech industry.Gayle McDowell's book serves as a torch guiding the unknown path for me. By reading her books i can start seeing more clearly what is around me (where i am standing) as well as a grand passage of what the journey looks like down the road and how to improve myself in order to progress forward."Cracking the PM Career" is just an amazing resource work done by Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowellI have been in industry for 15 years now (SWE converted Product Manager), while i have accumulate knowledge & scars along the way as a Product Manager Lead at Meta. I find it still incredibly helpful to read their books to fill my gaps and extend well-rounded knowledge. The latest publish shares a lot great knowledge that will help you to be a even greater product manager.I strongly recommend this book to others wether you are an aspiring PM or already a PM, or PM Leader to refine yourself throughout reading!

This book is the best Product Management book I've come across. I'm mid to late stage career. Have been co-founder or VP level at several companies. Have lead PM at several startups with successful exits. And with all those decades of experience, there was still good new stuff - to me - in here to learn, and great refreshers on other items.As I read the book, I couldn't help thinking of the cliche about "if I'd only known this starting out." I definitely could have used these insights. (Of course, some things are 'sign of the times' specific... there was no "Agile" as it exists today. But that's not so much the point as compared to just having a better starting framework for what does exist in the now; whatever those things may be.) It might be that some things don't really hit home until you have the experience, even if you got the book learning. But still, at least you have a better sense of things if you've been exposed to the concepts.This is not a full "Body of Knowledge" (BOK) type work. But it is just full of practical sensible, "this is what you may be facing" type scenarios. New or junior PMs... just get this.

My recommendation for how to engage with this book most effectively: do a mock interview with a trusted PM at a level higher than you, ask for specific feedback, and read the sections most pertinent to that feedback.Reading it cover-to-cover will expose you to information that is useful enough, but often intuitive. If you're a good PM, you'll be efficient with your time.

This is a very comprehensive book detailing the whole arc and every dimension of the PM career with relevance for other tech roles as well. It provides clarity and insights about the PM career trajectory as well as how to build better relationships with your manager, peers, networks. So much gem in this book!Note this is more of a foundational summary book. Try other books for more specifics on the execution of daily tasks.

One of the best PM books on the market. Thorough and worth the entire read. If you’re pressed for time and can’t read the entire book they guide you on which sections to skip to. Jackie and Gayle does an excellent job of describing the day to day as a PM, the tools you’ll need, methodologies to learn, and even how to understand the professionals you’ll work with every day.By the end of it you’ll feel sharpened and know exactly what to do to sharpen your game. 500+ pages later I’m still highlighting. Excellent book! 📖🤓

As someone who has been a Product Manager for 15 years across Google, Foursquare, and Slack, my reaction when reading Cracking the PM Career was an audible, "Finally!" Someone finally wrote the best resource for not only navigating the PM career path, but building all the necessary skills to be a great product leader at every stage of one's career.I'm often asked for recommendations on what's the best single thing to read as a resource for developing into a world-class PM, and now I finally have the perfect answer.

This book is very long, I can't remember if I ever read longer book. But every page is useful and I learned so much.I know books of 200 or 300 pages which could be compressed in one chapter and everything else is there just to fill the space and make the book bigger. But in this book there is no useless part. The book is written by someone who knows the craft. Thank you Jackie and Gayle for sharing your knowledge.