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

• Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
• Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation
• Swipe to Unlock: The Primer on Technology and Business Strategy
• The Lean Product Playbook: How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customer Feedback
• User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product
• Product Leadership: How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams
• Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love
• Outcomes Over Output: Why customer behavior is the key metric for business success
• Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty