Paweł Huryn

12-Month MBA for PMs (better than any $127K course)

Month 1:

- Introduction: Inspired by Marty Cagan
- Leadership: Empowered by Marty Cagan and Chris Jones
- Startups: The Right It by Alberto Savoia

Month 2:

- Product Discovery: Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres
- Interviews: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick
- Product-Market Fit: The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen

Month 3:

- Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur
- Value Proposition Design by Alexander Osterwalder and others
- Testing Business Ideas by Alexander Osterwalder and David Bland

Month 4:

- Setting goals: Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke
- Leading with context: No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings
- Teams: Team Topologies by Manuel Pais and Matthew Skelton

Month 5:

- PLG: Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush
- Retention: Hooked by Nir Eyal
- Take the Product-led Certification Course by Pendo.io with a secret 100% discount code: https://lnkd.in/d4k_N9e5

Month 6:

- Marketing: This is Marketing by Seth Godin
- Marketing for tech startups: Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
- Product Growth: Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis

Month 7:

- Public speaking: Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo
- Copywriting: The Copywriter's Handbook by Robert W. Bly
- Negotiating: Never Split the Difference by Christopher Voss and Tahl Raz

Month 8:

- Making decisions: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- Effectiveness: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen M. R. Covey
- Networking: Superconnector by Ryan Paugh and Scott Gerber

Month 9:

- Leadership: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
- Financial Intelligence: The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
- Accounting: Accounting for Non-Accountants by Wayne A. Label

Month 10:

- Product Analytics: Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz
- A free North Star Framework Compendium: https://lnkd.in/dGK9wAKs
- Take the Product Analytics Certification course by Pendo.io with a secret 100% discount code: https://lnkd.in/d-7gwgcp

Month 11:

- JTBD: Jobs-to-be-Done by Tony Ulwick
- What to build: Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri
- Building products: Build by Tony Fadell

Month 12:

- Strategy: Playing to Win by Roger Martin
- Business portfolio: The Invincible Company by Frederic Etiemble, Alan Smith, Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur

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Bonus (recommended):

- Career: The Ultimate Guide to Getting a PM Job by Aakash Gupta
- Learning from the best: Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
- The MBA Pathology according to Marty Cagan: https://lnkd.in/dw6kpwTv
- 600+ free PM learning resources: https://lnkd.in/dj2Mq_gV

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All it takes is to read or listen to audiobooks for 45-60 min/day.

[Edited] All links (no paywall): https://lnkd.in/dHxr-RSJ

P.S. You can network for free on LinkedIn.

All PM templates from my Google Drive are now free for everyone 🎁

The extended edition:

- XLXS: https://lnkd.in/dK2UfvkZ
- PPTX: https://lnkd.in/dzkx2uYC
- PDF: https://lnkd.in/dgbjzjVg

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Bonus, and here you can find:

- 27 free FigJam PM templates by Maryna Kucherova 🇺🇦: https://lnkd.in/ec3GDrNA

- A massive collection of free PM templates by Matt Mochary: https://lnkd.in/d4kBJteS

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Hope that helps!

What should I add to that list?

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P.S. You can get 650+ free PM learning resources (courses, videos, books) by subscribing to my newsletter (see the welcome email): https://lnkd.in/dmCJgf4w

Want to break into PM? I have a plan. 9 videos, 7 books, and 2 top-notch courses you can take for free.

Before we dive in:

- Please study carefully. This is not a race
- Make notes / create a mind map
- 3 times a week, write a short post
- Start networking. See the “PM People” section
- Theory is not enough. But it's a solid foundation

Here is the plan:

1. Watch The Root Causes of Product Failure with Marty Cagan: https://lnkd.in/dx45AEmn

2. Read Inspired by Marty Cagan

3. Watch EMPOWERED - Achieving Extraordinary Results with
Ordinary People with Marty Cagan: https://lnkd.in/dWWgB9uJ

4. Read Empowered by Marty Cagan

5. Watch Introduction to Modern Product Discovery with Teresa Torres: https://lnkd.in/deN64Yr8

6. Read Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres

7. Watch Escaping the Build Trap with Melissa Perri: https://lnkd.in/dAKXMabf

8. Read Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri

9. Watch A Playbook for Achieving Product Market Fit with Dan Olsen: https://lnkd.in/dEnxUi2m

10. Watch How to Use Analytics to Optimize Your Product and Business with Dan Olsen: https://lnkd.in/dtJU6p9r

11. Read The Lean Product Playbook by Dan Olsen

12. Watch Product Success with Jobs to Be Done with Tony Ulwick: https://lnkd.in/dGsz3j2r

13. Watch Alexander Osterwalder on Product Innovation: https://lnkd.in/dTHzf7gq

14. Watch Product Led Growth Framework Masterclass: https://lnkd.in/dDr5FNTk

15. Read Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush

16. Take the course Becoming a Product Manager: A Complete Guide Get certified with a free, 30-day trial: https://lnkd.in/dksTzpP9

17. Take the Product-led Certification Course by Pendo.io and Mind the Product. Get certified for free with a special, 100% discount code: https://lnkd.in/g8baqifa

18. Bonus: Prepare for the interview with Cracking the PM Interview by Jackie Bavaro and Gayle McDowell


Free link and 200+ other PM resources in a read-only mode: https://lnkd.in/dGRVTTN5

I found a fantastic, free collection of 500+ product teardowns for PMs.

Learn. And get inspired.

Lifehack: use it before an interview :)

What I particularly love is the ability to filter the teardowns by:

- Market: B2B, B2C
- Dozens of companies
- Objective: Growth, Engagement, Conversion, Monetization, and more

Huge thanks to Saurao Dalvi and The Stare for curating it and making it available for free to anyone ❤️

An instant bookmark for a PM: https://lnkd.in/dadvp3kA

Hope that helps.

What are the other free PM resources worth sharing?

The product death cycle is a terrible trap.

Many PMs forget about the “Why“ and become waiters.

To please everyone, a waiter collects and waterfalls all “feature requirements“ to the team. But no matter how much the team delivers, it gets only worse. Features shipped in a hurry do not solve anyone's problems and do not drive the expected business results.

The feature factory.

Fortunately, you can prevent or escape that trap. Try this:

1. Respect your vision and strategy
2. Do not let your customers design solutions
3. Experiment to test your ideas
4. Push back on things that are handed down

Now in detail:

1. Respect your vision and strategy

Ask yourself:

- Why are you building this product?
- Where do you want to be in 2-5 years?
- For whom are you building it?
- What are the customer jobs (functional, emotional, social)?
- What's the unique value of your product?
- How is it aligned with the company's vision and strategy?
- What are the key tradeoffs?
- How will it create value for the business?
- What assumptions must be true to succeed?

Recommended books:

- Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder
- Playing to Win by Roger Martin

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2. Do not let your customers design solutions

Focus on understanding their problems, needs, and desires in-depth. Interview them regularly, map opportunities, and brainstorm possible solutions. Make sure the designer and engineers are included.

This will help you build a shared understanding and stay open to different perspectives. The best ideas often come from engineers.

Recommended books:

- Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres
- The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

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3. Experiment to test your ideas

Learning by delivering is expensive. Instead, run small experiments to validate ideas as cheaply and as quickly as possible before selecting them for implementation.

Key risks you need to tackle:

- Value. Will our customers desire it?
- Usability. Will they figure out how to use it?
- Viability. Will it work for different parts of the business?
- Feasibility. Is it possible with the current technology?
- Ethic. Should we do it?

Ask yourself:

- What needs to be true for this idea to work?
- How can we test our assumptions?

Recommended books:

- Inspired by Marty Cagan
- Testing Business Ideas by Alexander Osterwalder and David Bland
- For startups: The Right It by Alberto Savoia

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4. Push back on things that are handed down

Respect your stakeholders, but don't let their authority influence what's important. Question solutions and push back on things that are handed down.

Understand the problem and whether it's worth solving and define clear desired outcomes.

“A person's success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have“ - Tim Ferriss

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Even though knowledge about what works is easily available, many companies keep falling into that trap.

Any ideas why?

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The product death cycle credits: David Bland.

User Stories are narratives that foster collaboration, guide development, and drive meaningful outcomes.

But many use them as containers for requirements.

So here's User Stories 101:

1. Why?

A User Story is written from the perspective of a user who wants to derive value from the product.

It should focus on the user's desired outcomes and be embedded in the context where the user seeks value from the product.

2. How?

The basic format of a User Story is simple:

WHO: As a [user type]
WHAT: I want [action to perform]
WHY: So that [the desired outcome]

A prerequisite to working with User Stories is understanding the users, ideally segmented by their needs and desired outcomes.

3. Effective User Stories: 3C's

The 3 C's of User Stories are Card, Conversation, and Confirmation.

They are essential for writing a good User Story.

- Card

A card explaining WHO, WHAT, and WHY. They once were physical cards, but today, we create User Stories in tools like Jira.

- Conversation

Rather than creating a detailed specification, discuss the reasoning behind the User Story.

Everyone needs to understand not just how the User Story will benefit the users but also how it will contribute to the Product Outcome and how it aligns with your product strategy.

- Confirmation

Confirmation refers to the Acceptance Criteria that should be fulfilled to ensure the requirements have been met and delivered correctly. It's a concise checklist, not detailed test cases.

4. The INVEST User Stories

INVEST is an acronym representing the essential qualities of well-written User Stories:

- Independent: Each User Story should be self-contained and not depend on other stories.

- Negotiable: The details of the User Story can be discussed and negotiated with the team and the stakeholders.

- Valuable: The User Story delivers value to the user.

- Estimable: It should be possible to estimate the effort required to complete the User Story.

- Small: User Stories should be small enough to be completed within a single iteration. If you do not work in iterations, you might assume 2-4 weeks as the rule of thumb.

- Testable: There are clear criteria to determine if the story has been successfully implemented.

Those qualities are highly desirable. But do not obsess over the acronym.

5. How to Split User Stories?

Some User Stories are too big to be selected for the implementation. You must break them into smaller, more manageable pieces to deliver value faster and, ideally, start learning from customers using your product for real.

- Epic: A larger element, typically combining 5-15 smaller User Stories (that’s highly context-specific).

- User Stories: Small, manageable items.

- Tasks: Used to plan and monitor the exact work performed by Engineers. Product Managers have nothing to say here.

Some add more layers, but in my experience, they overcomplicate things and do not bring much value.

Keep it simple.

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Do you agree? Disagree?

Let me know in the comments.