Expert Product Management: Advanced Techniques, Tips and Strategies for Product Management & Product Marketing [Paperback]

Brian Lawley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 10, 2007

This book teaches both new and seasoned Product Managers and Product Marketers powerful and effective ways to ensure they give their products the best possible chance for success.

Learn four of the most critical elements in ensuring product success, and take-away practical strategies, insights, tips and techniques that Brian has learned from hands-on experience defining, launching and marketing over fifty products during the last twenty years of his career.

The book covers how to prioritize features and build product roadmaps, which is absolutely critical for getting your team and company on the same page and for delivering the right features in your product at the right time.

It also covers how to run effective Beta programs, which oftentimes mean the difference between shipping a poor-quality product and shipping a product that you have a high degree of confidence in.

Learn how to plan and execute an effective product launch. Short of building a great product, product launches are one of the most (if not THE most) critical factors for achieving success.

Finally, learn how to get phenomenal reviews for your products. Oftentimes this is an area that is an afterthought, and is not dealt with until or unless the product receives poor reviews. With a well-managed review program you can turn press and analysts into one of your most powerful marketing weapons, further accelerating the success of your product.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The book includes a link to download free sample templates and white papers and also includes a promotional code to receive $30 off when purchasing the 280 Group PM Office Professional version, a collection of templates, samples and on-demand training for Product Marketing & Product Management professionals.

From the Back Cover

"Being an expert in product management means knowing what is critical for product success. The strategies and tools offered in 'Expert Product Management' will allow new or seasoned practitioners to avoid the non-essential and stay focused on the critical path to plan, build and launch a market-leading product." Michael J. Salerno, Co-founder and President Emeritus, Boston Product Management Association

"Brian Lawley has done a great job pulling together tangible and practical tools and tips that product managers can immediately put to use to increase the success of their product launches." Noël Adams, President, PhaseForward and President NorCal PDMA (Product Development and Management Association)

"In technology product management, there are four pragmatic techniques every product manager needs to master. In 'Expert Product Management,' Brian Lawley has written a no-fluff, concisely written guide to these areas. This book contains a lot of information and sound advice that I haven't seen in other product management books, such as its succinct examination of several roadmapping techniques." Therese Padilla, Co-founder, AIPMM (Association of International Product Marketing & Management)

"'Expert Product Management' is an excellent guide to managing the more complex, but critical aspects of product management such as roadmapping and product launches. The book provides an invaluable professional validation for experienced product managers and it is a must-have learning tool for new PMs." Alyssa Dver, CPM, CPMM, Author of "Software Product Management Essentials", PM consultant and teacher

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Happy About (October 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1600050794
• ISBN-13: 978-1600050794
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #821,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Lawley is the CEO and founder of the 280 Group, which provides Product Management consulting, contractors, training, templates and books. During the last twenty five years of his career he has shipped more than fifty successful products. He is the former President of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association, won the 2008 AIPMM award for Excellence in Thought Leadership for Product Management and is the author of the best-selling books, Expert Product Management, The Phenomenal Product Manager and 42 Rules of Product Management. Mr. Lawley has been featured on CNBC's World Business Review and the Silicon Valley Business Report and writes articles for a variety of publications including the Product Management 2.0 newsletter and Blog.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars No Value, October 6, 2008

By 

Anthony C. Mazzullo "tonym" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Expert Product Management: Advanced Techniques, Tips and Strategies for Product Management & Product Marketing (Paperback)

I bought several books on Product Management to help my team improve our product planning process. After trying to read this book I decided to toss it in the trash rather than to share it with my team.

I was a successful software/technology product manager prior to moving up the ranks. I found this book confusing at best. It does not provide a comprehensive overview for beginners and is not deep enough for experienced product maangers.

This is also very poorly written. I think this book written and published to advertise the author's consulting business. It desparately needs help from a professional writer/editor.

The problem today is that anyone can publish a book in support of their business. There are no quality standards for these books other than reader reviews.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We Get Past the Basics FINALLY, November 7, 2007

By 

mark harlan "http://www.RedsDeal.com" (silicon valley, california) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Expert Product Management: Advanced Techniques, Tips and Strategies for Product Management & Product Marketing (Paperback)

The few product marketing and product management books on the market today all seem like cookie cutters of each other. The problem these books have is very little attachment to reality -- either by being written by university types who couldn't launch a successful product if their lives depended on it, or worse, by giving you concepts so basic that when you finish the book down you slam it down and say, "Well, duh!"

Here in the Silicon Valley I've been hearing for years that my most favored product manager, Brian Lawley, was going to write a book. I caught wind that it had been released and checked it out immediately.

It was as good as I had hoped, in Expert Product Management Mr. Lawley walks you through what he calls "the four most critical elements" to assuring product success: product roadmaps, beta programs, product launches and review programs. Always backing up his theory with real-world samples, more than once I found myself thinking, "okay, NOW I get why this is so important."

The book is short and to the point, at 80 pages you can jam through it, highlighter in hand, in just a couple of hours; but I can already see that it's going to change the product management products situations my consultancy will be involved in for a l-o-n-g time to come.

And here's the great thing: you don't have to take my word for it. The 280 Group's Web site has the book for FREE electronic download (Amazon frowns on me puttin the URL here -- but you know what Google is, right?). Just do what I did, try before you buy and if you don't like it you haven't wasted anything but a few million electrons and a couple of minutes of your time. But hey, if you're serious about product marketing, you'll follow me right back here and buy it. (You might want to anyway because once you do you you're eligible for a $30 discount on the Professional Version of the 280 Group PM Office.)

Thanks for reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty basic, well-known tactics, August 8, 2009

By 

Richard J. Elgie Jr. (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Expert Product Management: Advanced Techniques, Tips and Strategies for Product Management & Product Marketing (Paperback)

I believe this book can be useful but I find that it is somewhat a misnomer to call it "Advanced Techniques, Tips and Strategies". There's not much terribly advanced about this book. It really appears to be trying to be a PM handbook, but lacks the comprehensiveness to be so. Instead, I'd recommend the PDMA Handbook of New Product Development (expensive but well worth it) and grabbing the package of templates etc for this book from the 280group website.

By no means a complete waste... just not what I was looking for from something claiming to provide me advanced techniques and tips.