Test-n-Tell.com - making product decisions

  In the first and second parts of this series, I've suggested several books about how the biggest and the most successful tech businesses work. Here I'd like to drive your attention to maybe less known companies and their stories. 

  In the first part of this series , I've suggested several books about how the biggest and the most successful tech businesses work. In this piece, you'll find books that do not immediately come to mind when someone says "big tech". Often you can learn much more from those. 

  We're obsessed with celebrities. And the modern "big tech" businesses are definitely celebrities. Apple's product reveals used to draw huge crowds. Google became a verb. So as Netflix...and chill. South Park dedicated half a season to Amazon. And only the lazy one didn't kick Facebook for one thing or another. Love them or hate them, we all use their products. 

  In " Empowered " Marty Cagan described how the best teams work. This way of working is challenging, but a reachable ideal we should all strive for. However, while on the way, we often find ourselves in less than ideal conditions. And sometimes, when we really unlucky, our ways of working might be in total opposite to the empowered ways.

  There are multiple ways to describe a culture. Today let's think about taking vs writing cultures, or we also could call it meetings vs memos culture. 

Recently I was reminded how old product management is . Well, kinda. We don't have an exact date the discipline was born. Maybe it happened alongside the first industrialisation attempts, maybe later, but no later than marketing established itself and early brand managers wear their hats. One is certain - product management is not new. How then we still call it unestablished?

  Some time ago I was asked to describe an average, good or great product manager. What is the difference between them? The answer might be slightly more tricky than it appears.