Product Management

Proven techniques and principles for modernizing legacy systems into new architectures that deliver serious competitive advantage.

For a business to thrive, it needs a modern software architecture that is aligned with its corporate architecture. This book presents concrete practices that sync software, product, strategy, team dynamics, and work practices. You’ll evolve your technical and social architecture together, reducing needless dependencies and achieving faster flow of innovation across your organization.

In Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure you’ll learn how to:

• Identify strategic ambitions and challenges using listening and mapping tours
• Visualize your business landscape and crucial capabilities with Wardley Mapping
• Create a product taxonomy as a framework for your architecture
• Run big picture EventStorming workshops to map business domains
• Apply Team Topologies patterns to identify and refine value streams
• Design loosely coupled, domain-aligned software architectures
• Build internal developer platforms for rapid, reliable evolution
• Implement data mesh principles and tools to revolutionize data engineering
• Deliver compelling modernization roadmaps focused on continuous value

Architecture Modernization: Socio-technical alignment of software, strategy, and structure shows you how to turn the practice of architecting systems into a transformative process for your entire company. Chapter-by-chapter, you’ll identify the reasons and benefits of modernization, design an architecture that works for your business, and then implement your new approach in a progressive and sustainable manner. Every technique is illustrated with insightful industry examples and an interactive Miro board that lets you dig deeper.

Product management has become a critical function for modern organizations, from small startups to corporate enterprises. And yet, the day-to-day work of product management remains largely misunderstood. In theory, product managers are high-flying visionaries who build products that people love. In practice, they're hard-working facilitators who bring clarity and focus to their teams.

In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition, Matt LeMay provides real-world guidance for current and aspiring product managers. Updated for the era of remote and hybrid work, this book provides actionable answers to product management's most persistent and confounding questions, starting with: What exactly am I supposed to do all day?

With this book, you'll learn:

• What the day-to-day work of product management entails--and how to excel at it
• Why no job title or description will resolve the ambiguity of your role
• How to bridge the false dichotomy between "strategy" and "execution"
• Why the temptation to focus on decks and documentation can be bad for your team (and for you)
• How to prioritize your time and pick your battles

Thoroughly reviewed and eagerly anticipated by the agile community, User Stories Applied offers a requirements process that saves time, eliminates rework, and leads directly to better software.

The best way to build software that meets users' needs is to begin with "user stories": simple, clear, brief descriptions of functionality that will be valuable to real users. In User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle.

You'll learn what makes a great user story, and what makes a bad one. You'll discover practical ways to gather user stories, even when you can't speak with your users. Then, once you've compiled your user stories, Cohn shows how to organize them, prioritize them, and use them for planning, management, and testing.

• User role modeling: understanding what users have in common, and where they differ
• Gathering stories: user interviewing, questionnaires, observation, and workshops
• Working with managers, trainers, salespeople and other "proxies"
• Writing user stories for acceptance testing
• Using stories to prioritize, set schedules, and estimate release costs
• Includes end-of-chapter practice questions and exercises

User Stories Applied will be invaluable to every software developer, tester, analyst, and manager working with any agile method: XP, Scrum... or even your own home-grown approach.

User story mapping is a valuable tool for software development, once you understand why and how to use it. This insightful book examines how this often misunderstood technique can help your team stay focused on users and their needs without getting lost in the enthusiasm for individual product features.

Author Jeff Patton shows you how changeable story maps enable your team to hold better conversations about the project throughout the development process. Your team will learn to come away with a shared understanding of what you’re attempting to build and why.

• Get a high-level view of story mapping, with an exercise to learn key concepts quickly
• Understand how stories really work, and how they come to life in Agile and Lean projects
• Dive into a story’s lifecycle, starting with opportunities and moving deeper into discovery
• Prepare your stories, pay attention while they’re built, and learn from those you convert to working software