There’s a particular sparkle I’ve often seen in the eyes of UX professionals who are considering a pivot to product management. In many cases, this is the sparkle of a redemption narrative in the making: “I’m sick of other product managers not understanding the value and importance of UX, and when I become a product manager, I’ll treat my whole team with respect and elevate UX to a more strategic position!”
Cut to a year later, and that sparkle has usually faded. The reality of product management—with its deadlines, estimates, high-stakes decisions, and high-pressure stakeholders—inevitably complicates your best-laid plans and purest ambitions. Slowly but surely, you start to realize why some of the product managers you’ve worked with were “like that.” And, with the right real-world guidance, you are able to navigate the complex realities of product management while building on the user-centric superpowers you developed as a UX person.
Product Management for UX People provides that very guidance. Christian Crumlish has lived through the transition from UX to product management, and is unerringly generous and candid in sharing both his experiences and those of other folks whose work has bridged the worlds of product and UX. Here, you’ll find compelling real-world stories of the highs, the lows, and (mostly) the relentless ambiguous middles of product management. And, best of all, you’ll learn how your experience as a UX person can help you be the kind of product manager you want to see in the world.
As you read this book, you will experience moments of far-flung inspiration, somber realization, deep reflection, and anxious-yet- steely resolve. If that doesn’t capture the day-to-day reality of life as a product manager, I don’t know what does.
—Matt LeMay, partner at Sudden Compass and author of Product Management in Practice and Agile for Everybody