This book grew out of two decades of professional practice and a decade of teaching product and information systems design. Over that time, I kept looking for a straightforward text that brought together the fundamental concepts and methods someone needs when they are starting out, whether as a product manager, product owner, business analyst, designer or developer stepping into their first role, or a student learning the discipline.
I never found quite what I was looking for, so I wrote this book.
It draws on my own experience, academic research, and many conversations with practitioners about how this work gets done in practice. It does not cover every method or approach, and, instead, the goal is to give you a grounded, practical starting point for understanding product and information systems development and the methods you can use to do the work well.
If you are new to this work, I hope this book helps you get started.
How to reference this book
Sturman, R. (2026). Enterprise product design and management. depai.studio. https://depai.studio
Contents
Part IUnderstanding the Context and Problem
- 01Product and Information Systems PracticesIntroduces how product and information systems work is organized, the practices that support it, and the broader factors you need to consider beyond features and technology.
- 02Learning What to Build and WhyExplains how discovery helps you reduce uncertainty, understand the situation, and gather the evidence needed to decide what is worth building and why.
- 03Identifying and Working With StakeholdersShows how to identify the people and groups who influence or are affected by a system, understand their perspectives, and involve them effectively in the work.
- 04Exploring and Understanding ProblemsIntroduces methods for looking beyond symptoms to understand the relationships, causes, and conditions shaping a problem and identify useful opportunities for intervention.
Part IIDefining What to Build
- 05Defining Strategic Direction, Product Vision, Goals, and PrioritiesShows how to connect an initiative to organizational strategy, define a clear vision and measurable goals, and make informed decisions about priorities.
- 06Defining User NeedsExplains how to use research evidence to understand users’ goals, activities, and tasks and translate what you learn into clear user needs and requirements.
- 07Process ModelingIntroduces ways to model how work happens so you can understand activities, decisions, handoffs, information flows, and opportunities for improving a process.
- 08Defining Data Needs Covers how to identify, define and understand data needs for your product or information management system.
- 09Architecture RequirementsExplains how to identify the quality attributes, constraints, and architectural requirements a solution must satisfy to work effectively in its intended environment.
- 10Backlog DevelopmentShows how to turn goals, user needs, and system requirements into a structured backlog that can be prioritized, refined, and used to guide development.