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, a business analyst stepping into their first role, or a graduate 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 it inevitably reflects my own perspective. 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.
Part I — Understanding the Context and Problem
Ch. 01 Product and Information Systems Practices
Introduces 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.
Ch. 02 Learning What to Build and Why
Explains how discovery helps you reduce uncertainty, understand the situation, and gather the evidence needed to decide what is worth building and why.
Ch. 03 Identifying and Working With Stakeholders
Shows 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.
Ch. 04 Exploring and Understanding Problems
Introduces methods for looking beyond symptoms to understand the relationships, causes, and conditions shaping a problem and identify useful opportunities for intervention.
Part II — Defining What to Build
Ch. 05 Defining Strategic Direction, Product Vision, Goals, and Priorities
Shows how to connect an initiative to organizational strategy, define a clear vision and measurable goals, and make informed decisions about priorities.
Ch. 06 Defining User Needs
Explains how to use research evidence to understand users' goals, activities, and tasks and translate what you learn into clear user needs and requirements.
Ch. 07 Process Modeling
Introduces ways to model how work happens so you can understand activities, decisions, handoffs, information flows, and opportunities for improving a process.
Ch. 08 Defining Data Needs
Covers how to identify, define and understand data needs for your product or information management system.
Ch. 09 Architecture Requirements
Explains how to identify the quality attributes, constraints, and architectural requirements a solution must satisfy to work effectively in its intended environment.
Ch. 10 Backlog Development
Shows how to turn goals, user needs, and system requirements into a structured backlog that can be prioritized, refined, and used to guide development.
Part III — Planning and Delivering the Work
Ch. 11 Planning and Managing Iterations
Explains how to plan and manage short development cycles, use feedback to learn, and continually adjust the work as the product and your understanding evolve.