Steve Johnson
Steve Johnson is an author, speaker, and product success coach. He uses modern methods to move products from idea to market in 13 weeks. His approach is based on the belief that minimal process and simple templates result in a nimble product team.
Steve was a long-time instructor and vice president at Pragmatic Institute and the co-creator of the popular QuartzOpen framework.
Steve's work experience includes technical, sales, and marketing management positions at companies specializing in technology-based products. His market and technical savvy allowed him to rise rapidly through the ranks from product manager to the executive suite.
Steve has been a long-time advocate for product management, serving as an executive and advisor to a number of technical product organizations and industry associations.
Books Recommended
Competing Against Luck
The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services customers not only want to buy, but are willing to pay premium prices for.
2016
Escaping the Build Trap
To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs.
2018
Inspired
In INSPIRED, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides readers with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization, and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love―and that will work for your business.
2017
Running Lean
In this inspiring book, Ash Maurya takes you through an exacting strategy for achieving a "product/market fit" for your fledgling venture, based on his own experience in building a wide array of products from high-tech to no-tech. Throughout, he builds on the ideas and concepts of several innovative methodologies, including the Lean Startup, Customer Development, and bootstrapping.
2012
The Advantage
The Advantage provides a foundational construct for conducting business in a new way—one that maximizes human potential and aligns the organization around a common set of principles.
2012
The Art of Product Management
This is more a “how to think about products” book than how-to templates. Product managers (and others who are deeply committed to great products) will recognize themselves and their daily process struggles. How do we think about customers and solutions? Why do organizations behave the way they do? This book captures the inner life of product champions.
2008
The Deadline
From prolific and influential consultant and author Tom DeMarco comes a project management novel that vividly illustrates the principles — and outright absurdities — that affect the productivity of a software development team.
2011
The Lean Product Playbook
The Lean Product Playbook is a practical guide to building products that customers love. Whether you work at a startup or a large, established company, we all know that building great products is hard. Most new products fail. This book helps improve your chances of building successful products through clear, step-by-step guidance and advice.
2015
The Lean Startup
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs—in companies of all sizes—a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
2011
The Phoenix Project
Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced.
2018
The Product Manager's Desk Reference
The Product Manager's Desk Reference embodies everything "product management." It is a comprehensive, versatile, must-have resource for anyone who works in any company, in any industry, who seeks to successfully and profitably market and manage products and services.
2014
The Right It
In this accessible, prescriptive, and widely applicable manual, Google’s first engineering director and current Innovation Agitator Emeritus provides critical advice for rethinking how we launch a new idea, product, or business, insights to help successfully beat the law of market failure: that most new products will fail, even if competently executed.
2019
The Unicorn Project
This highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling title The Phoenix Project takes another look at Parts Unlimited, this time from the perspective of software development.
2019
User Story Mapping
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.
2014
Books Written
Turn Ideas Into Products
In Turn Ideas into Products, author Steve Johnson introduces a nimble idea-to-market process with strong emphasis on personal experience with customers. From business planning to product launch, this approach for managing products empowers your product team to work smarter and collaborate better with colleagues and customers.
2017