Impact-first Product Teams - by Matt Lemay (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Around the world, product teams are waking up to the same uncomfortable truth: doing things "the right way" doesn't matter if your team loses its funding or your company goes out of business.

Simply put, product teams can no longer afford to be disconnected from the business impact of their work. And well-trodden "best practices" from Silicon Valley behemoths can only provide so much guidance for teams working across vastly different business and funding models.

In Impact-first Product Teams, product leader and consultant Matt LeMay provides clear-eyed and reality-tested guidance for doing the work that matters most to your business. This concise and practical book walks you through the questions and conversation starters that have helped product teams across industries and geographies put impact at the heart of their work - and keep it there.

Review Quotes

This book is a must-read for product teams navigating today's turbulent business landscape. I love the case studies, the insights, and the focus on actions that can be taken at the team level. But most of all, I love how fun this book was to read. Too many business books are painful to slog through, but Matt's book is as charming as it is useful.

-Christina Wodtke

Author of Radical Focus and The Team that Managed Itself

Product teams have been losing credibility in recent years. We've hidden behind dogma, avoided accountability for the quality of our decisions, and alienated the rest of the business, all while complaining about a lack of autonomy. But the business won't tolerate it anymore, nor should they. A reckoning is upon our craft, and if we don't evolve, we risk becoming irrelevant. It's time to focus on impact, not dogma. Matt is wise. Read his book and follow his advice.

-Dave Wascha

Former CPO/CPTO at MOO, Photobox, Moonpig, Zoopla

Any product leader or aspiring leader needs to read this book and apply its lessons. I was fortunate to have Matt join our PM planning session and preview some of his key tenets as he was finishing this book. Matt's message resonated with our team: The most effective PMs and PM teams must be commercially savvy, speak the language of the business, and 'move the needle.' Everything we do in PM must support this directive, or we should stop doing it.

-David Nash

Veteran B2B SaaS Chief Product Officer

Impact-first Product Teams sets the standard for how every product team should function and has become my go-to recommendation for all product professionals I work with. Whether you're early in your career or a seasoned professional, this book is a must-read for those who want to create real impact and thrive in the ever-evolving world of product development.

-George Barlow

Chief Product Officer & Product Design Consultant

Impact-first Product Teams is an inspiring-yet-deeply-practical guide to what good product management actually looks like. Each chapter equips readers with an actionable question they can use to interrogate what they are delivering for the business and reframe their ways of working to confidently produce more value. This book is essential for anyone involved in the building of digital products - especially in this unpredictable season - because it bolsters us with tested, detailed guidance on how to do our absolute best work and grounds us in the compassionate, steady reminder that our jobs are only a facet of who we are.

-Chelsea Bullock

Senior Principal Product Manager at Atlassian & Former Product Executive for Early-Stage Startups

Too many Product Managers fixate on applying the 'correct' development methodologies instead of focusing on desired business outcomes. As a result, too many product teams have become stuck in the Low-impact Death Spiral of long hours spent shipping features that sink without trace. Matt's excellent new book resets the discussion and will ensure that every product manager (and every product team) is answering the question of 'what should my team build and why?' in the most impactful way possible for both their customers and their business.

-Paul Jackson

CEO, Streme