System is as System Does - beta table of contents

Hello!

I am closing in on sharing a private beta manuscript for System is as System Does: The Engineer’s Guide to Buildling Better Product¹. Here’s the table of contents for this version². I wanted to share to give people an idea of the topics I want to cover and get some feedback.

I would love it if you could give this a look, and answer one or more questions for me:

1. What looks most interesting? The one you want to read more than any other.
2. What looks most boring? The one topic you think you’re likely to gloss over
3. What looks confusing? The ones where you aren’t even sure what I’m going on about.

Your feedback will help me make a better book for everyone, and is greatly appreciated.

Table of contents

1. What is product engineering?

1. How it behaves vs. How it works

2. The code-to-product spectrum

3. Focusing on the ‘why’ of your product

4. Everything is a product, everyone is a customer

2. Why product thinking matters

1. Product engineering helps you climb the career ladder

2. Getting a seat in the room where it happens

3. Most software sucks, many engineers are to blame

3. Product thinking in practice

1. Building your product intuition

2. Cultivating taste

3. Seeing the long-term vision

4. Learning product vocabulary & understanding your gut

4. Applying product thinking to code

1. Finding and minimizing edge cases

2. Removing roadblocks

3. Mistake prevention & error recovery

4. Creating delight

5. Prioritization

1. Does it even matter? How to know you are working on the right thing?

2. The importantce of serialization

3. “Keep the lights on” vs. “new feature” work

4. Prioritization principles

6. Problem definition

1. Defining the problem

2. Identifying pain points

3. Asking better questions

4. Who are the stakeholders, and why do they care ?

5. Identifying business problems

6. Identifying customer problems

7. Solutions design

1. How to derive solutions to pain points & problems

2. Seeing from the user’s perspective

3. Solutions and Shareholder Value

4. Finding quick wins

5. Solution archetypes

6. Balancing new solutions with existing product

8. Understanding the business

1. How does your business make money?

2. How company size & maturity affect product

3. What business value is, and how to create it

9. Iteration, editing, and revising

1. OODA loops and increasing velocity

2. Action produces information

3. Getting feedback early

4. Using analytics effectively

5. A/B testing and other forms of experimentation

10. Cross-functional Collaboration

1. Executive translations

2. Handling conflict

3. Building trust and influence

4. Talking about tradeoffs

5. Pitching ideas

6. Asking for & recieving feedback

7. Giving feedback

11: Conclusion

1. Putting it all together

1. Working title, subject to change.

2. Also very subject to change. Think of this as a snapshot of where the book is at the current moment.