Reading list curator that builds a 90-day learning path for any topic

# 90-Day Reading Path — Systems Thinking for Product Leaders **Learner:** 8 years as a PM, strong execution, wants to think more structurally about complex products **Time:** 5 hours per week --- ## Phase 1 — Foundation (Weeks 1–4) *Goal: Build the core vocabulary and mental models of systems thinking.* **1. Thinking in Systems — Donella Meadows (5 hours)** The clearest introduction to feedback loops, stocks, and flows. Start here — every later reading assumes this vocabulary. **2. "The System in a Box" — Russell Ackoff (talk, 1 hour)** Ackoff's lecture on why optimizing parts rarely improves the whole. The 50-minute version on YouTube is the best single use of time in this path. **3. The Fifth Discipline, Chapters 1–4 — Peter Senge (6 hours)** Focus on the laws of the fifth discipline and the five archetypes. Skip the corporate vignettes. **4. "The Tragedy of the Commons" — Garrett Hardin (1 hour)** The original essay. Short, sharp, and foundational for thinking about shared resources. *Discussion questions:* - What feedback loop in your current product is the team not aware of? - Where are you optimizing a part at the cost of the whole? --- ## Phase 2 — Application (Weeks 5–8) *Goal: Translate systems concepts into product and organizational decisions.* **5. Out of the Crisis — W. Edwards Deming (selected chapters, 6 hours)** Chapters 2 and 3 on variation and the 14 points. Dense but foundational for thinking about product quality as a system property. **6. "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" — Martin Kleppmann, Chs 1, 9, 12 (5 hours)** Even for non-engineers. Kleppmann's treatment of consistency and failure modes transfers directly to product architecture decisions. **7. "Engineering a Safer World" — Nancy Leveson (selected chapters, 4 hours)** Introduction and STAMP chapter. Systems thinking applied to safety — useful lens for user harm and platform risk. **8. "The Halting Problem of Strategy" — practitioner essays, any 2 (2 hours)** Curate 2 from high-quality practitioner writing (Stratechery, Commoncog, etc.). *Discussion questions:* - Apply Deming's 85/15 rule to a recent team failure — how much was system vs individual? - Map a recent product incident using Leveson's STAMP lens. --- ## Phase 3 — Synthesis (Weeks 9–12) *Goal: Develop a personal synthesis and apply it to real work.* **9. Seeing What Others Don't — Gary Klein (5 hours)** On how insights emerge from messy data. Pairs well with systems thinking as a counterweight to over-modeling. **10. Systems Thinking for Social Change — David Peter Stroh (4 hours)** Practical workbook format. Do at least 3 of the exercises with a real product problem. **11. "Working in Public" — Nadia Eghbal (4 hours)** Selected chapters on maintainer dynamics. A systems lens on platform and community products. **12. Revisit Meadows's "Places to Intervene in a System" (1 hour)** Reread this essay. It hits differently after 11 weeks of grounding. --- ## Capstone Project Write a 3,000-word systems-lens analysis of a product you know well. It must include: - A causal loop diagram of the 3 dominant feedback loops - One leverage point you would pull, justified from Meadows's hierarchy - A prediction about what will happen in 18 months if nothing changes --- ## Meta-Rules - Do not skip the primary sources for summaries. Summaries collapse the nuance that makes systems thinking useful. - Write a 3-paragraph reflection after each book. Do not rely on highlights.