Evidence-Guided: Creating High Impact Products in the Face of Uncertainty

Book Synopsis: Research shows that most of what we build creates little or no value for our users and the business. To break away from this harsh reality, you need to adopt a different system, one that combines human judgment with evidence. In this book, Itamar Gilad presents an actionable model to bring evidence-guided development into your organization. Combining tried-and-tested methods with tools created by the author, Evidence-Guided offers a systematic approach—the GIST model (Goals, Ideas, Steps, and Tasks)—to help you create high-impact products. You'll learn how to choose the right outcomes, prioritize ideas, build and learn at a fast pace, and collaborate more effectively with teammates, managers, and stakeholders. The book provides principles, models, tools, and processes, all demonstrated through real-world examples and infused with nuance gained through years of practice.

The methods presented in Evidence-Guided can be used by individual contributors, team leads, and managers. They apply to companies of all sizes and life stages. If you're looking to build high-impact products, this book is for you.

About the Author
Itamar Gilad is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and coach. He held senior product management and engineering roles for two decades at Google, Microsoft, and a number of startups. Since 2017, Itamar has been teaching and coaching evidence-guided product development to hundreds of companies and thousands of product people. He is the creator of the GIST model, the Confidence Meter, and other widely-used frameworks and tools. Itamar is a regular speaker at industry events, and he publishes a popular product management newsletter.

Praise of Evidence-Guided
In this must-read book Gilad offers a simple, yet powerful, blueprint for product development inspired by the scientific method. It will help you move away from opinions and politics and embrace evidence-based development. A critically important book for anyone designing and building products. — Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Itamar Gilad gives us the motivation and realistic processes that elevate product development from opinion-based to evidence-based, with real-world examples and experiences. — Ronny Kohavi, Best-selling author of Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing
Evidence-Guided is a masterpiece, it shows how to gain confidence and hit your product goals to have impact in a systematic and empowering way. It brings together so many areas of best practice in a way that just makes sense. — Phil Hornby, Founder and product coach, for product people