Book Club Templates for Teams and Communities of Practice

As a product leader and infinite learner, I've discovered that learning is not just reading a book (10%) but also learning from others (20%) and implementing those insights (70%).

Reading a book together allows you to read, learn from each other, and be accountable for applying what you have learned. This can help upskill the whole team or community of practice (CoP) and establish a common vernacular.

Here are some recommendations for starting a book club with your team or community of practice.

LAST UPDATED: 3/3/24

Manageable Reading Schedule

Divide the book into weekly segments, amounting to approximately an hour of reading per week. This translates to just 10 minutes a day or over a lunch break.

Weekly Discussion Sessions

Host a weekly meeting (virtual or in-person) lasting 45-60 minutes. Meeting weekly makes learning the topic more like a mini-class you teach each other. Breaking the book into digestible pieces minimizes the effect of the "Forgetting Curve." Everyone reads individually and then recalls the information with others weekly. Spacing it out weekly helps learn and retain the content better.

Agenda

• Welcome & cover major themes collectively (5-10 minutes)
• Breakout Groups (~30 Min)
• Break participants into smaller groups of five or six people for more intimate discussion.  
• Have three or so starter questions for the groups to discuss.
• Focus the discussions on actionable insights.
• Encourage participants to identify and articulate what they can learn and implement in the upcoming week or near future.
• Summarize Discussions and Takeaways (2-3 minutes per group)
• Regroup, allowing each group 2 to 3 minutes to share a summary of their discussion.
• Conclude (2-3 minutes)Share the next week's reading assignment and action items.

Creating a Mini-Course Book Club

Here are some suggestions for creating a mini-course around a book. Feel free to make a copy of my Mini-Course Book Club Template and use it as a starting point.

1. Identify the length and time of each chapter
   Start on the Chapters tab and list each chapter, start page, and length of each chapter in the audiobook. For the number of pages, I use a formula to subtract the current chapter's start page from the next chapter's start page. To calculate a faster speed, I divide the 1X speed by the value in cell E1, which I default to 1.5.
2. Create a Reading Plan
   Once you have the length of each chapter, break the reading down into logical groupings on the Reading Plan tab. Reading for approximately an hour per week works best, but keep any additional work or activities in mind. For some books, one chapter a session is all you can do. Use the Min, Max, and Average formulas to keep a similar amount of reading between each session. Pick a start date and look at the calendar for any Holidays or events you might want to skip a week.
3. Get the word out
   Now that you have a start date get the word out via email and invite people as you talk to them. A personal invitation goes a long way. Share your spreadsheet and use the Members tab to have people sign up. If it is company-sponsored and you are purchasing the books, have them mark an X in the column for the format(s) they would like. (i.e., Paperback/Hardcover, Kindle, Audible)
4. Weekly as you read the book
   As you read the book, identify the themes for each session. Come up with three starter discussion questions for each session and add them to your Reading Plan tab. I also like to create a PowerPoint slide show with a summary of the chapters, discussion questions, and homework/action items for the next session. Also, encourage members to add their ideas to the Takeaways, Principles, and Related Resources tabs.

Example Book Club Templates

Here are some examples from Books I have taken my teams through. Each template has at least one or more suggested reading plans, links to related resources, and a sign-up members tab.

• Inspired by Marty Cagan (9 or 12 weeks) gives an overview of product management, excellent for people new to product management or as a refresher for experienced product managers. Including software engineers can help everyone work together better as a team.
• Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres (8 or 13 weeks) is a good place for teams to start with product discovery and learn how to work as a product trio: product manager, product designer, and software engineer.

Planned Templates Coming Soon:

These are books that I have used as a book club, and I need to update and share the template. Contact me if you'd like to discuss any of these.

• UX Team of One by Leah Buley is an excellent overview of UX. We went through it after launching Product Design in 2021.
• Lean Analytics by Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz gives an excellent overview of using data in product development. Our team did this in 2021.
• Outcomes over Output by Josh Seiden (4 weeks) is a good starting point for helping teams think about outcomes instead of outputs. 
• Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland and J.J. Sutherland is a good book to help a team understand the principles of SCRUM.
• The Unicorn Project by Gene Kim tells the same story as The Phoenix Project, but from the software engineer's perspective. It can help reveal the necessary but invisible structures required to create high-performing teams. We are gearing up to do this in 2024.

Books to Create a Book Club Templates

• Indistractable by Nir Eyal shares a four-step process for preventing distractions and getting the most out of technology without letting it get the best of us.
• Hooked by Nir Eyal covers a four-step process to encourage customer behavior
• Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine gives teams and individuals tools to improve their Positive Intelligence (PQ) and minimize the behaviors they use to sabotage themselves.
• User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton enables teams to have better conversations through the software development process.