Online Product Manager Training

Description

Product Managers are in charge of creating and releasing a profitable product or feature to the market. This programme will teach you how to define product strategy and KPIs based on market analysis, pitch a product vision to get stakeholder buy-in, and design a user-centered prototype while adhering to engineering constraints. Then, you'll create an execution timeline that balances competing priorities, communicate a product roadmap to internal stakeholders, and create a comprehensive go-to-market strategy based on product KPIs. Finally, using market data, you will create tests to improve product features.

Syllabus:

Course 1: Product Strategy

Intro to Product Management

• Understand what Product Management involves
• Describe why Product Management is important
• Understand the history and evolution of Product Management

The Role of a Product Manager

• Understand the purpose of the Product Manager role in an organization
• Understand what a Product Manager does during the different stages of the Product Development Cycle
• Identify key cross-functional partners and customize communications based on understanding of their key priorities
• Describe various customer discovery techniques for gathering requirements
• Learn how to complete each component of a product requirements document (PRD), including documenting requirements 

Problem Identification

• Learn how to identify problems that are worthwhile to solve
• Understand the market through qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Identify your target user and build user personas based on synthesis of research
• Calculate the total addressable market (TAM) for your product
• Calculate the return on investment (ROI) for solving a problem
• Define hypotheses about your product that need to be validated
• Test your hypotheses by putting them in front of users
• Understand the components required to build a business case

Vision & Strategy

• Define and craft compelling vision for a new product
• Identify strategic areas to invest in based on organizational goals and competitive analysis
• Build a Business Model Canvas for a product opportunity
• Understand the importance of defining a minimum viable product (MVP)
• Define key performance indicators (KPIs) that align product strategy to organizational goals

Communication Skills

• Understand the importance and various methods to practice active listening
• Learn how to craft and deliver compelling stories
• Apply persuasion and negotiation when communicating to business stakeholders
• Learn how to structure and deliver strong presentations

Project: Pitch a Product Vision

• Develop and deliver a market-based, insight-driven pitch for a new product that is targeted to executive stakeholders.
• Any product that is built begins with a vision and a product manager who rallies stakeholders behind that vision. In this project, you will choose to play the role of a product manager for one of four leading technology companies and create a compelling pitch for the development of a new product. You will be given a business scenario relevant to each of the four companies, and you will conduct primary and secondary market research to identify target users and size the market opportunity for a new product based on the business scenario provided by the company you choose. Then, you'll compile your findings into a pitch deck and present your product's vision to business stakeholders.

 

Course 2: Product Design

Intro to Design Sprint

• Describe the purpose and process of a Design Sprint
• Identify good candidates for a Design Sprint
• Learn how to plan and involve necessary stakeholders in a Design Sprint
• Differentiate between the responsibilities of the Product Manager and Designer roles

Understand

• Describe the Understand phase of the Design Sprint
• Describe how lightning talks, interviews, and competitive analysis can be used as an input during the Understand phase
• Use the “How Might We” method to identify opportunities
• Utilize the “Rose Bud Thorn” method to classify things as positive, negative, or opportunities
• Apply Affinity Mapping to identify thematic insights

Define

• Describe the Define phase of the Design Sprint
• Define success metrics using the HEART framework
• Explain the difference between goals, signals, and metrics
• Craft Design Principles
• Write a Future Press Release 

Sketch

• Describe the Sketch phase of the Design Sprint
• Use the Crazy 8’s method to brainstorm ideas through sketching
• Facilitate a process for sharing and voting on sketches within the team
• Create a more detailed, in-depth Solution Sketch that contains at least 3 frames

Decide

• Describe the Decide phase of the Design Sprint
• Identify assumptions behind ideas and formulate questions about them
• Create a Decision Matrix to narrow down ideas to those worth pursuing
• Represent perspectives from a wider audience using Thinking Hats

Prototype

• Describe the Prototype phase of the Design Sprint
• Create a storyboard to map out a plan for your prototype
• Learn how to utilize different types of prototyping
• Create a high fidelity, interactive prototype
• Apply best practices for creating prototypes

Validate

• Describe the Validate phase of the Design Sprint
• Create plans and data collection processes for a user study
• Run a user study and interview users
• Conduct a feasibility discussion with an engineer

Next Steps

• Describe benefits of iteration and identify when iteration is appropriate
• Evangelize your idea across cross-functional development teams
• Create documentation for the engineering team

Run a Design Sprint

• Take a problem through a design sprint to develop a concept, create a prototype, bring your concept through user testing, and then prepare to handoff your concept to the engineering team

Project: Run a Design Sprint

• The most desirable products have been iteratively developed with the user in mind. In this project, you will run a Design Sprint on a problem/opportunity (using work from the previous course). During the Design Sprint, you will investigate multiple ideas, narrow them down to the most compelling one, develop a storyboard and prototype, conduct user research, refine their ideas, and incorporate findings into a final product specification. 

 

Course 3: Product Development

Influencing Without Authority

• Define social capital and describe its importance in product management within an organization
• Become credible by knowing your company, product, and market
• Build trust by knowing your peer and development teams
• Guide a team by becoming an engaging storyteller
• Learn the art of saying ‘No’ in situations with competing priorities
• Learn how to run meetings effectively
• Apply communication strategies to negotiate effectively with stakeholders
• Understand and define a coordination activities map

Development Methodologies, Processes, and Tools

• Understand the differences between waterfall methodology and agile methodology in product development
• Learn about Kanban and Scrum methodologies and how to apply them as a product manager
• Understand the purpose of a workflow management tool and how to utilize it as a product manager
• Learn how to manage the process from development to deployment in new feature development

Crafting User Stories and Non-User Requirements

• Understand the components of a user story and how to define it
• Write detailed acceptance criteria for a user story
• Identify different types of non-user stories and how to compile them
• Understand the contents of API documentation and how to utilize it in product decision-making

Managing Backlogs and Stakeholder Expectations

• Understand the purpose of a product backlog and how to manage it
• Apply a prioritization framework to organize the backlog for sprint planning
• Utilize an effective prioritization framework to evaluate a new feature request or product initiative
• Triage bugs using severity and priority as decision-making levers
• Learn how to maintain the feedback loop with stakeholders

Manage the Product Development Process

• Create a coordination activities map in addition to a prioritized backlog and communicate decisions to various stakeholders amidst competing priorities in order to ensure product delivery in alignment to quality and deadline expectations

Project: Manage the Product Development Process

• Leading the development of a product so that it can be shipped on time necessitates an ability to manage priorities, relationships, and expectations. In this project, you will carry over the work from the previous course and put it through the execution and development phases. First, create a sprint backlog with a clear sprint goal that reflects the prioritised user stories and detailed acceptance criteria. The solution will then be refined using API documentation. Then, you'll create a coordination activities map and deal with competing priorities ranging from reported production issues and resource constraints to stakeholder feedback and requests that arise during product development.

 

Course 4: Product Launch

Set Up the Process

• Develop a step-by-step product launch process
• Understand the importance of scaling
• Create a scaling plan
• Identify risks in a product launch and create a plan to mitigate them

Marketing Strategy

• Understand the roles of the Product Manager and Product Marketing Manager and how they collaborate with each other
• Research competitors to formulate product positioning
• Learn how to collaborate with Marketing to develop a marketing message, acquisition channel strategy and a pricing strategy for a product

Prepare Your Partner Teams for Launch

• Understand the other teams and stakeholders that need to be brought into the process as it gets closer to product launch
• Prepare Sales and Customer Support with appropriate communications collateral for a product launch
• Create a User Guide to educate users

Launch and PostLaunch Feedback

• Develop a product rollout timeline
• Learn how to execute the launch of a product to include announcement to internal stakeholders
• Use customer feedback to determine priorities for the next iteration of a product
• Create an A/B test to test a new feature for a product

Project: Deliver a Product to Market

• When a product is delivered to customers, it realises its full potential.
• In this project, you will take the product that you created in previous courses and bring it to market. To begin, you will develop a pre-launch process, including the identification of launch risks and mitigations, in order to enable launch. Then, you'll devise a marketing and pricing strategy to communicate your product's value proposition to customers. Then you'll write a user guide and other communications collateral to get the Sales and Customer Support teams ready to evangelise the product. Finally, you will design an A/B test for a new product feature based on customer feedback. 

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