PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

Which opportunities are the right ones for your company to pursue? You will interrogate your product ideations from the previous class, using new techniques to frame your analysis.

• Importance of Critical thinking and Decision making as a PM
• Analyzing product opportunities
  • 5C analysis
  • SWOT analysis
• Assumptions and hypotheses
• Validation through customer feedback

Assignment #04: Using tools and strategies learned in the class, complete strategic analysis and narrow down to a single most probable product opportunity as a group.

Now that you have the right opportunity to pursue, you will focus on how to incorporate design thinking to determine Minimum Viable Product. Manish will give you a framework for prioritizing your resources to build cross-functional short-term and long-term roadmaps.

• MVP
• Design thinking and iterative thinking
• Agile techniques
• The roadmap
• The press release

Assignment #05: Define the MVP for your product idea. Sketch a short and long term roadmap for your idea.

How do you determine if your product is headed in the right direction? You'll learn today’s common product success metrics and how to choose the right one for your product.

• Technique
• Picking the metrics for your product
• Core/North-Star metric
• Tracking

Assignment #06: Determine the right success metrics and criteria for your product idea.

Once you've established product-market fit, your customers still need to be convinced to use your product. What strategies can you employ to launch your product? What are the standard go-to-market strategies pushing products to the top?

• Techniques and tools
  • 4P Analysis: Product, Price, Promotion, Place
  • AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
• Carrot versus stick approach
• Product messaging
• Roll out, packaging

Assignment #07: As a group, create a go-to-market strategy for your product idea.

Even after launch, your product is never done. When you start to see some surprises, how do you optimize? Manish shares the practices he's relied on throughout his career to deliver beyond launch.

• Product optimization
• Developing your risk management plan
• Regionalization
• Conversion funnels, guest modes, account creation, leaky bucket
• Gamification (not just for games!)

Assignment #08: Working with your group, think about how you would optimize your product further.

Now that you have most content for your product pitch ready, your task at hand is packaging it up with a great story. You'll learn how to bring your own style and story-telling into your project communication.

• Boiling it down: The executive summary
• Hands-on tl;dr's
• Authentic, clear, and powerful
• Manish's personal stories

Assignment #09: See Course Project.

This class is all about launching the next step in your career as a PM. Can you roadmap your career using the same techniques that you learned in this course? What should you expect in the process and how will you overcome challenges as the newest PM on a team?

• Building your career roadmap
• Personal branding and leadership in PM
• Getting hired
• Working with cross-functional teams
• Keeping up with the ever-changing technology field

Assignment #10: Define your long term career goals. What is your MVP? What would be your short and long term roadmap?

Now, it's your turn in the spotlight. You, along with your group members, will deliver your pitch to Manish and the class and get real-time feedback from the room.

Assignment #11: Discuss the feedback you received with your working group. Modify your pitch slides accordingly.

You'll hear from 3 PM executives from Big Tech companies and SMBs on what product management is like in their companies. What do they expect from the new product management hires? What is their key to becoming a successful product manager?

• Meet the panelists
• How do their PM teams work?
• What PM skills or tools can't their teams work without?
• Hiring: What do they look for in a new PM? In product case study responses?
• Open Q&A

Assignment #12: Manish will give you a real-world Product Case Study based on his own experience from both sides of the table. Answer the Case Study questions (individual or group). Make sure to apply all the techniques you've learned in this course that are appropriate for each question.

Over the last several weeks, you've refined your product concept and built out a clear delivery plan. What kind of reaction will you get from decision makers?

This course project asks you to work with your group to crystallize your learnings around PM into a product pitch deck. (Refer to your work from Assignments #1-8 to compile your slides.) Practice making a strong pitch for your product with your group.