Course details

Skills & Tools

Guide a product through its lifecycle via lean methodologies like Agile, market research, UX, and financial modeling.

Production Standard

Create a roadmap, business model canvas, MVP, key metrics, personas, wireframing, and a stakeholder management plan.

The Big Picture

Grow capable of launching viable, market‐ready products that anticipate user needs by making tough decisions and working with stakeholders.

Curriculum

Unit 1: Product Management Fundamentals

Introduction to Product Management

  • Define the multiple roles & responsibilities of a Product Manager
  • Understand how customer needs translate into features of a product
  • Identify the underlying risks and assumptions associated with new features

The Product Development Process

  • Understand each phase of a product life cycle, and the development stages needed to develop them
  • Identify the different methods of developing a product

Unit 2: Getting to Product/Market Fit

Customer Development

  • Identify a company's target customers
  • Conduct effective customer interviews and site visits
  • Understand the user's needs and current ways of working

Testing & Validating/Minimum Viable Product

  • Determine if an idea has product/market fit
  • Explain the purpose and process of building an MVP
  • Evolve an MVP to reach product/market fit

Business Model Design

  • Describe the components of a business model canvas and how they relate to each other
  • Differentiate between types of business models
  • Develop a business model around a new product idea

Market Research

  • Develop a competitive analysis of a feature or business
  • Identify key differentiation between competitive offerings
  • Utilize estimation and research in order to determine the opportunity size of a given product or feature

Unit 3: UX Design

Personas & Empathy Maps

  • Synthesize findings from customer interviews into user personas
  • Use empathy maps to better understand the feelings and needs of customers
  • Distinguish how teams inside a company use personas and empathy maps differently

Features & User Stories

  • Translate customer needs into product features
  • Comprehend how to create user stories in order to communicate user's needs with other stakeholders
  • Learn how to effectively prioritize features

Wireframing & Storyboarding

  • Understand how to create wireframes in order to test ideas and identify potential problems before time is committed to developing the final product
  • Become familiar with different methods of wireframing, including sketch, lo-fi, and hi-fi
  • Understand how to create storyboards in order to communicate context, user flows, and interactions

Mid-Course Presentation

  • Present progress of projects and receive instructor and peer feedback

Unit 4: Business Fundamentals

Metrics

  • Use the best metrics and KPIs to track a variety of subjects
  • Identify tools to measure metrics
  • Understand the concept of the customer conversion funnel

Pricing & Financial Modeling

  • Build a working financial model for a given audience
  • Describe different pricing approaches for a new product
  • Forecast demand and revenue for a new product

Unit 5: Communicating with Stakeholders

Flexible Session

  • Focus on a topic selected by the instructor in order to provide deeper insight into a specific area of Product Management

Technology for Product Managers

  • Define what a tech stack is in the context of web applications, and identify associated technologies
  • Articulate the business and technical implications of adding, removing or postponing product features
  • Identify best practices for developing digital products with your technology team

Product Roadmap

  • Identify and define three distinct phases along a product's timeline: pre-launch, pre-market fit, and post-market fit
  • Build a product roadmap

Project Management & Product Specs

  • Describe the Agile framework, and why it is important to development processes
  • Understand how developers estimate task size
  • Use different tools to track tasks and time

Presenting Your Product

  • Describe what makes a presentation effective, and how structure is used to impact the audience experience
  • Employ practical techniques, processes, and communication styles to pitch your idea to stakeholders more effectively

Unit 6: Presentations & Next Steps

Final Presentations

  • Gain feedback from peers, instructor, and guest panelists that will identify strengths and areas for improvement

Moving Forward on Your PM Path

  • Understand the realities of the Product Management job market
  • Understand job options across organizational types and career paths
  • Access resources and tools for continued learning
Updated on 23 June, 2016

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About General Assembly

General Assembly transforms thinkers into creators through education and opportunities in technology, business, and design. 

Established in early 2011 as an innovative community in New York City for entrepreneurs and startup companies, General Assembly is an educational institution that teaches the most relevant skills of the 21st century.

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