Product Management [Class in Seattle] @ General Assembly

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$3,950
40 hours over 20 sessions

Description

What you'll learn in this product management training:

This is a part time course.

In this course, students will learn to navigate the product cycle, from evaluating users and managing a roadmap to creating an MVP and developing metrics.

Unit 1: Defining Product Management

Introducing Product Management

Review course goals and expectations.
Describe the role of product management in business and the various responsibilities of a product manager.
Pinpoint what makes an effective product manager (PM) — and what makes a bad one.

Exploring the Product Development Life Cycle

Describe the role a PM plays in each phase of the product development cycle.
Define a hypothesis and how it relates to a problem statement.
Identify how product and project risks can affect the development cycle.
Explain the concept of product/market fit.

Unit 2: Understanding Your Customer

Executing Customer Development

Identify target users for your product or project.
Formulate research goals and user interview questions.
Practice user interview techniques.

Developing Personas

Distill user research into key findings.
Differentiate between strong and weak user personas.
Create personas based on user research results.

Unit 3: Defining Product Features

Building a Minimum Viable Product

Explain the purpose and process of building a minimum viable product (MVP).
Identify various ways to build and learn from an MVP.
Learn to determine if an MVP achieves product/market fit.
Develop an MVP to qualify key risks and assumptions for your product or project.

Outlining and Prioritizing Features

Define a feature and where its scope ends.
Discuss scope creep and the importance of prioritization in product development.
Explore lean development techniques in the context of feature prioritization.
Identify the sequence of activities necessary to effectively prioritize product features.
Apply a prioritization matrix to your own list of features.

Unit 4: Exploring Product Design

Communicating Your Ideas Visually

Discuss how design fits into the product world.
Explore different methods of wireframing — sketch, lo-fi, and hi-fi.
Create and provide feedback for sketches.
Use sketching to tell a story about your product.
Identify strategies to collect and dissect feedback from internal stakeholders.

Validating Your Design

Identify the five elements of usability and their role in product management.
Discover how usability testing fits into a PM's role.
Distinguish the differences between approaches to usability testing.
Define and craft a task scenario.
Create usability tests that follow best practices.

Unit 5: Communicating Your Product

Pitching A Product or Feature

Define best practices for pitching and presenting products and features.
Learn to gain stakeholder buy-in by leveraging sales tactics and skills.
Create a brief presentation to pitch your idea to stakeholders.

Mid-Point Presentations

Demonstrate your pitching skills with a brief, in-class presentation.
Defend the product decisions you’ve made thus far to classmates as you would to internal stakeholders.
Provide constructive feedback and critique on classmate presentations.

Unit 6: Planning for Execution

Defining Product Roadmaps

Explore how product roadmaps help align companies and teams.
Discover where product roadmaps fit into a PM's workflow.
Learn to effectively share your product roadmap to others to acquire internal and external resources.
Defend your prioritization decisions using a product roadmap.
Incorporate stakeholder feedback while refining your product roadmap.

Setting Metrics and Objectives and Key Results

Learn to select the right key performance indicators (KPIs) for different products, features, or user problems.
Walk through the customer cycle and apply funnels to increase your understanding.
Try out common metric tracking tools used by PMs.
Define objectives and key results (OKRs) for your product roadmap.

Unit 7: Practicing Agile Project Management

Understanding Agile Methodology

Identify the different stages and roles of scrum and a sprint cycle.
Describe best practices for agile project management.
Explore the pros and cons of agile development.

Applying Agile Tactics

Develop an effective user story and acceptance criteria.
Survey different agile tools and methodologies, and discuss the pros and cons of each.
Identify the importance of good documentation.
Practice estimations for user stories.

Unit 8: Approaching Tech Like a Product Manager

Identifying Essential Tech Knowledge for PMs

Define common terms in software development.
Approach common PM problems using technical knowledge.
Write effective release notes.
Discuss best practices for communicating with developers and managing the resource constraints of a dev team.

Flex Session

Dive deeper into a relevant topic, as determined by your instructor.

Unit 9: Practicing Stakeholder Management

Defining Keys of Stakeholder Management

Identify and classify key stakeholders for various product development situations.
Practice effective communication strategies for dealing with different stakeholders.
Develop strategies for working with different personality types.
Describe the concept of “influencing without authority” as a PM.
Learn how to say "no" correctly.

Final Presentations, Part I

Effectively communicate your product's progress and product roadmap through an in-class presentation.
Provide constructive critique and feedback for your classmates.

Unit 10: Presentations & Next Steps

Final Presentations, Part II

Effectively communicate your product's progress and product roadmap through an in-class presentation.
Provide constructive critique and feedback for your classmates.
Exploring Potential Next Steps
Discover potential growth paths and career opportunities for PMs.

Explore the PM job market in your city.

Identify resources you can use to continually grow and stay relevant in the world of product management.

School Notes:
For students enrolling in 12 week part time and immersive classes, it is not recommended that you book more than one class simultaneously.

Refund Policy

If you can't make it to a class/workshop, please email us at [email protected] at least 7 days before the scheduled event date. No refunds will be given after this timeframe.

In any event where a customer wants to cancel their enrollment and is eligible for a full refund, a 5% processing fee will be deducted from the refund amount.

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