Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101

Take your first step towards a higher paying Product Management job!

4.42 (131 reviews)
Udemy
platform
English
language
Management
category
instructor
Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101
3,852
students
2 hours
content
Oct 2020
last update
$49.99
regular price

What you will learn

Role of a Software Product Manager

Writing Functional Specs (Spec templates included)

Using User Stories to make informed decisions

Intro to UX research methodologies

Pro tips and tricks for PM Interviews

Framework for Job Search and Career Moves (Worksheet included)

Performing Market Research

Socializing your product and feature ideas

Career advice

User Experience Design for PMs

Pitching your product (Pitch templates included)

Best practices for shipping products - collaborating with engineers, designers and so on

Intro to Common Product Metrics - MAU(Monthly Active Users), DAU(Daily Active Users) and NPS(Net Promoter Score)

What blogs do Product Managers read to keep up with technology trends

Framework to navigate to more advanced Product Management and Software Leadership topics

Intro to A/B testing

Gesture, App Performance and invisible elements of User Experience

Other Business, Experience, Technology and Leadership skills to make you a more effective PM

Why take this course?

Welcome to Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101, a short course focused on Product Management(PM) as it relates to building Software that customers love and leading Software Developers by influence i.e. without direct or formal authority.

Product Manager may look like a fancy title, but it is serious work. Digital landscape is always changing, user expectations are rising and there is simply immense competition in the marketplace due to rising dominance of incumbents and ever increasing number of startups in the tech space.

As you start your PM journey, we want to share our learnings from being Product Managers in different PM roles at Microsoft and other places and as technology entrepreneurs starting companies .

The course is designed as a crash course to provide you with an overview of important Business, User Experience, Leadership, Execution and Measurement(or Business Analysis) topics and ideas you need to be aware of as you start your journey and to give you more than enough knowledge to decide whether PM is the right career for you or not.


Syllabus Overview

Section 1: Introduction and Business Concepts

  • Role of a Product Manager

  • An overview of business skills needed to run your products and features.

  • A deep dive into performing competitive research.

  • How to keep up with prevailing market trends and how to think about what features, apps or products to build next.

Section 2: Leadership and Teamwork

  • How to create a pitch for your ideas.

  • An overview of how to do estimation of time and resources needed when trying to get your idea funded.

  • Understanding the dynamics and the culture of the team that you are in

  • Best practices to avoid isolation and mis-alignment for yourself and others.

  • Tips on socializing your ideas and seeking feedback on them from others in respectful and non-intrusive ways.

Section 3: User Experience (UX) Design

  • Developing user stories and making use of personas to communicate product and feature ideas.

  • Basics of visual design and working with designers to come up with alternatives (explorations) to bring the ideas to reality.

  • Understanding the non-visual elements of design such as gestures, responsiveness, etc.

  • An overview of common methods for performing user research, such as flash feedback, etc.

  • What is A/B testing and how and why to A/B test different ideas.

Section 4: Execution and Evaluation (Data Driven-ness)

  • Writing functional specifications.

  • Unblocking Engineers by taking care of non-technical issues all the way from legal things such as open source licenses to UI strings that could block your team's progress.

  • Understanding your role as the person who may be responsible for communication with partners.

  • Role of Data - Understand common metrics such as Monthly Active Users, Daily Active Users, Net Promotor Score and so on - What are they about? How to use them to make product decisions!

  • Special topic: A day in the life of a PM.

Section 5: Product Management interviews and Career advancement strategies

  • Pro-tips for preparing for your Product Management interview.

  • References to books, blogs and materials you need to read to get started for your PM interview.

  • A peek into career strategies that Dean applied to continuously grow his career for 20+ years.

  • A framework for figuring out your career advancement as a PM

Content

Introduction

Course Overview
What is a PM?

Business: Discovering market needs and opportunities

Section Overview
Understanding Business Motivations
Business Motivations and Customer Needs
Uncovering the competitive landscape
Keeping up with industry trends
Forming a point of view
Why Minimum Viable Product
Customer Empathy
Customer Empathy Quiz

Leadership: Getting your team and other stakeholders onboard

Section Overview
Creating the pitch
Estimating what skills and resources are needed to get there
Understanding team dynamics
Avoiding the lone star problem
Socializing ideas
Seeking and receiving feedback
Trust

Design: Crafting the User Experience

Section Overview
User Stories and Personas
Getting started with design explorations
Non visual elements of user experience
Quantitative User Research
A/B testing product ideas

Execution and Evaluation: Delivering on the value proposition

Section Overview
Anatomy of functional specs
Functional Spec
Unblocking engineers
Interfacing with other parties
Standard Metrics (MAU, DAU and more)
Execution and Evaluation
Decision making with metrics
Sum up: A day in the life of a Product Manager

Your PM Career: Getting in and growing as a Product Manager

Section Overview
Career cycle and changing roles
'PM'ing your job search
How to prepare for a PM interview
Recommended blogs

Screenshots

Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101 - Screenshot_01Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101 - Screenshot_02Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101 - Screenshot_03Software Product Leadership - Product Management 101 - Screenshot_04

Our review

📝 **Course Review for "Mastering Software Product Management"** **Overview:** The course "Mastering Software Product Management" has garnered a global rating of 4.42, with all recent reviews contributing to its positive reception. The course is designed to offer insights into the role of a software product manager, the responsibilities involved, and the latest methods for product development. It covers a broad range of topics from contextual inquiry to UX design, jobs to be done, agile requirements gathering, and more. **Pros:** - **Comprehensive Overview:** The course provides a good overview of software product management, showcasing the latest methods for product development and highlighting the day-to-day activities of a product manager. - **Real-World Application:** Some reviews indicate that the course offers career advice for individuals aspiring to become product managers and includes shared techniques on how to be an effective leader and win over a team. - **Expertise and Explanation:** The instructors are knowledgeable, presenting complex concepts in an understandable manner without being verbose or indirect. - **Practical Insights:** The course content aligns well with the responsibilities and expectations of a product manager throughout the development lifecycle, which is particularly valuable for those with startup experience or those new to the field. - **Highly Recommended:** Many users found the course to be a steal considering the price and the wealth of experience offered by the instructors. It is recommended by several users as beneficial for anyone interested in exploring the PM discipline or for those who have recently started in this role. - **Professional Presentation:** The professional and well-thought-out presentation indicates that the instructors have a thorough understanding of product management. **Cons:** - **High-Level Content:** Some users felt that the course was too conceptual and broad, especially for the price point, and that it lacked practical use cases or hands-on experiences. - **Pace and Delivery:** A few reviewers mentioned that the presentation was too high level and slow, with a desire for more detailed explanations, particularly in explaining product roadmaps. - **Course Materials:** One user suggested improving the course by providing easier access to examples, such as the Amazon ad lines, for users to read along during video sessions. - **Elementary Theory:** Another review highlighted that while the course covered basic elementary theoretical concepts, it would have been beneficial to include more real-life examples and less theoretical content. **Key Takeaways:** - The course is well-regarded for its comprehensive coverage of software product management topics. - It offers valuable career advice and shared techniques for leadership and team management. - The presentation style is detailed yet concise, making complex subjects accessible. - Some users felt the content was too high-level and sought more practical applications and hands-on sessions. - Accessibility improvements, such as highlighting examples used in videos, would enhance user experience. **Final Verdict:** "Mastering Software Product Management" is a solid course for individuals looking to understand the core fundamentals of a PM role or for those already in the field seeking to deepen their knowledge. It is particularly recommended for startup founders and new product managers. While some users felt it could be more detailed in certain areas, overall the course has been positively received and is considered a valuable resource at its price point.

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1403628
udemy ID
10/21/2017
course created date
8/12/2019
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