Product Management Fundamentals

Understand the keys to successfully navigating the roles and responsibilities of being a product manager to champion change with internal and external collaborators and influencers.

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What You Will Learn

  • Roles and responsibilities of the product manager. The job of the product manager, skills and competencies, and stakeholder management.
  • Managing innovative product teams. Organizing and managing a product team, product development life cycle, development methodologies, and engaging with stakeholders and funding sources.
  • Marketing challenges and guiding principles. Marketing challenges, common marketing mistakes, know your customer, and rethinking the 4P’s of marketing.
  • Customer development. Revisiting customer development, highlights from the Customer Development Manifesto, market type and marketing, and how market type affects marketing strategy.
  • Crossing the chasm. Basics of crossing the chasm, solving customer problems, segmenting the market, and expanding your market.

About This Course

Skip About this course
Product management is one of the fastest growing and most lucrative jobs available today. Companies have awoken to the desperate need for product managers to create products that customers love, that integrate design, functionality, and business solutions. In our course, we define the fundamentals of product management and why this role is so coveted as a launch pad for future CEOs and startup founders.

To be effective, product managers need a clear understanding of their jobs and duties. They also need a clear understanding of the required skills and competencies. An appreciation of these roles, responsibilities, skills, and capabilities is also beneficial for stakeholders and team members who collaborate with product managers.

This course investigates the framework for success in product management by defining the product manager’s position in an organization and the key responsibilities. We will examine the skills and competencies most critical to carrying out those responsibilities. To further improve your understanding of product management, we will discuss how product managers engage with the product team and stakeholders to create and manage successful products.

Product managers must also know how to establish, organize, and lead a team. They must know the typical product development life cycle and be able to select the right development methodology for the product and the target market. To meet these challenges to product team leadership, we will consider the phases of product development and the roles that product managers play in each step. We’ll examine a variety of team structures and product development methodologies, and the importance of establishing a team charter. Lastly, we will also explore the opportunities and challenges of market development and commercialization. We’ll provide an orientation to key marketing concepts critical to developing and commercializing innovative products and services.

At A Glance

  • Expert Instruction Build Skills
  • Self-Paced Progress at your own speed
  • 4 Weeks 2-3 hours per week
  • Free or $199.00 For the full program experience Discounted to $179.10 when you purchase the full Product Management Professional Certificate Program.
  • 10 Professional Development Units (PDUs) Earn PDUs toward your Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Mangement Professional (PMP) certification

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Your Instructor

James Green

Dr. James V. Green leads the education activities of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute at the University of Maryland as the Director of Entrepreneurship Education.

What Our Students Are Saying

  • I recently felt the need to re-ground myself in the foundations of product management. I've been doing it a while, and a lot has changed (especially the shift to Lean methodologies). This course was really quite solid. It definitely re-grounded me, and I can see that it is a great foundation for someone looking to understand or get into a product manager role. There is a lot in the course, but it's doable and well-presented. Five stars for content. Stephen Helgeson
  • A breif and concise concept of product managment. I have now a cleared vision regarding agile framework and different marketing strategies. Muhammad Bilal
  • This course is well marshaled to provide the learners with the rudimentary knowledge of marketing, especially about overcoming the associated challenges in order to become a market leader as its goal. The tutors are knowledgeable and professional. This course is highly recommended to those aspiring to become product managers and market winners. Babawale Oluwase
  • I feel like I went from only a vague understanding of what it means to be a product manager, to a much more focused view of what this role entails, common best practices, experiences from other product managers, etc. This course was great for helping me decide if I wanted to pursue Product Management as the next stage in my career seriously or not, and I am glad to say that I am hooked. When I become a successful product manager this course would have been instrumental in retrospect. Anonymous
  • If you decided to become a Product Manager this is the only right place to start from. That doesn't mean you should only rely on this. There are many books you should read. The topics discussed here help to understand where you should go deeper. Anonymous

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Syllabus

Week 1
Module 1: Roles and Responsibilities of the Product Manager
Week 2
Module 2: Managing Innovative Product Teams
Week 3
Module 3: Marketing Challenges and Guiding Principles
Week 4
Module 4: Customer Development and Crossing the Chasm

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