About this course

Strong product management drives successful business model implementation. Learn about the key decisions, underlying tradeoffs, and implementation decisions needed for each phase of the product life and master business and organizational logic to ensure product success in the marketplace.

In this course, part of the Digital Product Management MicroMasters program, you will be introduced to key frameworks for decision-making based on both economic and organizational considerations. These frameworks inform a rising product manager on how to:

• use customer co-creation and understanding of their needs to become a “champion” for user-centric development in digital technology.
• set up and manage specific work flows (e.g. either lean, agile or stage gate development tasks) that result in timely launch and upgrades of products.
• use a data-and metrics-driven approach to make product life cycle decisions including pricing, versioning, maintenance, helpdesks and end of life.
• shape the direction of the product based on experimentation and system design thinking by learning from product roadmaps, competitive considerations, and allied evolution of demand in digital markets.

Caveat: This is not a course on software development, architecture or product marketing. The role of a product manager is to work with these functions effectively, such that the interests of a product (e.g., its profitability) and its customers are best served. Thus, the perspectives and skills covered in this course are integrative and allied with decision-making in their orientation.

What you’ll learn

• Product line planning and road mapping alternatives
• Idea generation, customer need assessment, co-creation, definition and validation of minimal viable product (MVP) and allied set up of requirement documents
• Alternative approaches for lean, agile and waterfall development, along with the tools for assessing task, project and business risks (and risk mitigation strategies) at scrums or at stage gates.
• How to launch a product and create a go-to-market strategy to champion your product.
• Performance Management: how to take ownership of product related profit (or loss) over various life cycle stages; how to track and optimize system performance metrics while organizing social media and third party data towards performance optimization

Prerequisites