Job Relevant Topics For a Modern PM
Anyone can talk about theory but not everyone can show you how it's done.
We go beyond the theory and show you the Mindset, Process and the Tools of a great PM.
Each topic has real-life examples and tools that Product Managers use on a day to day basis.
Learn from Multiple Courses
...and even more coming soon!
This course teaches you everything you need to know as a PM. Each topic has in-depth topics from managing ideas, to create a product strategy, to leading a product team.
Once you've mastered the role of a Product Manager, this topic will help you create a great Product Manager brand for yourself and land that dream job!
How do you increase influence and trust in a team? How do you have difficult conversations with direct reports? This course will teach you everything you need to know about being a Product Leader and moving up in your organisation.
Course #1: Become a great Product Manager
This is our flagship course that teaches you all aspect of the Product Manager role from discovery, delivery, and growth.
In this topic, we'll first help you understand what the Product function is responsible for. Then we'll dive into the role of a Product Manager and understand how they can contribute to this function.
We'll also discuss the difference between the different types of Product Managers (e.g. B2B vs B2C, physical vs digital products, Startup PM vs Corporate PM).
The topics we'll cover:
- The importance of Product Management
- What does the Product Management function do?
- What is the role of a Product Manager?
- What's the difference between PO and a PM?
- What does a PM do in a startup vs a PM in a corporate company
- What's the difference between a B2B PM vs B2C PM?
- Strategies for you to break into Product Management.
In this course, we'll teach you the end to end process from discovery, to delivery and day to day management of a Product.
We'll also overlay the product process across the product lifecycle, so you know what to do at the right time. Topics we'll cover:
- Coming up with product ideas
- Validating product ideas
- Product planning and design
- Product development process
- Launching the product
- Finding product-market fit
- Maintaining saturation
- Keep, kill or rebooting your product
Are you overwhelmed with Product ideas and product requests from the company? If yes, this s the topic for you. In this class, we teach you how to generate product ideas and how you can say "No" gracefully to your stakeholders.
- How to look out for good product ideas?
- How to manage product ideas using an ideas backlog
- The Five Steps to say no to stakeholders product ideas
Setting up objectives is one of the hardest topics in Product Management. How do you use OKR's? When is the best time to use Top Down metrics vs Bottom-Up metrics? How do I write goals that can be communicated easily? This is what we'll cover in this topic:
- How to set up objectives
- How to avoid vanity metrics
- How to use Top-Down metrics to set up Product Goals
- How to use bottom-up metrics for features
- How to use the AARRR framework properly
- How to write goals that are clear and crisp
"Assume" and you'll make an ASS out of U and Me". Assumptions are the killer of businesses and responsible for the bad product in the market.
To be a great PM, you need to break down your ideas into Problem, Solution and Business goals. Then highlight all the assumptions in the idea so you can test them systematically. Topic we'll cover in this topic is:
- How to come up with a validation plan
- The 3 Steps to Break down an Idea
- Using an elevator pitch to break down ideas
- Using an assumption map to prioritise your assumption
- How to use Quantitative & Qualitative data to validate assumptions
You can't be a great Product Manager until you are comfortable speaking with your customers on a regular basis.
In this topic, we'll show you how you can find the right customers to speak with, how to conduct a fair interview, and how to summarise your learning using personas. The topics we'll cover are:
- How to use customer interviews to validate product ideas
- Where to find the right customer to speak with
- How to write great interview questions
- How to conduct an unbiased interview
- How to create personas to communicate your research
"If you know yourself and your enemies, you'll win all your battles" - Sun Tsu from the Art of War.
This quote is what market research is all about. You need to understand the market dynamics of your product and gain market share from your competitor's blindspots.
In this topic, we'll cover:
- The 4 Areas of Market Research
- How to understand the Market Dynamics
- How use the market dynamics matrix to assess product risk
- How to estimate the market size of your product
- How to use TAM/SAM/SOM properlly
- How to conduct competitor research
The term MVP is confusing. Every business has its own definition, and every product team use it differently.
- “Is a landing page an MVP? Or a beta product an MVP?”
- “Is MVP an experiment?”
- “I don’t have any technical skills, can I still build an MVP?”
In this topic, we'll debunk the myths around MVPs and how to use it properly. Topics we'll cover are:
- How to use prototypes and MVP's to validate an idea
- How to use MVP's to capture proprietary data
- Step by step process to create MVP's
- 7 different types of MVP ideas you can use
So you’ve spent the past few weeks talking to customers, doing market research and you’ve landed on an idea that solves a real need. Now what?
In this topic, we’ll talk about the end to end process of turning insights into customer needs and how to map our features for your product. The topic we'll cover are:
- The differences between Features & Products
- How to pick your first set of customers
- The 4 Steps to turn any research into feature requirements
- How to use an affinity map to understand your customer needs
- How to use a feature map to map out your product solution
Prioritisation is tricky — it’s a constant balancing of what your business wants, what your customers expect, and what your team can realistically deliver in a short amount of time. Not easy!
But don’t worry, in this topic, we’ll talk about the 3 step process to prioritising features for your MVP and how you can take your team on the product journey. Topics we'll cover:
- What is the mindset when prioritising products?
- The process to prioritise features and products
- How to use MSCW properly to prioritise value
- Steps to estimate effort
- How to decide on the MVP
- How to manage when priorities change
Design is an Iterative Process. Great designs require multiple iterations to get created. It’s unlikely for a design to be right on the first go.
From my experience, even for simple features, it takes at least 3–5 iterations before it gets into coding. In this topic, I'll show you the end to end process on how to create great designs and PM's can work with designers properly. The topics we'll cover:
- Introduction to Product Design
- How designers work with Product Managers
- What makes good design
- The iterative design process & the 4 different design iterations
- Step by step guide to creating great designs
A product strategy is a high-level plan that describes how your product intends to achieve your companies goals.
The strategy paints a picture of what the future might look like, the current landscape, and provides a solution to a validated customer problem.
A great product strategy is stubborn on vision but flexible on details. It’s stubborn on the business goals and the customer problems, but flexible to cater for changes in market, timing and product scope. In this topic, we'll cover:
- What makes a great Product Strategy?
- When should you start thinking about Product Strategy?
- 3 Steps to creating your product strategy
- Useful tools that can help you create a product strategy
- Coming up with a Product vision
- Tailoring your strategy for different audiences
- Managing different versions of your product strategy
Roadmapping is not easy. Every company demands different types of Roadmaps, and every PM has their own flavour.
A great roadmap ensures the product team understand what they are working towards, by aligning the product to the company’s short term and long term goals.
In this topic, we'll show you the end to end process of creating a product roadmap, what you need to do, and I'll show you a real-life demonstration using Aha and ProductBoard. Topics we'll cover are:
- What is a Product Roadmap?
- 3 Different roadmaps a PM must master
- Creating your goals/initiative roadmap for your product
- Creating your product & feature roadmap for your product
- Products vs features - what's the difference?
- The different ways to display your roadmap
- How to govern your roadmap to adapt to the market
In these 3 topics, we'll help you understand how technology products work by giving you a crash course on Tech 101. Then we'll show you how you can lead a tech team and fight bugs in your day to day job. Lastly, we'll talk about how you can learn Agile, the proper way! The topic we'll cover are:
- Topic #14 - Technology fundamentals for PM's
- What is Front end vs Backend?
- How does API's work?
- How does hosting work?
- How to build technical products?
- How to manage bugs and issues as they come up
- Topic #15 - How to lead a Tech Team as a PM
- How to create Trust in your product team
- How to build credibility. reliability and intimacy
- Tactics to work with developers
- How to manage bugs and unplanned work
- Topic #16 - How to Learn Agile, the right way
- Agile does not equal Product Management
- The commonality between traditional waterfall and agile
- Differences between waterfall and agile
- How to learn Agile the right way
- Deep dive into the Scrum framework
- How to do estimations
- How to write great user stories
One Pass, Multiple Courses
For the price of one pass, we have 2 great courses to help you master the craft and get jobs or promotions.
GET 14 DAYS FREECourse #2 - Getting Your Dream Job in Product
This is our second course that teaches you how to create a great resume, prepare for interviews and build your Product Manager brand.
Your Product resume speaks a thousand words about you.
Do you have the right experience? Do you have the right product mindset? Are you a good communicator? Do you have a personal brand that's attractive to the hiring manager? All these can be discovered from your resume.
The best product managers have the right keywords to beat the bots and the right language to attract hiring managers. In this topic, I'll show you:
- How your resume is not a menu but a brochure
- Three principles of writing a great resume
- Coming up with your origin story for your resume
- Good PM resume examples vs Bad PM resume examples
- What to include in your resume
- Designing your resume to beat the bots
- Real examples of Cover Letters & Resume templates for download
Preparing for interviews is like preparing for an exam. You don't turn up to an exam and expect to ace it without any preparation. So you need to be ready before you get into an interview.
The preparation usually takes about 4-5 days before the interview. It's not the amount of work that's required but our brain needs to sleep to store information in our long term memory.
In this topic, I'll show you my secret formula to prepare for interviews, and give you the tools you need to succeed.
- How to prepare for a product manager interview
- How to research for the company
- Creating an origin story for yourself
- How to answer behavioural questions
- How to prepare for leadership questions
- How to prepare for analytical questions
- How to practice interview with a partner + 50 most common questions
You'll get downloadable templates and my personal answers for each of the questions above.
Once you've passed your first 2 rounds of interview, most companies would give you some kind of take-home task to do. Usually, these tasks would come in the following forms:
- Design a new feature
- Solve a business or customer problem
- Competitor / market research
- Come up with a product strategy
In this topic, I'll show you how to complete these take-home tasks by showing you a step by step process of how I've done it. I'll even include 4 past examples from my interviews so you can use them as a guide. Topics we'll cover:
- How to approach take-home tasks
- Example of my past take home task
- How to go above and beyond what's required
- How to approach in-person tasks in an interview
- Downloadable examples of my past take-home tasks
Side projects are a big advantage in the job market - it demonstrates you have the initiative to take action and not afraid to get your hands dirty.
Most great Product Managers I've worked with have some sort of side projects to build their entrepreneurial brand.
In this topic, I'll show you:
- The mindset of building side projects
- Examples of my past side projects
- How to get side project ideas and inspirations
- No-code tools you can use to help you build side projects
Networking is one like farming - you want to plant the seeds before you need them. The product management industry is still relatively small compared to others. Most good roles are offered around the networks before it is made public.
The purpose of networking within the industry is to become 'top of mind' when opportunities arise so you'll be the first to call. In this topic, I'll show you:
- The mindset of networking
- Networking internally vs networking externally
- Making internal moves via networking
- Making internal transitions
- Tips to network externally with other PM's
- How to start a conversation in networking sessions
- Different conversation topics when networking with PM's
Get 14 Days Free Access
One course can change everything. And this is the course that guarantees that. Take up our 14 days free trial and see for yourself. The worst case is you've learnt something for free! And if you forgot to cancel, we offer you a 30 days refund, no questions asked.
"The course is well structured and very clear in leading the learner through the PM process from vision, strategy, discovery to delivering the product. Importantly, how to structure a CV for PM roles and also interview preparations. David genuinely cares about the success of those he teaches and is reflected as his own success metric."
