Curriculum designed to make you a General Manager of your product, and Product Designer creating products and services your customers will love
Key takeaways from the course:
- Learn to rapidly test a hypothesis and communicate, to any audience, a comprehensive business model for product extensions or new products you wish to create
- Learn techniques for communicating and championing the product benefits to internal (C-Level Executives and sales teams) and external audiences (key customers)
- Determine the most effective methods for obtaining insights and integrating market feedback to drive optimal product decisions
- Learn how to create better user experiences and transformational products
- Understand the principles and processes for developing good product roadmaps
Curriculum (6 modules)
1. Software Product Management 101
Module outcome: what is and what is not product management, what is a good PM, intro into understanding Business, Product and Customer, and handling challenges in small vs large teams
Intro into PM Role | Boris Krstović | W1
- What is / what is not a PM role?
- PM vs PO
- Market (Business) → Customer → Product
- Startup PM vs Corporate PM (part 1)
- PM is an educator
Communication and Decisions | Boris Krstović | W1
- Method of communication matching the message
- Understand where everyone is coming from
- Decisions → Structured process
- Analysis paralysis
- Decision making modes
- [Introducing final assignments]
2. Exploring New Product Ideas
Module outcome: become able to set a proper hypothesis, quantify its potential to move the needle on business goals and see them through the validation
Assumptions and Experiments (MVP) | Ivan Bjelajac | W2
- Importance of testing assumptions
- Determining risky assumptions
- Domain experts and real use cases
- Ways to test your hypothesis
- Experiment goals
- Risks involved with running experiments
Proof of Concept Products | Ivan Bjelajac | W2
- What is a MVP?
- MVP Types
- MVP misconceptions
- Disadvantages of MVP approach
- When to use the MVP approach?
Information Architecture and Prototyping | Antun Debak| W3
- Importance of iterative design and sharing ideas
- IA principles and card sorting method
- Sketching user flow and user interface
- Wireframes and in-depth IA deliverables
- Interactive prototypes and tools to use
Qualitative & Quantitative Research | Ivan Bjelajac| W3
- Customer development
- How to talk to customers?
- Structuring user interviews
- What do people need vs how big is the market
Early Market Testing Methods | Aleksandar Bibovski | W4
- Evaluating and prioritizing ideas from Q&Q Research
- Prototyping the solution through user journey
- Validate idea
3. Amplifying an Existing Product
Module outcome: keep your product competitive and create transformational product experiences
Goal Setting & Analytics | Boris Krstović | W4
- How to build support for changing the product → Goal setting and prioritization
- North star (most important metric for your growth)
- SaaS metrics
- Early / lagging indicators of success / failure
User Persona, Journeys and Stories | Mališa Pušonja | W5
- Why do we use personas?
- Persona creation
- Persona pitfalls
- Anatomy of Persona
Conducting User Surveys | Aleksandar Bibovski | W5
- Define Net Promoter Score structure and goals
- Survey distribution channels
- Create survey
- Distribute
- Collect and evaluate user feedback
Design Thinking and UX Design Disciplines | Antun Debak | W6
- The role of design thinking
- User-centered approach to problem solving
- The art of storytelling
- Building a UX Design team and how to apply UX Design disciplines within your organization
- UX myths and misconceptions
UX Research and Usability Testing | Antun Debak | W6
- UX research methods and when to use them
- Qualitative and Quantitative research
- Validating feature ideas through testing
- Defining tasks and running the usability testing
- 5 quick and simple usability tests
- Interpret usability testing findings and user feedback
- Rethinking personas and building the right thing
4. Understanding the Business
Module outcome: Learn techniques for communicating and championing the product benefits to internal (C-Level Managers and sales teams) and external audiences (key customers)
Strategic Planning | Boris Krstović | W7
- Shareholder value / customer value
- Problem / solution / investment
- Your job is not to convince people, but show them data they can’t ignore
- Creating business cases
Pricing | Boris Krstović | W7
- Economic value
- Pricing factors (fixed/variable costs, competition, positioning strategy)
- Pricing strategies
Creating, Defending and Managing Budgets | Ivan Bjelajac | W8
- Startup vs Corporate finance
- Business case to P&L
- Forecasting that makes sense
- Defending your financial assumptions
- Good governance
Business Case & Final Assignment Consultations | Everyone | W8
5. Product Marketing & Customer Acquisition
Module outcome: Days of ‘build it and they will come’ are over. Effectively co-build and communicate Go2Market strategy with PMM counterpart
Product Marketing Management | Aleksandar Bibovski | W9
- Structurize Product Marketing Team
- Define Processes
- Go-to Market Strategy
- Before Launch Flow
- After Launch Flow
Product Launch & Growth Hacking | Aleksandar Bibovski | W9
- 1-page marketing plan
- Analytics setup
- A/B testing
- Generating ideas from data and customer feedback
- Implementation of new features/ideas
6. Delivery
Module outcome: Learn how to build a clear and compelling roadmaps that stakeholders will be excited about, and manage the delivery of your teams in optimal ways
Roadmapping and Prioritization | Boris Krstović | W10
- What problem am I trying to solve for the customer?
- Why are we going there? (paint the story so it’s obvious)
- Roadmap as a response to executing against a product strategy
- Startup PM vs Corporate PM (part 2)
- Pareto principle
PM Methods – Product Delivery (Agile 1) | Predrag Rogić | W10
- Project Management vs Product Management
- What is Agile Product Management?
- Agile Product Management with Scrum
Creating a Product Development Team (Agile 2) | Predrag Rogić | W11
- What is a Scrum Development Team?
- The Ideal Scrum Development Team Composition
- Transforming into a High-Performance Agile Team
Managing Technical Debt & Tradeoffs (1) | Mališa Pušonja | W11
- What is Technical Debt?
- Why Technical Debt happens?
- How to manage Technical Debt?
Managing Technical Debt & Tradeoffs (2) | Mališa Pušonja | W12
- Relation between MVP and Technical Debt
- ‘Product – Abstractness Continuum Fit’ and Technical Debt
- Design Patterns and Technical Debt
- Technical Debt MVP Pattern
Business Case & Final Assignment Presentations | Everyone | W12
Business Case (Final assignment)
Can be about:
- A new product
- A new feature to the existing product
- Pivoting an existing product
- Improving an feature to the existing product
Needs to holistically paint the picture on:
- Problem (demonstrate understanding of the market and the customer)
- Solution (demonstrate understanding of the product – what/why/who)
- Value to shareholders / customers (demonstrate understanding of the business value → acquisition/revenue/retention)
Needs to confidently walk through the delivery:
- What is the cost associated to delivering it?
- How will the success look like? (KPIs, metrics, early/lagging indicators)
- How will the release look like – phases/steps, communication, post-launch?
Lecturers
All lectures will be in Serbian.
Books recommended for the course:
- Hooked – Nir Eyal
- Good PM / Bad PM – Andreessen Horowitz
- Four Steps to the Epiphany – Steve Blank
Course dates
PM Academy will start on May 14th, and last for 13 weeks. Each week there will be 2 lectures:
- Monday, 18h – 20:30h
- Wednesday, 18h – 20:30h
The course will take place in Startit Center Belgrade. There is a 2nd parking zone available in Savska street, in front of Startit Center.
Price & Registration
Academy pricing: 1500€ per participant, limited to 20 attendees. Click here to apply.
