Product Collective - Level-up your Product Management skills

Product Management continuing education

Product management is a broad and rapidly changing field. You can’t rely on the knowledge that got you here to keep you moving forward. It’s a matter of continuously seeking out new knowledge and opportunities to learn. Fortunately many in the world of product management have your back, including Product Collective.

How to evolve as a product manager. Product Management isn’t something you find as a major in your school, and most product managers end up in their role from a variety of disciplines. Once you end up as a product manager, you’re expected to constantly pick up information in a variety of areas and use their learnings to help solve complex problems. As a result, an essential aspect of product management is your curiosity and desire to learn. Parv Sondhi provides a framework you can use to effectively practice continuous learning. 
(via @ParvSondhi)

Try these four tips for effective product manager upskilling. In the late 19th century, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus found that we forget most of what we learn — 90% — within the first month, but retention can be improved through more dynamic and continuous learning. Lisa Singer shares four tips for implementing product management training that will help you remember what you learn and improve your product management skills.
(via @Forbes)

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Is a certificate worthwhile?

It’s true – one of the most popular articles we’ve written to date is this one right here, which highlights the top 15 Product Management certificates.

Do you want to know a secret, though?

I don’t really think most certificates are worth more than the paper they’re printed on. 

Don’t get me wrong – quality product management education is certainly valuable. And if you’re looking specifically to learn the craft, continuing your education proactively throughout your product career is a great idea. And there are plenty of great places where you can do that.

But a certificate? I wouldn’t get too hung up on that artifact, personally. It’s also worth noting that product management courses are great – but they’re just one example of continuing education. Some other examples include:

• Getting involved with product communities (which you’re already doing here at Product Collective!) – which includes your local product meetups.

• Attending events. And yes – you can certainly join us in person at the New York Product Conference or later this Fall at INDUSTRY. But these days, there are virtual events happening nearly every day.

• Firing up YouTube. Yes, really. You could literally put together your own virtual conference (sans networking) if you really wanted to by curating your own playlist of great product management videos. There are literally thousands of hours of content available if you seek it out.

• Finding a mastermind group. Okay, don’t focus on the word “mastermind” – because that makes it sound weird. Instead, think of it as a close-knit group of people doing exactly what you’re doing and facing many of the same challenges you’re facing. But instead of doing it alone, you can face these challenges together. 

There are plenty of other examples. But if you take one thing away from all of this, it’s this. Product Management education is important – but it comes in many different formats. Choose the formats that are best suited for you. Not just those that come with some printable PDF certificate that – let’s face it – you’re not really going to hang it anywhere anyway.

What is the Jobs To Be Done framework & how to apply it

When you work on a product as a product manager, there are a variety of techniques you can use to decide what you’re going to build.

You could make your decisions based on the features you think your problem should have, or your can base your decisions based on what will meet your customers’ needs.

The Jobs-to-be-done frameworks provides a guide for understanding customer behavior so that you can satisfy your customer’s needs.

Latest Slack Activity

How I got started learning about product management. Sara Price has spent the last year learning about product management. She found that the Product Management community is brilliant about sharing knowledge, encouraging people to self-teach and embracing new ideas.
Sara wanted to pay it forward by sharing the resources that informed and inspired her over this last year as she got to grips with product management.
(via @insmallthoughts)

GitLab’s Product Learning & Development Hub. GitLab has made their product management  content library available to the public. The resources they posted allow product managers at GitLab to explore, learn and grow at their own pace. You can refer to this page both as a list of useful resources, and as an example of how to structure a similar content library for yourself, your team, or your organization.
(via @gitlab)

Continuous Learning: The benefits of acquiring new skills in product management.  Unlike many careers, product management doesn’t have a standard definitive educational path to enter the field. Because product management often varies by company culture, product, and industry, it can be difficult to pin down a specific set of skills and tools that satisfy every variation. While Product Managers benefit from having a wide range of skills in their toolbox, Shri Iyer explains that the most successful Product Managers possess an innate sense of curiosity and desire for life-long learning.
(via @iyer_shri)

From Product Positioning to Product Storytelling

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