February 5

Continuing Education as a Product Manager

There isn’t an explicit four-year degree for Product Management (yet), but that may not necessarily be a bad thing. The field of Product Management is rapidly evolving to the point where continuous learning is almost essential. Here are some resources that explain ways that you can get continuing Product Management education that doesn’t necessarily rely on sitting in a classroom (live or virtual).

The importance of learning in product management. As a product manager at a payment automation software company, Matt Anderson often observes the importance of continuous learning in product management. In fact, success in product management is often due to one’s innate curiosity and desire to learn. Read about some of the opportunities for gaining knowledge and acquiring new skills that Matt has experienced in his product management role.

(via @Product_Craft)

What is the best way to learn product management? Learning product management is a multi-step process. You need to learn the tools, and practices of product management, apply what you have learned to a real-life context and work as a product manager, and learn by evaluating your successes and failures. Patrick O’Malley explains these three steps in an excerpt from his course on understanding the role of a Product Manager.

(via @openclassrooms)

6 Things I learned from my first product management job. Ron Yang reflected back on the last five years as a product manager. He realized that early experience was foundational and that he learned skills and gained experience that still serves him to this day. As Ron reflected on his experience, he asked his team what they learned from their first role that they still use today. Here are some of those important lessons.

(via @aha_io)

 

Product management training: 5 Excellent resources.  There are many roundabout routes to a product management career, but there really isn’t one standard or accepted product management training path. You aren’t likely to find a simple way to acquire product management training on the job, either, because product management positions almost always differ based on the industry, the company’s culture, and the products you are managing at a given job. To help you establish a learning path for yourself, Maddy Kirsch explains where you can go to continue your product management education.

(via @productplan)

Know you’re doing things right.  No list of resources for product management continuing education would be complete if we didn’t mention the video insights from past INDUSTRY conferences. Joining INDUSTRY On Demand will help you get to the next level by giving you access to nearly 100 hours of video insights from some of the brightest minds in product. We’ve made it easy for you to start learning by curating playlists for you based on popular topics like Product Strategy, Customer Development, and others. And with new content being added every month, you’ll never be short of inspiration!

(via @prodcollective)

 

Kent J McDonald

About the author

Kent J McDonald writes about and practices software product management. He has product development experience in a variety of industries including financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive. Kent practices his craft with a variety of product teams and provides just in time resources for product people at KBP.media and Product Collective. When not writing or product managing, Kent is his family’s #ubersherpa, listens to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collects national parks.


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