TU-EV0009 - Introduction to Product Management, Lectures, 2.11.2021-10.12.2021

(a PDF)

THE OBJECTIVE

Approach your skills and knowhow in product management as a product, and apply the concepts, perspectives, and tools of product management to it. 

THE ASSIGNMENT

The last week’s assignment took stock of the field and formed an organizing framework. This week, the purpose is to compare your personal competences against the roles in product management, and form conclusions regarding personal development.

Approach your personal competences as a product, and apply on this particular product what you have learnt about product management in general. For example, you could consider:

• User needs: What skills businesses require from PMs
  
• Business: What are your aspirations, what is the relevance of PM to your career, and
  
• Development: What are the competences you need to build, what are its features and first slices, and what’s the overall roadmap
  

There are multiple other applicable frameworks and perspective that you can choose, and the choice is up to you. These choices are part of the assignment, and they will also affect the steps you take when doing the assignment. Therefore, in contrast to the earlier assignments, report both the results and the process.  

THE TASK IN STEPS

1. Define the target: Define what is relevant to you and what are required skills.Whatcareer and role(s) you are aiming at? What is the relevance of product management to your career aspirations? What are the key product-related skills in your targeted career and role(s)?
   
2. Assess skills-gap: What is the gap between your current know-how and what you’d need to know and be able to do in your targeted role(s)? What skills you will need to start and proceed on the career that you are targeting?
   
3. Make your product strategy: What is your roadmap for acquiring these skills, narrowing the gap, and going beyond? Apply product management concepts you’ve learnt during the course. Use them as they are supposed to be used, or modify them creatively to fit the purpose.
   
4. Form the report: The returned assignment should constitute a structured plan that is based on analyses of the steps from 1 to 3.  A visual format is required. This does not exclude text, but the text cannot define the overall visual layout and flow of the reporting. The reporting should consist of two parts:
   
1. Part 1:Your product strategy for your PM competences, reported in a single page.
2. Part 2:A short documentation of the process you used when you formed the plan (i.e., part 1), reported on a single page. What source you used, how you analysed the gap, etc.
5. Return as a single pdf-file. Return a pdf-file with exactly two pages, one for each part, as defined in step 4. The strategy goes on page one, description of the process on page two. Include your name on the page 1 (either as a note or as a part of overall design.)