XCPD-610 - Product Management
Course Description
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This section of Product Management is held in the classroom at the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies, 640 Massachusetts Avenue. NW, Washington, D.C.
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Georgetown's Certificate in Product Management prepares you to deliver awesome digital products to your users / customers!
Our cross-disciplinary program combines product management, design, and engineering. You'll develop the skills to ship successful products using modern tools and methods including human centered design, agile, lean management methods, and continuous integration and delivery. Throughout the program, you’ll work with classmates to design and deliver minimum viable products (MVPs).
In the classroom, you'll learn from faculty who incorporate real-world examples, lessons learned, prestigious guest speakers, modern tools, and industry expertise into their lessons.
By the end of the program, you will understand how to create an organizational culture that enables small, empowered teams to deliver value quickly to users and customers. You’ll leave the program as a more effective, strategic, and confident product manager who understands modern methods and tools required to design and deliver high-quality products to your users and customers.
This course includes the following three modules:
Module 1: Introduction to Product Management
Many managers today are leading the delivery of digital products, but they are using project traditional project management methods and tools. Most organizations use “project” and “product” management synonymously, but they are different disciplines.
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Project management is plan-focused. It emphasizes delivering according to a plan, managing cost, schedule, risks, communications, and other knowledge areas outlined in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).
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Product management is user-focused. It emphasizes understanding the real user problem / need and delivering the right thing to satisfy that need; product management focuses on user research, human-centered design (HCD), and shipping minimum viable products (MVPs) quickly in order to collect user feedback and data that informs future iterations.
Product management is emerging as a new formal discipline in many organizations. This program is designed for new, beginner, and intermediate level product managers. No previous experience is required. It is also ideal for experienced project managers (and those with PMP certifications) who want to expand their skills to include product management.
Module 2: User Experience & Human-Centered Design
Building empathy with users to understand their needs is critical to delivering excellent products. Human-centered design (HCD) is a collaborative, creative way to solve problems and build empathy with users. HCD is not about fancy design labs; it’s about understanding the real user problem or user needs. In this module, students will learn and apply HCD methods and tools to develop hypotheses, problem statements, and prototypes.
The class is taught by an experienced designer / UX expert.
Module 3: Technical Development / Engineering (for non-engineers)
This module focuses on the technical aspects of product management and leading teams that include engineers and technical experts. Students will use modern tools, including Trello and GitHub, to plan and deliver products using methods including Agile, Kanban, and DevOps (continuous integration / continuous delivery).
The class is taught by an experienced, full stack engineer.
Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of the course, participants will be able to :
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Differentiate between project management and product management methods
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Apply concepts of Human Centered Design (HCD), Agile, Kanban, and DevOps
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Lead teams to conduct discovery sprints and user research
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Lead teams to develop rapid prototypes
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Lead teams to define and ship minimum viable products (MVPs)
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Lead teams to create and implement product roadmaps
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Enable continuous deployment and continuous integration
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Measure and report product outcomes using data and tell better stories about success
Applies Towards the Following Certificates
- Certificate in Product Management : Required