What I’ve learned after two months in Udacity’s Product Manager Nanodegree Program
Like most early career product managers I discovered early on that there is no “formal” way to become one. In fact if you talk to most seasoned Product Managers a lot of them will tell you that they either 1: Accidentally became a PM or 2: They moved from another role (i.e. Software Engineer, Business Analyst, Customer Success Manager, etc.) in their company to the PM role. Rarely will you hear someone say their degree or a certificate got them that role.
However in the tech world there is an increasing interest in the Product Management field. In fact Product Management is becoming one of the fastest growing careers in the US. In a study conducted by Neal Iyer for Product Management Insider he found that product management careers grew by 32% from August 2017 to June 2019. Many aspiring and new product managers including myself want to jump in the field directly and not take a pipeline role. That in and of its’ self takes a lot of planning.
I was fortunate enough to get an Associate Product Manager role with a startup. In this role I’ve learned a lot and it’s set me on the path to becoming a proficient product manager. But I knew there could be a way I could gain more knowledge. That’s why when I heard about Udacity’s “Pledge to Equality Scholarship” I knew I had to jump at the opportunity. I applied for the scholarship and was accepted, I immediately choose the Product Management track.
I’ve been in the program for two months now and I have learned a lot. I decided I wanted to share the top three things I’ve learned so far in the program.
Product Managers need to be proficient in different disciplines
The Nanodegree aims to teach you different aspects of product management. The main ones are Product Strategy, Product Design, and Product Development. For example, coming from a startup I had little involvement with our product design and I knew little about KPIs, but with this program I get a taste of what it’s like to work with those things. When I start a new section I watch videos of lectures given by an expert instructor, accompanying those videos are exercises and articles to reinforce my knowledge of the topic. In no time I learned that KPIs are a metric used to measure the performance of your product against your strategy. In addition to these lectures and exercises we are given projects which leads me to me next point.
Projects are King
One thing that I realized about Product Management is it’s hard to build a portfolio of projects as a beginner. Coming from a coding bootcamp background I knew the importance and ease of building your own side projects. In Product Management not so much. With Udacity students need to complete four projects in order to graduate. The point of these projects are to not only test your knowledge on the topics you’ve learned but to help you stand out to prospective employers. Each project corresponds with the section you just completed so for example once you complete the Product Design lesson your project will be to run a Design Sprint. what is product design? what is a design sprint?
Product Management is not for the weak of heart
Product Management has a lot of moving parts and it is easy to get overwhelmed. I bombed my first project submission due to not defining certain business cases. At first it was discouraging but I picked myself up and started working on the project again and reviewing course materials to make sure I was understanding the material. Product Management is not easy by any means but if you have enough determination you can get through the program.
So far this is some of what I learned from my experience with the Product Management program. I look forward on updating you all on other things I learn with the program. Until next time!
