A Product Manager's Purpose
Product managers must navigate the uncertainty around product development. Working with an experimental team through the discovery and delivery phases, the product manager helps businesses achieve value through solving user problems. When thinking about uncertainty, it's helpful to look at this framework. Product managers check Facts to make sure they are true, identify Questions to answer through experimentation and analysis with Known Unknowns, know when to rely on Intuition to guide them through best practices and familiar territory, and explore the Unknown Unknowns to uncover the Innovation that lies in the epiphanies there.
A product manager's job is not to just prioritize backlogs all day and divvy up the releases. They have to really understand who their customer is and help solve their problems.
This class will show you the way we approach product management at Produx Labs, and how we've taught it to thousands of teams around the world. But it's important to learn from other great product managers too, in order to round out your own approach and come to your own conclusions about what works best for you and your team. Check out these resources to learn more.
- Mind the Product Blog
- The Experience is the Product: Cindy Alvarez's blog
- Build Better Products by Laura Klein
- The Art of Product Management by Rich Mironov
- Inspired by Marty Cagan, as well as his blog
- Jared Spool's UX Blog
- Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
- Des Traynor's Inside Intercom Blog
- Ken Norton's newsletter called Bring the Donuts
- Jeff Patton's Blog
- David Bland's Blog
That should be plenty to get you started. We'll continue to include more resources as we go!
Note: Make sure to click the "Complete and Continue" red button on the top right corner after each section so that you can track your progress.