Instructors
Elaine Chen
Description
Overview
This course examines the product manager’s role in guiding products from concept to launch. Students learn to identify opportunities and customer needs, turn insights into product requirements, collaborate on multidisciplinary teams, and design strategies and tactics to bring new and improved products to market. Core topics include customer discovery, market and data analysis, product roadmapping, release planning, product marketing and launch, and leading through influence. Through team projects commissioned by real companies and supported by company mentors, students build practical product management skills and frameworks through active, experiential learning.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion, students will:
- Understand the discipline of product management and related career options.
- Discover market and customer needs and turn them into actionable product requirements.
- Support the planning and delivery of product releases.
- Contribute to product planning and product strategy development.
- Use data to inform decisions and measure product success.
- Acquire technological literacy and fluency that helps them communicate with both technical and non technical audiences.
- Understand and connect business objectives to product decisions.
- Work with ambiguity and changing priorities.
- Lead by influence, not with authority.
Course topics and objectives
- Learn by doing through team projects commissioned by real companies
- Explore the role and responsibilities of a product manager and understand career pathways and options
- Translate customer discovery and research data into product requirements
- Scope, prioritize, and deliver product releases
- Develop marketing collateral to support product launches and product marketing
- Use qualitative and quantitative data to drive decision making
- Use technical tools, including AI, to streamline processes and achieve better outcomes
- Explore similarities and differences between how product management manifests in new ventures and large established enterprises
- Explore how cross functional product teams communicate and collaborate
- Learn to lead with influence, not with authority
What people say
“This course has made me think more deeply about the responsibilities of a product manager, their interactions with other departments, how to conduct user interviews, work with real companies as clients, and think about bringing products to market in general.”
– An ENT162 Student
“The team project with a real company was the most useful part. It helped connect concepts to something practical. Working with a group also made it easier to understand how product decisions are made collaboratively.”
– An ENT162 Student