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Product Management University

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COURSE LENGTH: 2 Days
REGISTRATION FEE: See pricing below
VENUES: Public, Client Site, Web Meeting

 

 

 

When the Same Old Product Management No Longer Works

The same-old, same-old management and marketing of individual products in silos isn’t producing favorable results for most companies in this new economy.

Product Management University goes far beyond managing and marketing individual products. It’s a hands-on clinic that helps product managers and marketers lead product companies by working in teams to determine the market segments most conducive to growing the company as a whole, creating a strategy to penetrate those markets then delivering the best mix of products, marketing messages and sales tools to execute the strategy.

This approach ensures a consistent focus across marketing, sales and products and eliminates silos with competing objectives that unnecessarily consume resources and ultimately inhibit growth.    

Why Attend?

  1. Alignment
    As revenue goals become more challenging and reactive product decisions become the norm, the constant tailspin can paralyze any organization.  You'll learn how to connect the dots between markets, strategy and product priorities across the company so you‘ll stop burning resources unnecessarily and work as one team with a single set of clearly defined priorities.
  1. Leadership
    If products are being managed in silos and require meeting after meeting to resolve issues with customers, sales, marketing and product development, you'll learn how to demonstrate leadership by using information to bring the entire organization to a common understanding of the market and drive a unified strategy, roadmap and product plans that deliver higher impact solutions to maximize revenue for the company. 
  2. Structure & Discipline
    If Product Management or Product Marketing is a new discipline in your company, or you're transitioning from traditional to agile product development and the confusion over roles and responsibilities is slowing your time to market, you'll learn how to structure the organization to accelerate product deliveries and reduce stress levels with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and out-of-the-box deliverables in both traditional and agile environments.
  3. Focus
    If you've been through a recent reorganization and your product team is more diverse and carrying a heavier workload, we'll help you establish clear priorities that have the biggest impact on the organization as a whole so everyone can be more focused and work smarter with better results.
  4. Perception
    If Product Management and Product Marketing are perceived as nothing more than requirements and brochure jockeys, we'll give you the hard and soft skills to change those perceptions by demonstrating big picture thinking complemented with follow-through execution to get results everyone will notice.

 

Who Should Attend?

  • New Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers who need the basics
  • Experienced Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers who want to take their career to the next level 
  • Product Designers and Product Development/Engineering Leads who want to understand the upstream process
  • Project Managers & Release Managers who manage and coordinate all the moving parts
  • Senior Managers & Executives who want to understand the fundamentals of a market-driven product company

 

Registration Fees

Course Calendar & Registration

 

Program Agenda

Day 1

  • Define roles, responsibilities and deliverables to ensure everyone has a supporting cast, improve productivity and reduce stress levels
  • Manage ideas & innovation to ensure resources are invested to complement your strengths and current momentum
  • Assess markets, core competencies & competition to prioritize target markets for the company and simplify all subsequent decisions
  • Create a strategy with an integrated product roadmap tied to target markets to drive a single set of top-down investment priorities

Day 2

  • Define business requirements that connect market dynamics to target customer needs and deliver a few high-impact solutions that drive revenue instead of a bunch of nice-to-have features that are difficult to justify
  • Create unified product plans/business cases across all products to penetrate the hottest markets faster
  • Define use cases/user stories and functional requirements so that product design and usability become a key point of differentiation
  • Orchestrate product design and development with regular validation points that keep business and market objectives at the forefront of product design and usability
  • Ready the company for product rollout and launch with knowledge transfer processes that improve self-sufficiency and performance of sales, services, marketing and support so the product team to focus on the next set of priorities with fewer disruptions

REGISTER

View/Download Course Outline

 

Comments(9)
Perhaps I'm biased, in that I've had no formal training in 'marketing', but I found the whole of course enlightening. I think the the roles& responsibilities combined with the assessment of markets will start us in a paradigm shift of how we serve the customer with our products.
Art Reed, "Director of R&D and Engineering", Teledyne Leeman Labs, 01.15.2010
I highly recommend the Product Management University. As one who has been through the trainings and certifications from other product management solutions, I can clearly say that the ZigZag framework is the strongest I have seen. The intuitive alignment of the framework along with the very practical deliverables at each level drive continuous value for each of the deliverables. The benefits for this class are great for any level of individual, from an entry level Product Manager to an individual who is driving Product Management for an organization. I highly recommend this for individuals and organizations that are looking to align their products and organization to ensure they are delivering market-driven products and solutions.
Steven ZoBell, "Chief Product and Technology Officer", AdvancedMD Software, 01.12.2010
Having recently shifted from a Marketing to a Product Management role, I found this training very useful in that it helps me to see things (needs of consumers, products we shoule offer, as well as our positioning strategy) from a different perspective. I can apply the frameworks learned in this training to real-life product development/management cases right away!
Echo Huang, "Sr. Product Manager", Western Union, 10.27.2009
I strongly believe this course was the key to my success in landing my current position. Part of my interview process included presenting a Product Plan to management. Utilizing the skills and logic I acquired from the course, I was able to put together what I feel was the best presentation of my career to date. I gained confidence in my methods and was able to address critical areas of the business from the perspective of my audience while demonstrating knowledge and depth of the Product Management function.
Christy Bezuijen, "Product Manager", 09.03.2009
I don't think the information could have been put together any better than it was. It seemed to cover everything, beginning to end. Great training, It definitely seems like it is the solution to many of the business problems we face.
Dustin Speer, Vestcom, "Dir. Product Development", 09.01.2009
This was an excellent course! The material covered was comprehensive and well-focused, so it is highly applicable to my job in a software company.
Mike Madison, Product Mgr, "PossibleNow", 09.01.2009
I'm already putting this knowledge in to practice and my boss has borrowed my training book and has been reading the section on product management resources.
Audrey Mason, Product Mgr, "Idexx Labs", 09.01.2009
The course was exactly what I was looking for and the instructor was EXCELLENT, as expected. I would highly recommend this course and instructor to others.
Kenneth Juengling, "Project Manager", 09.01.2009
ZIGZAG’s framework has helped us align product plans and company goals to our target markets and justify our product investments. Having the “why factor” and buy-in across the board really helps move things forward in a smooth manner so that plans aren’t continually questioned or challenged along the way.
Brian Summers, "COO, CNC Software", 08.31.2009
 
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