Product management is hot. With ever-increasing competition in the market, more and more companies are embracing truly product-focused approaches. A decade ago or so, one could get by just adding features at random and seeing what sticks. Nowadays, proper product strategy is a must.
This led to a rise in demand for product managers. Almost every company needs one. And the promise of getting into the IT industry with high job prestige, competitive salary, and “no technical knowledge” is tempting for many.
The result was a massive creation of product management courses and boot camps. Everyone seems to promise that if you pay a mere few thousand dollars, you will earn $200k a year in no time.
All this buzz around product management makes it hard to distinguish courses and programs that are truly worth your time and money — ones that will grow your skill exponentially — from the ones that are just a waste of time.
Luckily, I dug through dozens of courses, so you don’t have to. Here’s a curated list of product management courses worth your investment in.
Table of contents
- Courses for aspiring product managers
- Courses for experienced product managers
- Technical courses for product managers
Courses for aspiring product managers
I filtered the courses for aspiring product managers based on three core criteria. An excellent entry-level course should:
- Give a hefty dose of knowledge
- Not overwhelmed with too advanced knowledge
- Help you decide if product management is something for you
Here are courses that meet these requirements.
Product Management Foundations by Reforge
Link: https://www.reforge.com/product-management-foundations
Price: $2,000 for a yearly membership, which includes 2–3 cohort-based courses.
“Build a foundational understanding of the product manager role, and learn the tools required to succeed as a product manager.”
If I was to point to one best source of knowledge for product managers, I wouldn’t have to think long. Reforge has a great blog, membership perks, and cohort-based programs.
Product management foundations is a course that teaches you everything you need to start thinking like a PM, from identifying opportunities to designing features, developing features, launching the product, and learning from it.
However, to get the most out of Reforge’s course, you should have at least some basic understanding of product management before signing up (reading 2–3 books should do the job).
Product Management Fundamentals by Lenny Rachitsky
Link: https://maven.com/lenny/product-management-fundamentals
Price: $1,250
“Become a more confident PM, armed with a toolkit full of actionable advice, tactics, and frameworks to immediately put into action.”
Lenny Rachitsky is the author of the famous Lenny’s Newsletter — one of the best newsletters for product managers and the host of the recently-started Lenny’s Podcast. He is one of the most well-known and respected figures in creating product management courses.
He offers a three-week, workshop-style course led directly by him. His course is endorsed by figures like Gibson Biddle (former VP of Product at Netflix) and Jackie Bavaro (co-author of Cracking the PM Interview).
Although the course is currently on hiatus (as of November 2022), it’s definitely worth observing.
Product Academy by Product Dave
Link: https://www.productschool.org/
Price: Free or $49/month
Dave is an experienced product manager, currently working as a group product manager for Linktree.
It offers a comprehensive overview of product management practice in a series of pre-recorded video lessons and quizzes. Although it’s an entry-level course, it doesn’t shy away from scraping the surface on more advanced topics, which is great for showing potential course participants what they might expect in their PM careers.
Although the price is $49/month, you get a free 14 days of access, which is enough to complete the course if you commit to it daily.
Product Management Bootcamp by BrainStation
Link: https://brainstation.io/course/online/product-management
Price: $3,250
BrainStation is a provider of tech-related boot camps and courses.
I honestly don’t recommend boot camps per se, you are better off doing an entry-level course, reading some PM books, and then spending the rest of the money on some vacations. But, if you need a strict schedule and commitment to go through the initial friction of learning a brand new skill, then BrainStation is your pick.
The course is reasonably priced (as for a boot camp), offers live sessions, and doesn’t try to teach you everything at once. Be warned, though. You will NOT get a product management job just because you completed a boot camp.
Courses for experienced product managers
Let’s be honest. Most product management courses pray the same things. Bring problems, not solutions. Focus on outcomes, not outputs. Follow product development lifecycle. Experiment. Focus on learning. And so on.
The truth is, once you master the basics, it’s hard to find truly valuable courses. Most of them are focused on aspiring or entry-level product managers. Luckily, there are a few gems worth considering, even if you have a decade of experience.
All programs by Reforge
Link: https://www.reforge.com/all-programs
Price: $2,000 for a yearly membership, which includes 2–3 cohort-based courses.
As mentioned in the last section, Reforge is probably one of the best resources for product managers. Although it gained popularity mostly thanks to its growth-related courses, they also offer other specialized product management courses. All of them are live, cohort-based programs. Some examples include:
- Technical Strategy
- Product Strategy
- Product Leadership
- User Insights for Product Decisions
- Data for Product Management
- Monetization + Pricing
- Advanced Growth Strategy
- And many more
Everyone will find something for them here.
Master classes and deep dives by Teresa Torres
Link: https://learn.producttalk.org/
Price: $1,785 for a master class, $799 for each deep-dive course
Teresa Torress is a leading authority when it comes to discovery. She has popularized the term “continuous discovery” and is the creator of the opportunity solution tree concept — one of the most respected discovery frameworks.
Try her master class on continuous discovery habits if you want a cohesive introduction to mature discovery processes. And if you prefer a deep dive into a more specialized area, you can choose from five deep dive cohorts:
- Defining outcomes
- Continuous interviewing
- Opportunity mapping
- Identifying hidden assumptions
- Assumption testing
All training courses are led directly by Teresa.
Senior Product Manager/Product Leader Certification by Product School
Link: https://productschool.com/senior-product-manager-certification
Price: $4,499 each
Product School is one of the well-known product knowledge resources. They have their blog, meetups, podcasts, and various certification courses.
I’ll be honest, I find the price for their programs way too high, and the price-value ratio is debatable. The curriculum also isn’t that unique. What defends the program, though, are their teachers. All courses are led by well-known experts from companies like Google, PayPal, Uber, etc.
Moreover, students report that the biggest value they get is asking random, non-curriculum-related questions to the teachers and participating in deep-dive discussions with others.
I’d treat it as a mini MBA for product managers. The knowledge from the curriculum is easily accessible, and the price is outrageous. But it provides space for great discussion and opportunities for networking.
All live courses by Mind the Product
Link: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/product-management-training/public-workshops/
Price: $700 for each course / $2600 for the product leadership course
Mind the Product is the world’s largest community of product people. If you have been in the industry for a few years, you have probably heard about their podcasts, events, or conferences.
They offer two types of courses, trainer-led, and self-paced online learning. Both are valuable, although I lean more towards trained-led ones. After all, conversations with the trainer and other course participants often bring more value than the course curriculum itself.
Their advanced programs include:
- Communication and Alignment
- Metrics for Product Managers
- Mapping to Solve Product Problems
- Product Leadership
Technical courses for product managers
A product manager doesn’t need to have technical skills, but technical skills make the job much easier.
If you want to understand better how the sausage is made, try out these courses.
One week technical PM by ProductHQ
Link: https://producthq.teachable.com/p/technical-product-manager
Price: $399
If you haven’t worked in the tech industry before or see your tech skills lacking, ProductHQ has you covered. The course strikes a perfect balance between going deep enough for you to understand technical concepts without overwhelming you too much with engineering details.
Although the promise of “landing a technical product manager job” after a week-long course is somewhat insulting, it still does a great job of teaching basics.
UX Design Professional by Google
Link: https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/google-ux-design
Price: Free or $59/month
Google’s UX Design Professional course is probably one of the best UX courses. It teaches the basics of UX, tackles often neglected topics such as accessibility and inclusions, and prompts you to deliver three fully-fledged portfolio projects. Although it has UX in the name, it also teaches user interface (UI) basics.
It’s a comprehensive deep dive with tons of practical exercises.
Data Analytics Professional by Google
Link: https://www.coursera.org/professional-certificates/google-data-analytics
Price: Free or $59/month
If you’d like to understand the job of your data analyst better, or you don’t have one and need to wear that hat, try Google’s Data Analytics professional.
It teaches key skills like data cleaning, analysis, and visualization and introduces every data analyst’s essential tools, such as SQL, R, or Tableau.
The skills it teaches will help you get more insights from the data you have.
Conclusion
In sum, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all course or program for product managers. Some PMs are entry-level and have worked in other roles before, some are still early in their careers, and some are experienced but want to build more knowledge. There are lots of courses out there, but some cater better to these categories than others.
Hopefully, this list of product management courses was helpful in context to whom they’re suited for. If you try any of them or have insight, let me know in the comments!
Featured image source: IconScout
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