Here is our running list of Product Management Education Resources for professionals pursuing a career in product management.
Most people will tell you that there are many paths to a career in product management. There is no traditional path. Most people combine a domain expertise in fields like software development, life sciences, or digital media with a business degree.
These days, there is a negative unemployment rate for qualified product managers. Traditional universities are not filling the gap for product management education, so a variety of institutions are filling the gap.
For those who are looking to build their knowledge and credentials, here are some resources.
Product Management Education Options
Online Courses
Many people begin their product management education online. This is a great way to for career switchers. It’s also great for experienced product managers to fill in specific gaps in their knowledge base. Most of these courses are affordable for individuals.
Product Institute is an online school created by Product Managers for Product Managers. Created by a popular former instructor at General Assembly, Product Institute offers a 10 week course in Product Management that is gaining recognition in tech startups.
Courses cost $1299. In addition to the course material, students are paired with a coach to individualize their learning. The course covers product management fundamentals. More experienced product managers take the course to fill in knowledge gaps and to crystallize their best practices so they can set expectations for their teams.
The course trains aspiring product managers in almost ever function of their job. It is the longest form, most in-depth online course for product managers available.
DEO University offers courses and certifications in IDEO’s design thinking process.
Courses typically cost around $400 and run about 5 weeks. Students should expect to invest 4 hours each week. IDEO popularized the design thinking process and is a globally recognized brand name to put on anyone’s resume.
The Interaction Design Foundation offers courses in user experience and design. Their mission is to democratize learning by providing online access to high quality learning materials. Courses run from free to a minimal fee, and students can earn certificates to put on their profiles. Students are able to meet in person with their peers in many major cities.
For product managers seeking to work on their design skills, the Interaction Design Foundation offers courses on every major topic of design.
Udemy offers several courses in Product Management and Product Marketing.
Topic range from fundamentals to career advice. The most popular course is taught by two young product managers from SoundCloud, Bonobos, and Venture Capital Firms.
Lynda.com has a basic intro to Product Management and courses in covering specific skills in product management.
There is no course track in product management or deep dive, but it’s a great resource for targeting specific skills and filling in knowledge gaps.
Coursera usually has a basic course on product management or design thinking. Coursera’s primary focus is on niche tech skills that are hot in the market.
General Assembly offers a variety of online courses well suited for product managers brushing up on their design and technical skills.
The main Course in Product Management is offered at the San Francisco Campus (see below).
Workshops & Corporate Training
Workshops offer product management education for teams and individuals with corporate sponsorships. Many of these companies and instructors combine training with consulting.
The Product School offers bootcamp for professionals seeking product management education to jump start their career. The course offers forty hours of instruction and gives you a basic orientation to the business, engineering, and design skills expected of a product manager.
Based in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Product School’s instructors hail from top tech employers and can claim real street credibility.
The course material targets entry level product managers and trains them to meet the demands of tech startups for junior tech PMs to work in the trenches with engineering and design.
Locations
San Francisco, Santa Clara, New York, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Boston. Expanding rapidly, so check their website for more. On Site Corporate Training Offered.
Pragmatic Marketing is a well established product management education program, having trained product managers in tech since 1993.
The certification is well recognized by corporations and is often mentioned in job postings. (About 1,000 posts on Indeed as of this writing.)
Pragmatic marketing offers practical tool for professionals seeking to add business tools to their technical expertise. Companies often send engineers transitioning to product management for a course here.
If you have an MBA, you may find the introductory courses to be a review of your core curriculum. Several of their advanced courses take on thorny topics like pricing and product launches.
Locations
Major cities across the US + London. On Site Corporate Training Offered.
The 280 Group is a team of seasoned Silicon Valley executives who provide corporate training. The founder wrote Product Management for Dummies and can literally say he wrote the book on the subject.
The focus is on the 280 Group’s Optimal Product Process, which is a useful framework pulling best practices from a variety of disciplines.
A favorite among larger enterprises, the 280 Group’s on site trainings can often serve part as workshops and part as consulting on how product management should work at your company.
Locations
San Francisco, New York, Austin, London, Dubai, and other tech centers. On Site Corporate Training Offered.
Mind the Product is one of the most prolific producers of articles, workshops, and meetups in product management.
Product Tank meetups bring product managers together in major cities across the Americas, Europe, and APAC.
Their corporate training is delivered by experienced product managers with a focus on practical tools and knowledge.
Locations
San Francisco, New York, London, Amsterdam. On Site Corporate Training Offered.
Sequent provides corporate training workshops in major cities across the U.S. They specialize in business product management and offer training in product marketing, strategy, and management for professionals looking to add business tools to their toolbox.
Locations
San Francisco, LA/Irvine, Chicago, Boston, New York, London
On Site Corporate Training Offered
For Agile Teams, the Scrum Alliance offers training and certification for Certified Scrum Product Owners.
The course teaches product owners how to develop products with the agile process. The focus is on the development framework, not the business or design aspects of product management.
Courses are taught by a variety of instructors all over the world. There are a variety of instructors, including some of the original founding fathers of Agile. For some students, it is worthwhile to pick one of the most popular instructors and travel to a location where the peer group will enhance the experience. Others will just focus on getting the certification.
Though real world experience with Agile matters the most, both the CSPO and related Agile certifications are popular search terms in the job posting and resume matching world.
Regional
Regional tech centers provide fantastic opportunities in product management education with experienced instructors and a peers from some of the best companies in the tech industry.
General Assembly offers a 10 week Course in Product Management at the San Francisco Campus.
The course is taught by practicing product managers and covers the practical tech, design, and business skills expected of a product manager.
Being in San Francisco, there is a heavy emphasis on Agile frameworks for requirements and Lean Business Models.
Even if you are not based in San Francisco, it’s a program worth considering on sabbatical between jobs or while on a summer internship.
he Silicon Valley Product Group is led by a team of veterans from the tech industry dating back to Netscape and eBay. They have been consulting startups for years and have an instinct for what works and what doesn’t. They lead a series of workshops mainly in the Bay Area, but often in New York and London. The focus is on entrepreneurial product management.
UC Berkeley Executive Education offers a 5 day training and certificate in Product Management. Classes are conducted in Berkeley and Palo Alto.
The course focuses on business and leadership skills in product management.
Brainstation specializes in training professionals in digital skills for the digital economy. The course focuses on the high level skills needed for product management: assessing the market, personas, agile & lean, and customer validation. Classes are offered at Brainstation’s location in New York.
Brainstation specializes in training professionals in digital skills for the digital economy. The course focuses on the high level skills needed for product management: assessing the market, personas, agile & lean, and customer validation. Classes are offered at Brainstation’s location in New York.
Full Time Degree Programs
Full time degrees in product management are highly valued. Universities are still catching up to the market need for more product management education programs. Here are some of the best:
MBA Programs
Northwestern University’s MBA in Marketing is ranked #2 in the world. The University now offers a Master of Product Development that combines the same core business courses with technical product design and development. Candidates are required to have 2+ years product development experience, which brings real world experience to the classroom.
New York University Stern School of Business offers a Product Management Education track in their MBA program. The program offers classic courses in data driven product management plus smattering of primer courses for Internet product development. The program is designed to prepare students to manage products in “Marketing and Entertainment, Media and Technology”. If you plan to go into Digital Media and Advertising, New York is the place to be!
Emory Goizueta School of Business is the next highest rank MBA program offering a product management track. Roberto Goizueta, for whom the school is named, created the first Chief Marketing Officer role at Coca Cola. Emory has been trail blazing in marketing graduates ever since. The current program focuses on digital marketing and data driven decision making for product managers.
Next on the MBA rankings, Carnegie Mellon offers the best of both worlds: A top ranked engineering program with a top ranked MBA program.
Carnegie Mellon’s Masters of Science in Product Management offers probably the best cross disciplinary education for professionals going into software product management.
Though located far from the major MBA hiring markets, Carnegie Mellon is a recognized feeder school into New York and Silicon Valley. The University keeps an executive education campus in the Valley that is a fantastic networking resource.
Engineering Programs
MIT offers a Master in Integrated Design Management.
Among engineering programs, this is by far the best interdisciplinary program in engineering, design, and business.
The curriculum covers hard core skills in data driven product design and decision making, cost accounting, operations management, and user-centric design. It also covers some of the soft management skills MBA programs cover.
The program prepares both software and hardware product managers how to develop market leading products.
For those with a background in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, UC Berkeley has a Masters of Engineering in Product Development.
The program is designed to train chemical engineers to transform innovations in their field into commercially successful products.
Stanford University offers a Master of Science in Design Impact.
This program focuses on design thinking and commercial problem solving for professionals seeking a career in product design. It does not cover any of the business aspects of product management.
Technical courses offer an orientation in software development and manufacturing processes. Graduates take on an independent project in the second year.
Georgia Tech is another top 10 engineering school offering programs for professionals aspiring to roles in new product development and design.
The Master of Biomedical Innovation and Development (MBID) trains engineers in the life sciences to commercialize innovations in their field.
The Master in Industrial Design is a leading design program for professionals looking to enter product design in software or manufacturing.