What you get out of this course will reflect what you put into it. We provide you with everything you need to create a great product strategy, but you need to take responsibility for doing the work.
To get the most out of this course, we strongly recommend you do following:
- Schedule the time now – Block out minimum 2 hours a week in your calendar for the next 7 weeks to read the materials and complete the exercises. This can be 1 x 2 hour slot or 2 x 1 hour slots. After week 1 evaluate if you need more time and if so, schedule it. Stick to these times religiously – you know how busy being a PM is!
- Complete the exercises – Effective learning happens when you put new knowledge into practice. If you only read the materials and don’t do the exercises, what you learn and retain will be limited. If you do the exercises you will not only have a better understanding of the concepts covered, but you’ll create real artefacts to use day-to-day in your job.
- Sharing confidential information – Our top tier of exercises asks you to share elements of your strategy with other course participants for feedback. We do this because it’s a highly effective way for you to learn. However, we understand that large parts of your strategy are no doubt confidential. Please use your judgement and don’t do anything that will get you (or us!) in trouble. A few thoughts on how to share as much as possible, whilst still being discrete:
- Redact / blur the sensitive bits – see if you can redact sensitive details or the overall direction of your strategy to keep it confidential, whilst still sharing the workings and structure to get feedback.
- Show a section, not the whole thing – can you share a section of your assignment, but not the whole thing? E.g. for the 7 Powers map, share this against one named competitor, but not all the competitor groups you identify.
- Share your reflections – if sharing anything makes you uncomfortable, then select one of the other options for the exercise that week. There will always be an opportunity to write a summary or some reflections, and you can share these with the community here, or internally.
- Provide feedback to others – We use a social learning model where you are expected to provide feedback to peers on the same course. This is for your benefit as much as for theirs. By seeing how other people interpret the materials and providing them with feedback, you will deepen your understanding of what we’re discussing. The best feedback is:
- Kind – it’s respectful, considerate and aims to help the recipient achieve their full potential
- Detailed – it’s specific and pinpoints exactly what you mean
- Ask the community – You’re not in this alone. If you have questions or need a boost, drop something in the course chat. We’ve all been there, and we are on hand to help you out. We’ll try to respond within 24 hours.
