Developing Your Product Management Skills with a No Code Project
Changing Careers
Switching careers can be a challenging endeavour but many of us successfully achieve this in a myriad of ways. Depending on the career you want to transition you, there can be numerous actions you can take to land a role in a different field of work.
You might have to; undertake a course that spans several academic years, complete a range of training sessions, pass a short course or bootcamp and obtain a qualification. With all of these actions, you have to set time aside to carry them out in the hope that you gain the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to change careers.
Making the switch to a Product Management position can seem like an impossible feat when your applications to companies are constantly being rejected, and you keep receiving feedback from HR or the hiring manager along the lines of you just do not have enough experience. You wonder how it is indeed possible to break into Product Management when you are unable to land a job to gain the necessary experience.
However, many of us have somehow found the magic formula or rather put in alot of work to set themselves up for success to shatter the glass and break into product management. Their result did not happen by chance but through diligence and persistence, they landed that coveted Product Management role.
Side Projects
I thoroughly enjoy the process of launching a new product and this is one way to acquire a subset of Product Management expertise. Really honing in a problem to be solved for a potential user/customer, and going ahead and building a customer centric solution is an activity I find enthralling.
Back in 2014, I launched a website to help consumers find healthier ready meals and eventually the online platform evolved into a comparison site where consumers could compare the macronutrient of meals. However, at that time my Product Management skillset was very limited to say the least, as my ethos was along the lines of if I build it, they will come. Somehow I had customers and generated a small amount of revenue, but the venture was unable to thrive to its full potential due to a missing Product Management skillset.
However, fast forward seven years and my Product Management knowledge and capabilities have exponentially increased. This is due to numerous factors which include working at a company with Product Managers from July 2019 onwards where I was able to learn about a Product Management function at a tech startup. Over the next three years, through my work environment at my day job, self study and by undertaking numerous side projects, my theoretical and practical Product Management education expanded.
Studying the online Udacity Product Manager Nanodegree course alongside building a side project to launch a new minimum viable product has also been pivotal to understanding Product Management fundamentals. Engaging with the Design Sprint Process as shown in the image below to develop a product on no code platform Bubble.io is an ongoing challenging and rewarding experience.
Learning how to use Bubble.io was more difficult than I expected but fortunately there are lots of free videos on YouTube to guide me through build the specific functionality required. Investing in a Bubble course from Lachlan Kirkwood has also helped me with building the platform.
Working on this no code project outside my day job has enabled me to take on the role of a Product Manager. My responsibilities include market research, competitor analysis, setting the product vision, strategy, leading design sprint workshops, developing product and software requirements, creating user stories, epics and acceptance criteria.
Designing and testing prototypes using Figma and building an MVP, building a roadmap, prioritising the backlog, conducting user research/interviews and product launch activities and community building are also my responsibilities. Fortunately, I have side project partner to help share the workload.
Being able to lead and collaborate to build a free B2C MVP platform which incorporates experiential AR/VR elements highly appeals to me, and I look forward to showcasing the initial version of the platform in the next few months.
The platform aims to help book readers/listeners find new and interesting books to read, and experience book content in an immersive way. At the same time, authors will be able to showcase and market their books and book related content.
What will you build or what are you building to cultivate your Product Management experience and skills?
Check out Andrew Bowker’s (Senior Product Manager at IBM) LinkedIn post for a few ideas — https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6939586361653915649/
Dr Bart Jaworksi (Senior Product Manager at Microsoft) also shares some side project ideas in his YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x88Dl48WGMg
This article was originally published on https://breakintoproductmanagement.com/ to download a copy of an E-book to help you land your first product management role, please visit https://breakintoproductmanagement.com/ebooks
