Future of Product Management: 2021 Forecast

The state of product management in the next calendar year

Gabriel Steinhardt
Blackblot
Published in
7 min readNov 4, 2020

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Introduction

Product management has come a long way in the last decade, but there have been many setbacks.

There is more interest and awareness in product management than ever before. But the product world has also become an increasingly chaotic domain.

There are many human and commercial motivations at play, influencing the state of the product management domain.

This sober and concise review outlines some of the market dynamics in product management, which will emerge in the very near future.

The Positives

  • Career — The product management profession will be further recognized as a lifelong career and a stepping stone to an executive management position.
  • Certification — Product management will be spared the certification inflation phenomena that has plagued the Agile and IT worlds. Product management certification options on the market will remain relatively stable. New and existing low-stakes product management certifications that are easy to pass will be heavily promoted.
  • Crossover — Google is now offering a Project Manager and UX Designer courses. The…

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Gabriel Steinhardt
Blackblot

Founder, Author, Public Speaker. Developer of the Blackblot Product Manager's Toolkit® (PMTK) Methodology