30 Days of Product Management Genius with Colin Lernell | Design Sprints for Real Product Management
“What’s your long-term career goal?” the CEO asked.
“I don’t have a long-term goal, yet.” I was answering a question in the final interview for a Product position. “But I have one for the short-term: become a Product Manager.”
“Okay. We’ll see,” he replied, ending the interview. Three days later, I landed the job. I was going to facilitate a product powered by cutting-edge technology that I barely knew. Besides being in over my head with the technology, I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do as a Product Manager!
I didn’t know how to achieve my goal: I didn’t just want to survive as a Product Manager, I wanted to thrive! I was nervous, but my desire to learn helped me focus on my next steps. I hired a researcher to provide me with all the information and online tutorials I needed to learn about Product Management, and I acquired a list of thought leaders in this domain.
A week later, I was like a piranha swimming in the ocean of knowledge. Tapping into all the genius of those who came before me, soaking up all of their combined wisdom, I quickly learned as much as I could and applied this to my new job. Senior Management was amazed by my acumen and Product Management skills.
Colin Lernell is a Product Management genius who contributed to my PM success.
Design Sprints for Real Product Management
I love the free education content Udacity puts out in the internet. When I made the career transition into technology a few years ago, I became a fan of this great learning resource.
I often wonder how they know what to teach next. Anytime I wanted to learn something more about technology, I Googled the subject and inevitably found that Udacity had relevant classes!
Check out the free courses and Nanodegree programs here.
How do they develop the classes and nanodegrees people need? How do they know their solutions solve my problem? Is it market research? Is it customer interviews? Do they have a great product manager who knows how to validate the market need and churn out great products?
Udacity Lead Product Manager Colin Lernell told me, “I’m actually running a design sprint. We run one about every quarter to make sure we aren’t overfitting to our current solution.”
The Design Sprint was developed by Google Venture (GV). It’s a five-day process for answering important business questions via design, prototyping and testing ideas with customers.
Are you a Product Manager? Are you hungry for practical and actionable PM knowledge you can apply on your job?
Colin Lernell is a speaker in the Product Manager Summit: The first FREE Web Conference showcasing Product Management best practices from around the world.
In his session, Design Sprints for Real Product Management, he will discuss his real life experience in running Design Sprint at Udacity.
You don’t want to miss this. Claim your free ticket.
