These are a set of notes that I have taken down as I was going through Duke CE’s Certification in Product Management course on upGrad as a part of their 48th cohort. I have organized the notes by topic, and there are notes for almost every module. You can find the notes from live sessions (with some screenshots of slides) under the “Notes from Live Sessions” link.
References
Recommended reading
| Sl. no. | Book | Author | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products | Nir Eyal | “Great for people who want to have a definitive guide towards building long-term engagement and retention for apps.” |
| 2. | Universal Principles of Design | William Lidwell | “Fundamentals of what makes a great product.” |
| 3. | Cracking the PM Career | Gayle McDowell | “Everyone keeps talking about the hard skills that the PM should have. But it’s really important to understand the soft skills needed to be a successful PM. The book clearly lays out a framework to develop the right soft skills for an individual who would like to fully transition to a PM. “ |
| 4. | Thinking in Bets | Annie Duke | “Thinking in Bets helps you understand that life is similar to poker with uncertainty. Outcomes are a function of your decision-making ability (i.e. bet) and luck. Over time the impact of improving your decision-making compounds but luck is still outside your control. Further, it elaborates on the idea of decisions as being a bet on the future. Confidence in those bets isn’t binary (right or wrong) but rather a scale. The book helped me be a more objective PM while making product decisions and separating the outcome from the decision.” |
| 5. | Good to Great | Jim Collins | “Although it’s not specifically a PM book, it talks about a lot of leadership lessons. What’s most interesting is that it is based on actual, data-based research, and not just thoughts or opinions.” |
| 6. | Measure What Matters | John Doerr | “Product management is all about setting the right goals and measuring how good we are doing against them. This book is the bible of OKRs, Goal Setting and Goal tracking.” |
| 7. | Inspired | Marty Cagan | “A one-stop shop for the end-to-end product management role and experience. Has insights for those just beginning on this journey as well as those looking to go into leadership and management. ” |
| 8. | The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Right | Atul Gawande | “Checklists get a raw deal, but they can ensure that you go through all the essential steps to guarantee a successful approach to a problem. Atul Gawande looks at the power of checklists in a variety of industries and how they can ensure consistent performance For product managers, they can be used for user research, requirements definition, and pre and post-release, amongst other things. Product Managers work in busy environments, with lots of conflicting and overlapping priorities, and using checklists can help keep on top of activities and keep performance consistent.” |