Product Management (TECH 5200)

This studio-based course helps students learn about and develop product management (PM) skills by putting those skills immediately to use in the context of their Startup Studio projects.

In each class, students learn about a different aspect of product management, product design, or technology development, then practice applying it in class exercises and to their Product Studio or Specialization project, working with their project teams, and with the help and critique of the practitioner instructors and sometimes visiting practitioners.

By the end of the semester, students will have developed and practiced many of the fundamental product management skills required to develop new technology products, and their Startup Studio or Specialization projects will have greatly benefited from the practice.

Student responsibilities:

• This course is a series of interactive studio-based classes requiring the full participation of all students.
• In each class, students learn about and practice applying a PM skill to their Startup Studio or Specialization project.
• In between classes, student teams complete and/or iterate on artifacts assigned in class and post those artifacts to the shared Artifacts sheet (a link to which you will receive via email).

Grading:

Artifacts will be assigned as homework each class. The first mention of each artifact is listed in bold in the homeworks below. All artifacts are due midnight before the following class and must be posted in the Artifacts sheet. In some cases, instructors will leave comments in the sheet about action items required to bring artifacts to an acceptable level, any of which must be addressed by the subsequent class.

Grading are assigned according to the following:

• Artifacts (50%)
  • Based on timely completion and instructor review of artifacts in Artifact sheet
• Individual participation (50%)
  • Based on attendance and exercises each class
  • Each exercise represents 5% of your grade, with the lowest grade ignored (which can be an incomplete grade if you were absent for an exercise)

Schedule:

1. Product + Management (February 14)
2. Product + Design (February 21)
3. Product + Data (February 28)
4. Product + Development I (March 7)
5. Product + Development II (March 21)
6. Product + Development III (March 28)
7. Product + The World (April 18)
8. Product + Product Managers (April 25)

Class structure:

• 9:30 - 10:45 a.m.: Lecture with exercise (75 min)

Also see Studio Links for Cornell Tech internal links.