Product School

I took Product School's Product Management intensive in Santa Monica and could not have been more impressed with the caliber of curriculum, instruction, and resources. At the conclusion of the 8-week program, I walked away with a mastery of the core principles,... Read More frameworks, and tools needed to be an effective PM. The exercises, group work, and projects were invaluable.

Much of the credit goes to our instructor, Rich Headley, a talented and passionate instructor with deep insights into both the technical and intangible elements of being a good PM. Apart from being a dynamic, engaging classroom leader, Rich excels at the delivery of keen, perceptive feedback that enables true growth and learning.

I highly recommend Product School to aspiring PMs, or anyone looking to gain a deeper understanding of product management.

The course was well worth the money and giving up 8 consecutive Saturdays. Our instructor Ken Furie brought a ton of real-life product management experience to the table, which I found even more valuable than the well-crafted course material. Ken gave... Read More us countless examples of common pitfalls when PMing and tips on how to build healthy, productive cross team communication. It was a good experience taking a product idea from inception through prototyping and wire framing; learning how to develop PRDs, craft product pitches, and form go-to-market strategies. Ken spent quite a bit of time explaining the importance of building well researched personas and user stories to help development teams stay laser focused on product outcomes. I had a very energetic and diverse set of classmates, and I felt there was much to learn about their individual experiences throughout the course as well. Highly recommend Product School to anyone looking to broaden their perspective or branch out into product management or design.

I attended the 8 week Software Product Management Certification Course which was held at Denver.

This is one of the best courses that I have ever taken in my professional life. The course content was very apt and to the point. The best part of the course... Read More was it was not all instructor lectures and slides alone. Every class had a hands on practice material to be done in class as a group or as an individual. Also the homework assignments were very insightful and helped me develop on the concepts that I learned in class. The Slack channel is really helpful. Also I liked the fact that the class was really small. Just around 10 students which helped each one of us get personal attention from the instructor.

Our instructor was Ken Furie, who is the Head of Product and Technical Strategy at Gloo at Boulder, Colorado. Ken made the class really interesting and enjoyable. His informal approach to the class made all of us very comfortable from Day 1. Every class was less lecture and more of a group discussion. Ken was extremely patient in answering all our questions, however silly they may be. Also he kept up the subtle humor, which all the students appreciated and enjoyed very much. Ken is a very positive person who is really passionate about products and that reflects in his instructor mode as well. Also his knowledge and experience in the Product space speaks for itself. He also helped us prepping up our resumes and personal stories. Discussed the Do's and Dont's in interviews and really prepared us with confidence to attend any interviews. I would any day attend another session with Ken anytime.

Course: 8 week long Software Product Management on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from March to May 2018.

Location: Santa Monica, CA
Parking note: For those driving over there, there are several public lots available and your first 1.5 hours in the lot... Read More are free. Classes are 2.5 hours long though so expect to pay between $3– $5 per class depending on how early you arrive and how late you stick around after class.

Instructor: Rich Headley, currently a PM at Cornerstone OnDemand.
Rich is very knowledgable, engaging, and covered all the relevant course topics on the syllabus. He also took time to address additional questions and concepts during class. I especially liked the way he applied PM concepts to real-world anecdotes and connected them to what we were learning.

Product School learnings: To get the most out of PS, you’ll need to put in more effort beyond doing the assignments. Participate in class, get to know your classmates, take advantage of the multitude of meet-up opportunities, and dive into the Slack community. By the end of this course you will learn what you need to know to develop a new feature or product from idea to prototype and present it, using any number of the PM tools discussed along the way.

They are always looking for feedback to make this program better and encourage interaction, which I appreciate. As far my evaluation of the school itself, there’s always room for improvement in a relatively new tech business learning program geared toward professionals. However I firmly believe that with instructors like Rich there it will continue to get better and better with each class.

I look forward to using what I’ve learned from this course in my career.

After completing the 8-week Product Management course, I confidently recommend Rich Headley to be your next instructor at the Product School, Santa Monica. Prior to the course, I was under the impression that to be a Product Manager, hiring companies... Read More required candidates to have a high technical knowledge/background. As a Psych grad with a sales background, I had a lot of reservation in enrolling for this course as I thought I would struggle to understand concepts/hold my class back and not find many uses for the course.

From the first day of class and to the very end, Rich fostered a safe & interactive learning environment that simplified concepts while connecting them to real-life applications through in-class exercises. A typical class looks like this: after teaching us that class' content, Rich would break up my class into smaller groups so we can practice what we learned using a case study and present our findings to the class. After we presented, Rich would give the group constructive feedback that I felt instilled confidence in us that we understood the concept and encouraged us to practice on our own for the final project.

I greatly appreciated Rich's availability throughout the 8 weeks. I ended up missing Week 3 due to illness and had to catch-up. Instead of being upset that I was behind, Rich made himself available on Slack and by coming in early/leaving class late so I could ask questions & for feedback. Without that, I probably would've been discouraged to continue and probably wouldn't be writing this review today.

In retrospect, I was surprised at how many translatable skills I got to develop and sharpen through the 8-week course. Although I don't have plans as of right now to pursue a career in PM, I'm confident that when the time comes, I'll be able to draw upon what I've learned but also leverage the Product School's network to accelerate my journey.

Thanks Rich for pouring in so much of your own free time to share a real-world perspective/honest view of what PM life is like and practical insights/best practices to be a successful PM!

Professor Joel Palath easily made my experience unforgettable and invaluable at Product School. His knowledge of the field, along with his ability as educator, pushed our class to learn much more than we could have on our own. I came to the class with... Read More experience as a product manger and was not too sure what to think of the course but left with immediate results. The material we covered helped me revamp the way I am approaching products at work and helped kickstart my own startup. Professor Palath presented solutions to real problems that PMs face on a day to day basis by not just reviewing material from a textbook/slides but by weaving the course material with his own real world experiences as PM. This made the course much more enjoyable and made the concepts much easier to grasp. The class was a very tight knit group and our support has survived outside of the class. I am meeting with a classmate this week to work on our personal products and have done this with various other peers. The Product School is worth the cost for any aspiring product managers and I would absolutely recommend taking Professor Palath! A+++

Loved every minute of Product School Austin. My teacher is a Sr. Product Manager at Charles Schwab and a master at teaching us real & practical lessons to apply at work the very next day.
Towards the end of the course, you have to present on a final project.... Read More I did my project based on the product I currently manage. Since it was a real project for my own product, I had to present it to the CEO a few days before the final representation day. My teacher stayed with me until 11 pm to ensure that my slides and I were ready to present. Great teacher & class. Highly recommended.

Great PM course if you are interested to build products that can improve customer experience. (Sudha Vetri) The instructor was highly educated and experienced, took her time to get to know the class students.
She constantly empathized the skills that are... Read More highly required for a successful product manager role.
I would highly encourage the professionals who are interested to pursue PM as a career to take up this course.

Thank you Sudha for sharing your PM experience and Industry expectations from product managers. Course content is truly tailored to bring the students up to speed on skills required for playing a successful product manager

Took the Product Software Management T / TR course w/ Ryan Black. It was recommended I take this course from a few colleagues as my day to day job started to show early signs of the product development lifecycle, and that it would be beneficial for me... Read More to learn the framework. The class does just that and follows the process from ideation to launch, and takes a deep dive into the various stakeholders involved, and terminology needed to get your job done. After the class, and reflecting on the 8 weeks, it really forces you to become self aware and recognize where your strengths and weaknesses lie, which is exactly what I was looking for. Curriculum and in class activities were both solid, but the credibility behind those lies with our instructor's execution. The execution is what allowed the class to immerse themselves in real world situations, rather than just deal in hypotheticals. If you're looking to learn if the role is right for you, highly recommend the course. If you're looking to learn if the role is right, and determine what your next course of action is to get there, sign up to Ryan's class.

I definitely recommend Product School if anybody is looking to start a career in product management. Speaking of course material, it is very well organized. The beginners will understand it easily as it covers all points in details. It does includes two... Read More in class activties in each class. It s a great platform where you interact alot. Each activity will explain the purpose of the elements discussed in the slides of the course material.

My instructor was Roman Dzadzic, He is an amazing professor. He not only taught us in an effective manner but also helped us in the homework. I remeber i had number of questions and he never failed to answer even a single time. I had diffculties in public speaking. Specially this stuff was completely new for me to talk about. I would say I ould take out my fear of public speaking with this class.