For the startup world, project management can be a good choice and for the fresher too. Since the course is about management, it can be a little unbalanced at the start, but as time progress, you will master the art of project management.
What does a product manager do?
Detailed responsibilities may vary from company to company, but generally speaking, product managers in technology companies share a number of common responsibilities: A product manager (or sometimes product owner) acts as the centre between user requirements, business requirements, and implementation requirements and assumes full responsibility for this product.
This means they must research, describe, and prioritize what users want, align with business needs, and coordinate with developers to ensure proper implementation.
"Product" can be something complete, such as an application or part of a larger system. For example, a large web retailer (think Amazon) might have a product owner/manager specifically focused on store search, one for checkout, etc.
Each of them would be responsible for ensuring that their products and features meet user needs and fit the overall concept. Due to this high level of responsibility and the way the PM has to interact with all the stakeholders involved, one might think of him as a “mini-CEO” for his product.
What skills does a product manager need?
To be successful in a product management job, you must be a good communicator with a strong analytical mind. Specifically, you need to
- understand the needs of the various stakeholders involved in a product,
- master the art of communicating with all kinds of people inside and outside your company,
- analyze the complexities of issues and power,
- drive innovations and design new functions, even if others are difficult to convince,
- Drawing the right conclusion and working with complex data is the biggest impact a product manager can have during goal achievement.
No one was born to such diverse requirements. It takes time to learn and acquire the knowledge and skills. By the way: Studying abroad is a great way to improve yourself in many of these areas! When you study in another country, you have to communicate with people of different origins and automatically learn to see things from a completely different perspective.
The road to becoming a product manager is easy or not
You will see various fields of product manager joining startups and companies and having multiple skills which itself help in managing the product. Many have studied a technical subject like computer science, many come from a business or economics education, but also people with completely different backgrounds like sociology.
The reason for this is that product management is still relatively new as a standalone task in companies. And because the product manager works at the interface of many different disciplines, perhaps his most important quality is flexibility.
However, if you plan to choose your course of study with the goal of entering product management after your studies, it is best to advise you on the topics of technology, development, project management, and innovation management. Or you can get a degree that specifically focuses on product management - more on this.
Currently, more universities offer product management courses
Product management as a discipline has evolved a lot in recent years. Product management certification is provided to help students to pursue their careers further in this field. Today there is a large body of knowledge with many established formal methods and approaches to problem-solving. This inspired the first universities to offer courses in product management.
A unique offer comes from the CODE University in Berlin, Germany. CODE Berlin, founded by seasoned entrepreneurs, is itself a kind of startup: the first students started in 2017. His Bachelor of Product Management offers a unique combination of relevant topics such as project management, entrepreneurship, prototyping, online marketing, and others.
So why study product management?
As more and more companies recognize the benefits of holding product managers accountable for their products, this role will become more important in the years to come. Best Product management courses are provided depending on the previous academic track record which eventually helps in building the future prospects of a Student. If you have versatile skills, strong analytical skills, and good communication skills, you can apply all of these to this job.
A career in product management can be very rewarding, especially when you are in an environment that rewards these skills. Additionally, working as a product manager opens up many opportunities for career advancement - no one knows the product as well as you do, and no one else is connected to so many departments.
