This is the intro for a 14 session course. Syllabus: https://www.alexandercowan.com/digital-product-management-class/

1. © 2015 COWAN+
DIGITAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:
SESSION 1
WELCOME
Alex Cowan
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

2. © 2015 COWAN+
MANAGERS OF THE FUTURE
1. Will be responsible for driving innovation
2. Will use the tools of design to integrate business and technology
with user experience
3. Will work collaboratively in small, interdisciplinary teams
4. Will be proficient with evidence-driven innovation
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

3. © 2015 COWAN+
BUT IT’S TOUGHER THAN EVER TO CREATE VALUE
Sources: see bit.ly/sw-class
64% of Features Rarely or Never Used
50-70% of IT Projects Fail
90% of New Products Fail

4. © 2015 COWAN+
YOU, THE PRODUCT MANAGER
Source: Martin Eriksson
UX
Tech Business

5. © 2015 COWAN+
YOU, THE PRODUCT MANAGER
Source: IDEO’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit
Desirability
Feasibility Viability

6. © 2015 COWAN+
YOU & YOUR CUSTOMER
Design
Development
Project Management
Data Science
Consulting & Support
Sales & Marketing
Finance & Legal
Management

7. © 2015 COWAN+
JUST TWO THINGS
1. Getting to Product/Market Fit
2. Creating Successful Interfaces with
Collaborators Across Disciplines
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

8. © 2015 COWAN+
SCALE FRIENDLY VS. INNOVATION FRIENDLY
Scale
Friendly
Innovation
Friendly
$ !?
? ! ? ? ?

9. © 2015 COWAN+
THE PRACTICE OF DESIGN & EXPLORATION OF P/M FIT
Finding the Right
PROBLEM
Finding the Right
SOLUTION
time
alternatives
divergence convergence divergence convergence
Testable
Hypothesis
Source: adapted from ‘The Design of Everyday Things’

10. © 2015 COWAN+
COURSE POSITIONING
Objective
To function as a product manager in a modern team executing digital solutions.
Takeaways
Fluency in exploring, testing, and scaling product/market fit with an interdisciplinary
team.
Expectations
Prepared for case discussions and in-class assignment reviews
Difficulty
Two ways to take the course: either for appreciation/exposure or for mastery.
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

11. © 2015 COWAN+
COURSE EXPERIENCE
1. Cases
Exploration and discussion of 1) product/market fit and 2) leading collaboration across
disciplines to scale it.
2. Project Execution
application of selected concepts against student-generated projects
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

12. © 2015 COWAN+
COURSE EXPERIENCE
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF
sessions
(roughly)estimatedclassprep.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Charter Part I
Charter Part II
Charter Part III
Day in
the Life
Final
Project
User
Stories Case
(Agile)
Cases
(P/M Fit)
Prep.
(DevOps)
Case
(Growth
Hacking)
Prep.
(Support &
Consulting)

13. © 2015 COWAN+
COURSE DETAILS
1. Grading
Attendance & Participation: 30%
Individual Assignments: 30%
Team Project: 40%
2. Working Environments
Google Doc’s highly preferred but MSFT365 also OK.
3. Resources & References
Cases, industry posts, Google Docs templates
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

14. © 2015 COWAN+
ABOUT ME
Entrepreneur (5x)
Intrapreneur (1x)
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF

15. ABOUT ME
ALEX COWAN | alexandercowan.com | @cowanSF
bit.ly/hiagile