What to Learn After Product Management

Product management ensures a product's successful development, design, and marketing. Product Managers communicate between the people who make a product and those who use it. If you already know how to use product management, you might consider learning additional coding, design, and business skills. Other things to learn after product management include industry-specific skills, data analysis, and remote product management skills. We’ll cover these below so you clearly understand what skill you want to tackle next. 

What is Product Management?

Product management is the process of managing a particular product, including physical products, software programs, and other digital products. A Product Manager oversees a product through the four stages of what product management calls “The Product LifeCycle:” introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. In product management, Product Managers are often referred to as the "CEO of the product."

Product management is at the intersection of tech, business, and design. Successful Product Managers must train in all three core product management skill sets: coding, user-driven design, and project management. Product management connects the different teams who develop a product. For example, a Product Manager might work simultaneously with a development team, a design team, a marketing team, stakeholders, and customers to manage the development and launch of a successful product. 

The Product Manager is an advocate for the customer and serves as a liaison between the teams developing a product and the users of the product. User experience is a critical part of product management, so Product Managers are expected to incorporate user-driven design principles and conduct user reviews of their product during the development and after launch. 

Read more about what product management is and why you should learn it. 

What Can You Do with Product Management?

Product management is a combination of tech, design, and business. You’ll need creativity, technical knowledge, and leadership skills to become a Product Manager. You will need to develop skills in all three to launch a new career in product management. However, the variety of skills creates a lot of flexibility in product management. 

Coding skills are essential to an aspiring product manager. You don’t need to be an expert coder, but you will need to understand the process of building a digital product. As you probably already know, coding skills are highly desired by employers. You could even work as a coder while continuing the rest of your product management education. 

Design skills are invaluable in many industries: design, digital design, fashion design, publishing, manufacturing, software development, art, marketing, web design, and animation. Product managers must know user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. Training in these includes learning programs like Adobe XD, Adobe Sketch, and Figma. 

Project management skills are required for Product Managers. Developing project management skills is great for the job market: the Project Management Institute (PMI) estimates that more than 22 million new jobs will be created for people with project management skills by 2027. Project management skills are also highly versatile since Project Managers are in demand across industries. 

Industry-Specific Skills

Product management is a relatively new field in a lot of industries. Many current Product Managers started their careers in a specific industry before transitioning into a product management role. Product Managers may need to learn additional skills specific to their industry and the products they manage. 

The demand for employees trained in product management is rising every year: product management roles increased by around 33% from 2017 to 2019. The demand will continue to rise with the adoption of digital products across industries. 

Some of the industries with the largest increases in product management roles are:

• Finance: Finance is one industry with the most considerable growth in product management jobs. Digital transformation is pushing financial institutions to develop digital banking tools. Some companies hiring Product Managers in finance include JP Morgan Chase, Visa, Mastercard, Capital One, and Bank of America. 

• Healthcare: It is estimated that healthcare will be 20% of the entire U.S. economy by 2025. Technological innovation is driving the need for Healthcare Product Managers. Healthcare providers are creating patient platforms and healthcare smartphone apps, researching and developing nanotechnology, and developing wearable healthcare products like heart and blood sugar monitors. 

• Entertainment: Massive increases in demand for Product Managers in the entertainment industry are driven by the rise of streaming services, such as Spotify and Netflix. Gaming also recognizes the need for Product Managers in gaming development and sports card management. 

Data Science & SQL Skills

Product Managers make many decisions: using data science and data analysis to make these decisions is becoming the new industry standard in product management. Surveys suggest that Product Managers who make data-driven decisions are the most successful and satisfied in their careers. It is recommended that Product Managers understand data analysis and develop SQL skills.

Every time you look something up online and do research on a product, you create a data footprint. Data analytics allow Product Managers to understand where their product is being used and how. Data skills are also highly-prized in the job market: Digital Journal estimates the market for data will grow to over $2 billion by 2028. Product Managers can take a data bootcamp, such as Noble Desktop’s Data Analytics Certificate or Excel for Data Analytics, to learn these invaluable skills. 

SQL is for making database queries. It is recommended that Product Managers develop skills in SQL. A great way to do this is by taking a bootcamp, such as Noble Desktop’s SQL Bootcamp, which provides concentrated training in SQL. 

Remote Management and Working Skills

Since the pandemic, more and more jobs are going remote. The demand for Remote Product Managers is huge, with many Product Manager positions having a remote option. You’ll need to be familiar with remote management and working skills if you plan to be a Product Manager in this current market. 

You’ll need to think about developing strong remote communication and research skills. Product Managers have to communicate with product teams, stakeholders, and customers. They’ll need excellent written communication skills to manage this remotely. Familiarity with remote tools such as Slack and Zoom are highly recommended. 

Learn Product Management with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Since product management is a relatively new career, there is no single path to becoming a Product Manager. To become a Product Manager, you do not typically need a bachelor’s degree. You will need a mix of the three product management core skill sets: coding, user-driven design, and project management. Bootcamps in coding, UX design, and project management are a great way to acquire the knowledge you need to become a Product Manager. 

Noble Desktop offers bootcamps in coding, design, and business live online and at its state-of-the-art campus in Midtown Manhattan. Since Noble Desktop offers bootcamps in all three core product management skills, it is an excellent choice for aspiring Product Managers. All of their courses have guaranteed small class sizes. Noble Desktop’s expert instructors teach a “micro-lecture” introducing a topic and then guide students through applying what they learned through hands-on, real-world projects. There is a “free retake” option on their courses, allowing students to retake the course free to refresh their knowledge or continue developing their skills. 

Noble Desktop’s Software Engineering Certificate is a great option for aspiring Product Managers who will need to understand how applications are made. This bootcamp immerses students in coding and building applications using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Python, Django, and Node.js. Expert instructors will guide students through hands-on projects to develop skills in coding the front and back ends of websites and applications. Students receive over 500 hours of live, hands-on instruction and twelve 1-on-1 mentoring sessions. Graduates earn a New York State Licensed Certificate in Software Engineering. 

Product Managers are required to put users first. Understanding user-driven design is critical for a Product Manager. Noble Desktop offers a UX & UI Design Certificate that provides comprehensive training in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. Students in this project-based bootcamp master user-centered design essentials, conduct research and product testing, and digital product design. Students become experienced users of Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD. Students develop a professional portfolio and receive 1-on-1 job mentoring. Graduates earn a verifiable digital certificate which is shareable on Linkedin. 

The successful development and launch of a product is a project. Product Managers are required to have highly-developed project management skills. Noble Desktop’s Project Management Bootcamp provides comprehensive training in project management principles, practices, and methodologies. Topics covered include the “Project LifeCycle,” risk management, resource management, budgeting, and project management terminology. This boot camp includes training in project management methodologies Waterfall, Critical Path, and Agile, including Scrum, Kasan, and Extreme Programming (XP). Graduates earn a Certificate in Project Management which is shareable on Linkedin. 

Key Insights

• To be a professional Product Manager, you’ll never stop learning. This is especially true since product management is a relatively new career field.
• In addition to product management skills, you will need to develop industry-specific skills.
• Data analytic and SQL skills are highly recommended for Product Managers.
• Many product management jobs are remote and require strong remote management skills.
• Noble Desktop offers live online bootcamps in product management, data analytics, Microsoft Office, and SQL.