PROD (Software Product Management)

This course teaches students the concepts, methods, and tools of software product management.

Product management is an important function in software development organizations. A product manager conceives and defines new products. His or her task is to understand the market incl. customers, to develop a product vision from that understanding, to translate it into product requirements, define those requirements on a by-feature basis and work with engineering to ensure these features are properly realized in the product under development.

• Role, tasks, and responsibilities of a product manager
• Process, methods, techniques and tools of product management
• Managing incremental/sustaining as well as disruptive innovation
• Open source product management; new trends in product management

Students can choose one or both of two components:

• VUE (lecture + homework), 2 SWS, 5 ECTS. VUE uses teaching cases as commonly used in MBA programs. The teaching cases are available for free at http://pmbycase.com.
• PROJ (small project), 2 SWS, 5 ECTS. In PROJ, students perform a small product management project, either individually or in teams. The available projects will be presented at the beginning of the course. Students will assess the market opportunity, develop a product specification, and make a final presentation about the project results.

PROD projects are run as shared projects, in which all participants contribute and get to participate in the project results. Read more at https://wp.me/pDU66-2p4.

Class is run as two 90min blocks. The first block discusses the teaching cases. The second block is a coaching session for the projects (10 ECTS only).

The overall schedule can be found at https://goo.gl/tTAI0. Please sign up for the course on StudOn (link accessible through schedule spreadsheet) as soon as possible.

• Understand the role, function, and responsibilities of a product manager
• Understand key concepts, methods, and tools of software product management
• Understand different business situations, incl. Incremental vs. disruptive innovation

• Class participation
• Homework assignments
• Project work