With this article, a brief overview of training in the program for the development of product thinking product mindset. What to expect and what not.
I took Product Mindset training in the 2nd stream from September to December 2019. I'll tell you the facts and my personal opinion about them.
Who is the program for?
Here, as they say, "for a wide range of readers." Special skills and knowledge are not required. Therefore, it is well suited to anyone who is somehow interested in the topic and wants to better understand and deepen it.
How to get into training
Judging by the trend, the recruitment goes 2 times a year. You need to apply and pass 3 tests.
There are quite a lot of applicants, therefore, according to the test results, the very weak and the very cool are weeded out so that they do not get bored.
What to expect from training
- You can fill in gaps in knowledge, ask your questions to experts.
- Touch in practice frameworks that you do not use in your work.
- If before that you didnβt think much about the development of products, then you will find many discoveries.
- Find fresh ideas. So, some specific ideas from the training project, I borrowed into my main work.
What NOT to expect from training
- As it has already become clear from what was written above, you will not become a finished product from scratch in these 14 weeks.
- There will be no deep dive into the topic. 1 week per topic. This is only enough for a general overview and analysis of issues.
- There is no individual approach. The program involves 500 people, about 100 teams. Therefore, it is even physically impossible to devote time to everyone and check all the homework. Although the mentors tried to see everything.
- Don't expect to be motivated and kept.
How is the training going
Initially, on the basis of the tests carried out on the basis of the Adizes typology, groups of 5 people are formed. I cannot say that I somehow felt the influence of this distribution. It's more of a kind of random.
Each team comes up with its own product, which will be developed using the studied approaches.
One week, one theme. 6th and 11th weeks without theory and assignments.
Each week has its own topic, its own mentor. He drops the theory, a few days later there is a Q&A session where you can ask your questions. And there is a task that must be handed in by a certain date. Basically it is a group task.
And here comes the most important part. If you are lucky with the group and everyone in it is motivated to reach the end, actively participate and want to get a decent result, then you can get the most out of training. And if it happens like mine, when in the middle of training I was left alone, then it's sad. As a result, after 2 independent surrenders of DZ for the whole team, I also left it and joined another team. It went like clockwork, there were no problems with motivation and activity. Respect to the girls from a179!
There are also individual tests that need to be passed.
Because there is no detailed verification of each remote sensing from mentors, then there is a system of mutual review. When teams check each other. The idea is good, but there were difficulties in the process.
In the second part of the program, some chaos begins, teams break up, motivation decreases. Therefore, the review does not always come. Fortunately, there is a general chat in Slack where you can level out these nuances.
Based on the results of the implementation of the DZ, mentors conduct another webinar with an analysis of generalized mistakes and achievements.
At the end of the program, there is a product defense, which takes place offline in Moscow, but you can also participate online.
Topics and mentors
- Product development, team and thinking (Yuri Ageev and Olga Stratanovich, Product Sense)
- T-shaped specialists, skills map and personal development (Yuri Ageev and Olga Stratanovich, Product Sense)
- Interviews with users (Nikita Efimov, UXPressia)
- Jobs To Be Done (Nikita Efimov, UXPressia)
- Design Sprint (Artem Eremenko, Growth Academy)
- Goals and their synchronization (Yuri Ageev and Olga Stratanovich, Product Sense)
- Product metrics (Elena Seryogina, Datalatte)
- Unit economics (Vladislav Korpusov, Rick.ai)
- Generation and testing of hypotheses (Yuri Drogan, Growth Academy)
- Prototyping (Stas Pyatikop, Welps)
- MVP (Vova Bayandin, Skyeng)
Certificates and grants
If you have passed all the tests for a passing score, then at the end you will receive a certificate with a unique number.
pros
- Clear program. All these topics can be read and viewed by yourself. But when you are engaged in self-education, you can go through the tops and not see the essence, or you can, on the contrary, dig too deep and lose touch with other components. Everything is arranged logically and consistently.
- There are deadlines that force you to move forward, and not postpone until βMondayβ.
- Professional mentors.
- Group work. Good communication skills training. You need to build work with random people from scratch. You can see alternative points of view.
Cons
- Large student turnover. People start leaving within the first week. These are the classic consequences of free education.
- No one will motivate you and push you in the back. If you don't want to study, goodbye.
Hack and predictor Aviator
In general, if you are interested in the topic of product management, want to learn how to understand users and create value for them, then training will be useful. Even if you already know a lot, you can fill in the gaps, practice solving product problems in a new environment, and ask your questions to mentors. At the same time, it is important to remember that you must have a good supply of internal motivation, otherwise the training will pass by and not only for you, but also for your team members.
Source: habr.com