9 Product Management Courses That Are Actually Worth Taking

We live in the golden age of Product Management education. It seems wherever you look, there are Product Management courses ready to make you better at your job. There’s so much choice, that it can be hard to find the right one for you. Well, don’t worry, we’ve got you. 

We’ve looked around all the top Product Management training courses on offer, inspecting each one with a magnifying glass, to find the top picks that are worth your time and money. 

In this saturated market, there unfortunately are some courses that are weak sauce, looking to take your money and throw back a meaningless certification for your hard work. What’s great, is that there are many shining examples of fantastic training courses that you should consider if you’re looking to polish your skills and learn new aspects of the role. 

After doing the research so that you don’t have to, here’s our list of favorites to help you become a stronger Product Manager.

Do you need to take Product Management training courses?

No, you don’t need to take a Product Management course. It’s not a prerequisite or a necessity; you can definitely make it as a killer Product Manager without one. But what you may find is that a Product Management training course can speed up your progression. 

Many of the best Product Leaders wished they had access to these courses back when they were first starting. Without the second-hand experience and practical knowledge these courses offer, many PMs had to learn on the job, making mistakes along the way. 

Now we have nothing against making mistakes. Failing and adapting from that experience is a great way to learn and get better – it just takes so much more time. 

After studying a Product Management training course, especially a good one backed by case studies and real-world examples, you’re going to be loaded up on new frameworks, ideas, and processes that you can adopt when you face a problem in your role.

See, every Product Manager carries a figurative toolbox with them. When you’re new and inexperienced, you may only have a screwdriver, a couple of nails, and a hammer in there. When you come across a problem that’s best tackled with a drill, you’ll be ill-equipped, swinging wildly with your hammer unable to overcome that challenge efficiently. Only afterward will you realize that you’ll need to add a drill to your toolbox for when that problem shows up again.

Product Management courses give you more tools to stash in your toolbox early on. So now, when a challenge pops up that needs a drill to fix it, you already know this, have the equipment you need, and can get through the task better. 

Product Management courses are a good way to learn the Product Management best practices without having to experience hardships and failures firsthand. It gives you the vocabulary and understanding needed to be better.

What makes good Product Management courses?

Let’s start with what makes a bad one. A bad course will take your money and leave you with a qualification that’s not worth the paper it’s written on. You should avoid courses that teach you basic glossary definitions and call it a day, especially if you can easily find those definitions yourself with a quick Google search or a read of our Product Management Glossary. 

You also don’t want ones that promote one way of doing things as the only way to do things. That can turn you into a narrow-minded PM, where you’re trying to plug these ‘miracle’ frameworks and processes into problems that it doesn’t suit. Yes, there are best practices, but being taught a certain way leaves you rigid, and unable to be agile. You can end up in a situation where you’re backed up in a corner, unequipped with the wide knowledge base to get you out of it. 

When selecting the best Product Management courses for you, you want it to be based on real-life examples, case studies, and success stories that you can implement into your Product Management life. A course that’s just theory after theory may not be effective, as you’ll be missing insight on where and how to apply that theory. 

Good Product Management courses are rooted in the real world, feeding you second-hand experiences that you can draw upon. At the end of the day, Product Management comes down to applying the right solutions at the right time. To do this well, you need to know a lot of ways to tackle a problem and identify the best ones to apply. A good Product Management course will help you acquire this bank of solutions. 

What topics should I focus on in a Product Management course?

The material you decide to learn from a training course is all down to you. It depends on what you need to know. You should look at where you suck the most. 

Of course, if you’re new to Product Management (hello and welcome btw), then foundational, Product Management 101 courses will be a great place to start and get a foothold. But if you’ve been doing this for a fair bit, start thinking about the skill gaps you have that your role needs. 

Are you already amazing at connecting with users but struggle with the development scrum process? Enroll on  a course for that. Good at stakeholder management but hopeless at leading a product team? Start learning. The role of a Product Manager is so wide-ranging, there’s a lot you can level up on. 

The best Product Management courses

Here’s our list of Product training courses you should consider. We’ve gone for a varied list that covers multiple areas of Product Management, helping you to choose the course that’s right for you. Without further ado, let’s get training!

1. ProdPad Product Roadmapping Course 

Did you know we offer Product Management courses right here at ProdPad? Not only that, we think they’re pretty awesome. 

In fact, we’ve actually got three awesome courses to choose from – lucky you – but if you’re pressed for time, our Product Roadmapping course is a great place to start. See we’re nuts about getting the best out of your product roadmaps and believe getting them right can single-handedly turn you from a good Product Manager to a great one. 

Our course is made up of five concise lessons, each delivered to your inbox once you sign up. We know you’re busy, so we built this educational resource to be convenient for you. The course may be small, but it’s mighty, packed full of insight to help you to uncover the roadmapping best practices, avoid common pitfalls, and empower you to create transparency for your team. 

As you should expect from us by now, the course is focused on the Now-Next-Later roadmap, our favorite and one that CEO Janna Bastow introduced. If you’re new to time horizon roadmaps and want to explore this effective way of organizing your development, this is the course for you. Plus, did we mention that this course is FREE? Get yourself on board.

2. King’s College Product Management Career Accelerator

If you’re at the dawn of your career looking to get a leg up over other new starters, the Product Management Career Accelerator is a fantastic foundational course if you’re able to commit to long-term study. 

Built in partnership with FourthRev, this course uses insight from multiple industry experts (including our very own Janna Bastow), to offer a Product Management course that blends traditional academic study with real-world practical skills. You’ll get the core theory every Product Manager needs to know, and the knowledge of where to apply it. Sweet.

The course covers key areas within Product Management, giving you a wider understanding of the industry and the demands of the position. You’ll learn:

• Product design
• Prototyping and testing
• Agile methodologies
• Launch strategies
• Product growth and analysis
• Product & business strategy
• Communication and influencing skills
• Stakeholder management
• Prioritization

A great plus of the Product Management Accelerator is that it’s project-based learning. This means that when you finish, you’ll have a professional portfolio bursting with examples to showcase your ability. Something that other PMs at the junior level may struggle to put together. 

Once completed, you’ll get a genuine certification from Kings College London, a respected institution in the UK, and one that we believe is alongside the best Product Management certifications that you can get. You can check out our full list below. 

The course is pretty full-on, running for six months, and requires a commitment of 12 hours per week to complete. It’s available entirely online, but it’s a semester-based educational program with defined start and end times. This isn’t something you can jump into at any point in the year.

Once in, it also provides a good networking opportunity, helping you to connect with the Product Management community. To further help with that, you can also join some of these Slack groups for Product Managers. 

3. ProductSide – Digital Product Management Training

The Digital Product Management Training Course from ProductSide is a great option for more experienced Product Managers. ProductSide offers a whole host of great courses, prioritizing practical education that’s in-depth and specialized for PMs at various stages in their career. 

This course is focused on SaaS topics, making it perfect for Product Managers working in a digital industry. Among other modules, you’ll gain deeper insight into data analysis techniques, OKR setting, and digital product discovery. You’ll also learn how to apply dual-track agile to your Product Management with a focus on continuous discovery. 

With an emphasis on digital Product Management, you’ll learn key concepts such as Flywheel, product-led growth, and the different SaaS pricing models. 

When enrolled with ProductSide, you’ll get an entire year of access to the course materials and exams, making it a flexible option for those who may need time to balance the course alongside their work commitments. 

It’s also worth pointing out that ProductSide are a certified ProdPad Partner, so if you’re looking for detailed guidance on how to use ProdPad to support your growth as a PM, these folks are ideally placed to help.

 4. Product HQ – Certified Technical Product Manager

Product HQ is one of the premier training platforms for Product Managers, offering a wide range of courses that you can sink your teeth into to improve. For those looking to tailor their knowledge to technical roles, the Certified Technical Product Course is a great option. 

The course offers over 30 hours of content, including over 140 lectures, templates to download and follow, and interviews with technical Product Managers who have succeeded in the industry. From the course, you’ll get a better understanding of how to manage high-performing software products, tips to nail the technical PM interview, and methods to stand out in the recruiting process, to name just a few. 

This course is designed to take you from being a layman in technical Product Management to a position where you can excel in this specialized role. It’s highly valuable to those without a formal background in computer science or tech, giving you a structured pathway to follow to become a technical PM. 

The course should take around 10 weeks to complete depending on how much time you put in, so is comprehensive and should help you succeed. It’s led by David Bhatt, a Product Leader with over 16 years of experience who’s also an instructor at the University of California Berkeley, so you’ll be in good hands.

5. Mind the Product – Metrics for Product Managers (Team Training)

Mind the Product is a stellar resource for PMs looking to learn. We should know, our CEO Janna Bastow co-founded it. It’s bursting with blog posts, on-demand talks and conferences, and of course Product Management training. It’s one of, if not the biggest, Product Management communities in the world and we recommend all the training courses available on the platform. 

That said, we believe one of the hardest parts of being a Product Manager is figuring out the best metrics and KPIs to follow. So much so that we’ve created a downloadable eBook to help you pick yours. 

There are so many to choose from that it can be a bit of a minefield when tracking performance and success. The Metrics for Product Managers team training course from Mind the Product can help here. 

This course gives your entire team the skills needed to pick, track, and leverage the appropriate metrics for you throughout the entire product lifecycle. Among many things, you’ll learn more about the difference between vanity and actionable metrics, and how to determine what’s important for you to track.

This is a team-focused training course, meaning that you can get your entire development team on board to ensure that everyone is aligned and singing off the same song sheet. All participants will learn the best tools for tracking metrics and the best practices, making them far more effective. This course has a practical approach and operates as a workshop to help PMs develop a human-centered approach to measurement. 

By the end of the two-day workshop, you come out with your own, custom metrics plan based on your product and work. 

6. Exponent PM Interview Training Course 

Compared to other roles, Product Management interviews can be particularly challenging. It’s common to be asked odd questions that test your rational, problem-solving, and critical thinking. If you’re not prepared, this environment can throw off your mojo. 

This Product Management Interview Training Course from Exponent is designed to help you smash your next interview. The course provides insight and tips to help you excel at all stages of the interview process, from screening to the final rounds, giving you the tools to stand out among the crowd. 

Taught by real Product Leaders, you’ll gain insight into some of the actual questions you’re likely to face and the tools to help you build the perfect response. 

Now, this isn’t a course that’s going to give you a list of generic answers – that’s not very useful. Instead, you’ll dive deep into how to tackle questions on product design, strategy, technology, and behavioral questions by using key frameworks such as the CIRCLES method or AARM. 

The course enables you to build answers tailored to your experience and to help you showcase that you’re a one-in-a-million product professional. 

In the course, you’ll get the opportunity to tackle over 50 mock interviews and get feedback on your resume and wider application. The course offers over 26 hours of content, so it’s pretty comprehensive and has been loved by Product Managers aiming for roles at giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook. 

7. Pragmatic Institute – Focus Course 

The Focus Course from Pragmatic Institute is all about making your product work for your target market. As a Product Manager, you’re trying to craft a product that appeals to your audience. This course gives you the skills to focus on that audience and create something truly valuable. 

When on the course, you’ll learn how to best develop strategic roadmaps that align with the market opportunities that you’ve identified. It’ll equip you with the tools to objectively score market opportunities and discover where your product fits within the landscape. 

Designed for Product Managers keen to get better at identifying and pouncing on market opportunities, you’ll learn how to show your product’s value to your chosen market, increasing the chances of it being successful. 

The course is available as an in-person training module, or as a live course you can take online, making it flexible to suit you and your teams. Overall the course will take 7 hours, making it one of the shorter options on this list, perfect for a Product Manager looking to enhance their capabilities in a short space of time. 

As an aside, if you’re looking for the best tools to help market research, we’ve put together a useful list of the top tools that you should try. You can check it out below.  

If this course doesn’t tickle your fancy, Pragmatic Institute has a cool tool that, after asking you a few questions, will identify the course that best suits your needs. Do note that to take any specialized course on Pragmatic Institute, you first need to complete the foundations course. 

8. Reforge – Mastering Product Management 

Say you’re a pretty savvy Product Manager. You’ve talked the talk, walked the walk, and know the ropes. You’ve had a few successes and are now making serious steps in your career. Now is the ideal time to capitalize on Product Management courses. If you rest on your laurels, you may find that you start to stagnate. No one wants to stay still. 

For PMs who want to continue to grow, Reforge offers a great course that can take you to that next level. The Mastering Product Management course is designed for experienced Product Managers to refine their skills. It delves into more advanced topics, covering strategy execution, metrics, leadership, and more. This ain’t your entry-level course, it’s designed for hardcore Product Managers. If you’re a tad less experienced, take a look at some of the other Reforge courses. 

This course has been developed by a team of product experts, giving you a combination of real-world experience with rigorous theoretical insight. By the end of the course, you’ll have improved your strategic thinking, decision-making, and leadership skills, setting you up nicely to get those senior positions. 

The Mastering Product Management course is offered on a cohort basis. This means you’ll enroll alongside a group of other high-level Product Managers for fixed-schedule learning, great for enhancing your network. 

During the 4 week training, you’ll have live sessions with dedicated instructors focused on your cohort, and be provided case studies, practical assignments, and personalized mentorship to help you thrive. 

Choose this Reforge course to become a master in Product Management and create product strategies that align with business goals, build robust product analytics frameworks, and so much more.

9. Product Institute – User Research Course

You can learn a lot from your users, especially if you train your customer teams to give useful feedback. Your users’ thoughts and needs are invaluable nuggets of information that you can use to better your product. You just need to learn how to research your users properly. This course from the Product Institute guides you to do that. 

The User Research Course is ideal for product professionals keen to enhance their understanding of user needs and behaviors, giving you the skills to conduct effective user research that can inform your decisions. 

You’ll uncover the best practices for countless customer research methods, including interviews, surveys, usability testing, and ethnographic studies while learning how to plan and execute your research projects. 

If you struggle to validate your product decisions, this course helps you delve into the ‘why’ of quantitative metrics, helping you deliver evidence-based customer insights that can inspire your product. 

This is the newest course offered by Product Institute and can be included in a team plan alongside other courses to help improve the effectiveness of your entire team. You can also choose to study this course individually, helping to polish your skills and understanding.

Train that brain! 

As a Product Manager, you should always be learning in your role. No ifs, no buts, each day you should look to know a little bit more, be it about your product, your customers, your roadmap, or your processes. 

There’s a lot of theory surrounding Product Management. Countless frameworks, multiple processes, and various ways to do the same thing. It’s not like math where there’s only one universally agreed upon formula to solve a certain equation. There are different approaches you can try, conflicting ‘best’ ways to solve problems. That’s what makes Product Management interesting.

Taking courses and learning helps to expand your mind and stock up with the many ways you can do things and solve problems. When a new challenge springs up in your work, you can pull on the knowledge you’ve learned in a Product Management course to tackle it. The more potential solutions you can draw upon, the more likely you are to succeed with it. 

At ProdPad, we’re all about making you a better Product Manager. Our tool is designed to do just that. It’s easy to slip into bad habits and traps that can leave you lacking as a PM. Our tool comes with functionality that makes you better, be it our roadmapping tools, ideas management, or customer feedback management. 

Why don’t you give it a try to see what we mean? Coupled with Product Management education, you’ll be unstoppable.