My Experience With The Product Management Program At EntryLevel
I just concluded a one-month fast paced virtual class on Product Management at EntryLevel.
The 19th of July, 2021 began my first ever experience with Product Management. I had never heard the term “product manager” until I was to create copies for tech products at a point in my life — I usually worked closely with several product managers in order to achieve the product vision for the various tech companies I managed to secure contracts with (the life of a freelancer…lol).
Anyways, at the time, I was more focused on becoming a software developer which was honestly not really working out for me. Then one day, a friend suggested I go into product management — this was the first time I ever considered myself within such a role.
I went back and carried out some research. I knew I liked strategy and before starting my journey to becoming a software developer, I had led creative teams.
When I saw slight similarities between Product Management and my experience with digital strategy as well as software development, I was sold.
My friend sent me the link to EntryLevel, an automated virtual program with its activities centered on Discord. I opted to work in a team, I knew that in order to become a product manager, teamwork was going to have to be top-tier.
Anyways, I met my team members, pretty dope people all aspiring like I was to be product managers. EntryLevel was a program run by Australians so I was kind of surprised to see Nigerians littered around the place (we sure are everywhere).
Having being paired with my team, the tasks started rolling in and throughout the duration of the one month program, I was able to learn how to:
- create a product assumption map
- conduct customer interviews (qualitative)
- implement an effort/value map
- carve out MVP features
- implement the MSCW feature for features
- implement the T-shirt framework for features
- carry out A/B testing on features
- design a basic product roadmap
- sketch, low-fi and high fi wireframes
In the end, I got a certificate (they have three styles; the basic (free), standard and pro certifications which you pay a fee for) alongside three badges: Critical Thinker, Team Player (I would have loved to have also gotten the Team Leader Badge but it is what it is) and the On Time badges respectively.
I will probably have to update this later with the link to my certificate when I get the payment sorted for the standard certification (I am basically fresh out of product school, lol)
I am not stopping there though. EntryLevel was such a great place to start but I will keep learning and growing — I have started implementing better ways of presenting my case studies already and I am quite positive I have found a great career path.
You are free to look through my portfolio website, or just follow me on my social media handles via LinkedIn or Twitter.
