Week 1: Why this?
Product Management, as opposed to project management, is not about the goal. It's about the journey, and has success as a perspective, rather than a finishing line. A Product Manager wouldn't hand off after reaching a milestone.
Instead, it's a dynamic and multifaceted discipline that became popular over the past decade. When I first wrote my master thesis, in 2008, 'Agile' was all the hot stuff, which all only evolved into a new discipline. Today, it's a pivotal role for the success of any product-driven organization.
Product Management encompasses a wide range of activities, from envisioning and strategizing to developing, launching, and iterating on products that meet the needs of users and the market.
This Product Marathon shall be an exercise to touch all relevant aspects in Product Management within the frame of a practical example. A recursive product, if you will, this is the product. To make that idea a bit more tangible to you, let me explain. This page, that you are reading right now, will serve as a product.
The only goal, right now, is to
a) reach an audience that is interested to grow their capabilities and
b) grow myself over the exercise.
So, along the way, the product shall increase. Right now, things that can be improved include - for example - navigation, to better find relevant sections. Progress tracking can be imagined, to see how far one got. Also, tracking prerequisites for certain sections is possibly a good feature. Feedback is currently only tracked in form of clicks, so forms can be in scope. Comments, I'm sure, will make a lot of sense. One item that is top of mind, is that any new lap in this marathon is announced through LinkedIn, manually. This should be automated. Many more ideas, that exist, and need to take shape along the route.