If you want to learn about product management but don’t want to deal with the hassle that comes with enrolling in a traditional school, what do you do? You find the best product management course out there and take it online.
The only problem is, there are a slew of product management course options out there and vetting them all to choose the right one is a tall order.
But that’s what I’m here to do. Today, I’m going over the top product management courses out there as well as what to look for to find a course that’s worth your time.
The Top 5 Best Product Management Courses
- Digital Product Management on Coursera — Best free course
- Product Management First Steps by LinkedIn — Best for beginners
- Optimal Product Management by 280 Group — Best for certification
- Product Management Certificate by Product School — Best for industry-recognized credentials
- Become a Product Manager on Udemy — Best for curriculum depth
Let’s dive into the details of what each course has to offer as well as what they’re each best for. Don’t forget to bookmark this guide to refer back to later.
#1 – Digital Product Management Specialization on Coursera — Best Free Course
- Digital PM Specialization Course
- Official certificate upon completion
- 5-month curriculum
- Free forever
The University of Virginia offers a Digital Product Management Specialization course on Coursera you can access for free once you sign up for a Coursera account. It has a 4.7-star rating with over 28,000 students already enrolled.
The beauty of Coursera courses is that you earn an official certificate upon successful completion of the course. And because it’s a self-paced online course, you get to choose the speed at which you go through each module.
The average time it takes to complete this course from beginning to end is about five months if you commit to about three hours a week. And if you prefer the course in anything other than English it provides subtitles in more than ten languages.
Another highlight of the free course is its approach to learning. To be able to complete the course and receive your certificate you’re required to complete a hands-on project showcasing what you’ve learned.
The course offers plenty of practice quizzes, graded assignments, course readings, and videos. This is definitely a great deal for an in-depth course by a respected university that doesn’t cost you a ton of money.
To enroll in this course, get started with Coursera here.
#2 – Product Management First Steps by LinkedIn — Best For Beginners
- Product Management First Steps Course
- Complementary exercises
- View online or offline
- Only $24.99
LinkedIn offers a stellar Product Management First Steps course for beginners that’s easily accessible. You can either try the 1-month free trial to take it or you can buy the course for $24.99. The course covers skills including product management, business strategy, operations management, usability, and usability testing.
The course has been watched over 50,000 times and comes with complementary exercise files and a ten-part curriculum that dives into the ins and outs of product management including the researching, planning, building, and refining of any given product.
You can even download the course and view it offline on your own device and in your own time. As far as a self-paced, no-pressure course goes that can help introduce you to the basics of product management comprehensively, this LinkedIn course is a great option for beginners.
Get started with LinkedIn’s Product Management First Steps here.
#3 – Optimal Product Management by 280 Group — Best For Certification
- Optimal Product Management Course
- Live online or self-study
- Digital and physical certificates
- Multiple payment plans available
280 Group offers an excellent Optimal Product Management Course in either live-online or self-study format that comes with certification. In short, it takes its certification seriously. Leaders in companies like Cisco, Capital One, Dell, and Adobe have taken courses from the suite of courses 280 Group offers.
The Optimal Product Management course is designed to help you understand the complete product lifecycle while teaching you the core skills required to manage a product successfully. The course is set up so you can interact with fellow course takers and participate in team collaborations. 280 Group’s product management course comes with a whopping 24 hours of course instruction.
Digital course completion certification comes with:
- The ability to share your course completion on your social networks
- A printable certificate
- Certification badges for your LinkedIn profile
To take 280 Group’s Optimal Product Management course, you’re looking at a $2,995 investment. Though you can make that in 6,12, or 24 monthly payments with an APR rate ranging from 0-30 percent if you qualify.
Once you successfully take the course and pass the exam, 280 Group will also mail you a certificate of completion you can hold in your hands.
Learn more about enrolling and course payment plans here.
#4 – Product Management Certificate by Product School — Best For Industry Recognized Credentials
- Product Management Certificate Course
- First of three in-depth courses
- 40 hours of instruction
- Mock interviews included
You can become a certified product manager with Product School’s Product Management Certificate course. It’s the first of a three-course roadmap that you can take according to your product management ambitions and how much you truly want to learn on the subject.
The course is 40 hours of instruction. With it, you’ll learn the ins and outs of building a digital product from beginning to end and leading project teams. You’ll even get access to mock interviews. It’s safe to say Product School’s course is not only geared towards teaching you solid product management skills and know-how but also equipping you with the necessary tools to be employable in the product marketing job market.
Product school offers three closely related product management courses in succession. They are the:
- Product Management Certificate
- The Product Leader Certificate
- The Product Executive Certificate
Although you can always take one course and forgo the rest, the courses are designed to work in tandem with each other, for a comprehensive product management curriculum.
To enroll, you’ll have to fill in a short application form and a Student Advisor will get in touch with you to discuss your product management goals to ensure you’re taking the right course.
Check out Product School and its courses here.
#5 – Become a Product Manager on Udemy — Best For Curriculum Depth
- Become A Product Manager Course
- 144 lectures and 120 resources
- Updated in real time
- Active student community
Sometimes the best teachers are the ones that have been in the trenches most recently. Created by the Senior Product Manager at SoundCloud, the bestselling Become a Product Manager: Learn The Skills and Get The Job course on Udemy leaves little to be desired in terms of the course curriculum.
With over 18 sections, 144 lectures, 25 articles, and 120 downloadable resources, the course teaches you everything you might want to know about becoming a real product manager and what applicable strategies are working today.
One of the perks of the courses on Udemy is that you can see the last time it was updated, and you can bet this one is updated constantly with new material as recently as this year. Over 126,000 students have already taken the course and given it an overall 4.5-star rating.
These are only a few of the key points the course covers in detail:
- The product life cycle
- Understanding customer pain points
- Comparing and finding competitors with competing products
- Understanding the process of customer development
- Running a variety of MVP experiments
- Outlining the difference between agile and waterfall development
- Learning software development concepts
- Tips on how to ace the product management interview
- The basics of front-end and back-end technology and tech stacks
- How to communicate effectively with stakeholders
- And more…
For a full list of all the course covers, I recommend you read through it carefully here.
The course also comes with an active and dedicated Slack community you can join upon enrolling. And of course, you receive a certificate of completion once you’ve successfully finished the course.
The cost? If you haven’t taken advantage of Udemy’s free trial, you can sign up for Udemy Pro free for seven days to either try to take the course during that time or vet it and see if it’s worth investing in.
Even if you don’t have access to Udemy, the course is an affordable $12.99 one-time payment. Once enrolled, you have lifetime access to updates, additional course files, and the course community it comes with.
As one of the most comprehensive and complete courses you can take online from an instructor that’s actively doing the work instead of teaching theory-based coursework, and the price point, I’d say this product management course is a clear winner as far as value is concerned.
Sign up and get started taking Become a Product Manager here today.
How to Find The Best Product Management Course For You
At this point, you’ve decided you want to enroll in the best product management course you can find. But how exactly do you go about doing that?
All things considered, online courses are relatively new. This means that virtually anyone with an internet connection and some motivation can create and market a product management course on all the various course offering platforms out there.
You’ll find potential courses on the likes of platforms like Udemy, Coursera, Skillshare, Teachable, and more. And while some courses are in fact offered by accredited institutions, others are not. It’s important to remember that no accreditation is necessary for the creation of a course.
To help you navigate through it all, here are a few features to look for when looking through the many product management courses out there so you know you’re getting a good deal and not wasting your time on subpar courses you won’t get much out of.
Certification
We’ve already talked about certification and how it’s not necessarily a requirement for an online course to exist. But there’s also certification upon completion of a course, which can be important depending on how you plan to use your newfound knowledge.
If you’re planning on taking a product management course to pad your resume, get a promotion, or venture into the workforce with a robust set of skills, it’s a good idea to narrow down your search to product management courses that offer some sort of certification upon successful completion of the course. This way, you have something to show for the time and energy you invest in the coursework.
If you’re taking a product management course out of pure curiosity or personal reasons of interest, a certificate of completion might not be an important thing to tick off your course checklist.
Curriculum and Instructor
With an online course, you won’t want to walk into it completely oblivious to what the course curriculum looks like. This goes for the instructor too. What experience or results can they account for that gives weight to the creation of the course and the information in it?
For instance, on course platforms like Udemy or Skillshare, you can readily access the instructor’s profile as well as their course reviews and biographies. This helps you round out your research as far as vetting the quality of a product management course that’s worth your time.
Reviews
Lots of online courses come with reviews you can easily access and read through to learn about their strengths and weaknesses. They are likely the biggest indicator of how thorough or general a course is, how helpful it was in answering questions, and if there was any support offered in the process.
Reviews give you a candid glimpse into any course you might be offering because they come from students who’ve already gone through the course before you. When you’re looking for the best product management course for you, pay close attention to ratings and reviews.
Summary
Online product management courses are an extremely convenient way to educate yourself in-depth on a subject you’re keen on learning more about without having to step foot in a costly institution. Not to mention, it can be a valuable new set of skills you can add to your portfolio.
Here’s a quick summary of the best product management courses you can start today:
- Digital Product Management on Coursera — Best free course
- Product Management First Steps by LinkedIn — Best for beginners
- Optimal Product Management by 280 Group — Best for certification
- Product Management Certificate by Product School — Best for industry-recognized credentials
- Become A Product Manager on Udemy — Best for curriculum depth
If you’re still undecided about which course to take, you can bookmark this page to revisit once you’re ready to make a final decision.
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