Product Management & Business Analysis

What you will be able to do

• Explain how product management and business analysis differ and work together
• Frame problems and opportunities, and identify the riskiest assumptions behind an idea
• Plan and run user interviews and surveys, and synthesise findings into personas, jobs-to-be-done and journey maps
• Elicit requirements from stakeholders and model current and future business processes
• Write a product requirements document, user stories and testable acceptance criteria
• Prioritise a backlog with RICE, MoSCoW and Kano and explain the trade-offs
• Define a north-star metric, input metrics and a simple experiment
• Build an outcome-based roadmap and communicate decisions clearly to stakeholders

About this course

Syllabus

This syllabus is a draft awaiting instructor review. Topics, order and schedule may change before the first batch is announced.

1. 01Product thinking and discovery+3 live sessions · 6 hours · What product managers and business analysts do, and how good teams find problems worth solving.

   Learning objectives

   • Explain the responsibilities of product management and business analysis and how they overlap
   • Frame problems and opportunities before jumping to solutions
   • Identify and rank the assumptions behind a product idea

   Live sessions

   1. 01What product management and business analysis are2 hThe two roles and how they work with design, engineering and the business; the product lifecycle; outputs versus outcomes; introducing the guided grocery-ordering project.
   2. 02Problem discovery and opportunity framing2 hProblem statements, opportunity solution trees, desirability, viability and feasibility, listing and ranking assumptions, and lightweight ways to test them.
   3. 03Market and competitor scan and doubt-clearing2 hUnderstanding customers, alternatives and competitors with public information; a simple value proposition canvas; open questions on discovery.

   Practice

   Write a problem statement and an assumption map for the guided project, and scan three existing alternatives.

   Assessment

   Assignment: a one-page opportunity brief with the problem, target users, alternatives and riskiest assumptions.

   You will be able to

   You can frame a product opportunity clearly and know what you need to learn before building.

2. 02User research+3 live sessions · 6 hours · Learn what people actually need, and turn what you hear into usable insight.

   Learning objectives

   • Plan and run short, non-leading user interviews and surveys
   • Synthesise research into personas, jobs-to-be-done and journey maps
   • Handle participants’ time and personal information responsibly

   Live sessions

   1. 04Planning and running user interviews2 hResearch goals and plans, recruiting participants, writing neutral questions, running an interview, taking notes, and asking for consent and handling personal information carefully; surveys and when they help.
   2. 05Synthesis: personas, jobs-to-be-done and journeys2 hAffinity mapping interview notes, evidence-based personas, jobs-to-be-done statements, current-state journey maps and pain points, and separating insight from opinion.
   3. 06Research review and doubt-clearing2 hCritique of learners’ interview guides and syntheses; common research mistakes; open questions.

   Practice

   Interview two people about how they order groceries locally today and synthesise the notes on a whiteboard.

   Assessment

   Assignment: a research summary with key insights, one persona, a jobs-to-be-done statement and a journey map.

   You will be able to

   You can find out what users need and present it as evidence a team can act on.

3. 03Requirements and user stories+3 live sessions · 6 hours · Turn needs into clear, testable requirements that engineering and design can work from.

   Learning objectives

   • Elicit requirements from stakeholders and model business processes
   • Write a product requirements document with functional and non-functional requirements
   • Write user stories with acceptance criteria and organise them in a story map

   Live sessions

   1. 07Requirements elicitation and process modelling2 hStakeholder identification, interviews and workshops, as-is and to-be process maps in diagrams.net, swimlanes, and finding gaps and pain points in a process.
   2. 08Requirements documents and use cases2 hBusiness, functional and non-functional requirements; writing a product requirements document with goals, scope and non-goals; use cases and edge cases; keeping requirements traceable.
   3. 09User stories, acceptance criteria and story mapping2 hWriting user stories, INVEST, acceptance criteria in Given–When–Then form, splitting large stories, story mapping, and setting up a backlog in Jira or Trello; doubt-clearing.

   Practice

   Map the store’s current and future ordering process, then write the requirements and first user stories for the app.

   Assessment

   Assignment: a short requirements document and at least eight user stories with acceptance criteria.

   You will be able to

   You can turn conversations with users and stakeholders into requirements a team can build and test.

4. 04Prioritisation and metrics+3 live sessions · 6 hours · Decide what to build first, and know whether it worked.

   Learning objectives

   • Prioritise a backlog with RICE, MoSCoW, Kano and cost of delay
   • Define a north-star metric, input metrics and a measurement plan
   • Design a simple experiment and interpret its results honestly

   Live sessions

   1. 10Prioritisation frameworks2 hValue versus effort, RICE scoring, MoSCoW, the Kano model and cost of delay; defining a minimum viable product; explaining trade-offs and handling competing requests.
   2. 11Product metrics and experiments2 hNorth-star and input metrics, funnels and the AARRR model, retention, leading and lagging indicators, A/B test basics, and avoiding vanity metrics and misleading conclusions.
   3. 12Mid-course review and checkpoint quiz2 hReview of discovery, research, requirements and prioritisation; short checkpoint quiz; capstone briefs released; doubt-clearing.

   Practice

   Score the guided-project backlog with two frameworks, compare the results and build a metrics plan in a spreadsheet.

   Assessment

   Checkpoint quiz plus a prioritised backlog with rationale and a one-page metrics plan.

   You will be able to

   You can make and defend prioritisation decisions and measure their effect.

5. 05Roadmaps, delivery and stakeholders+2 live sessions · 4 hours · Plan the work over time, deliver it with an Agile team and keep everyone informed and aligned.

   Learning objectives

   • Build an outcome-based roadmap
   • Work effectively with engineering and design in Scrum and Kanban
   • Communicate decisions, progress and trade-offs to different stakeholders

   Live sessions

   1. 13Roadmaps and Agile delivery2 hOutcome-based and now–next–later roadmaps versus feature lists with dates; release planning; Scrum and Kanban basics; backlog refinement, sprint planning, reviews and retrospectives.
   2. 14Stakeholder communication and doubt-clearing2 hStakeholder mapping and RACI, writing status updates and decision records, presenting to leadership, managing expectations and saying no constructively; open questions on roadmaps and delivery.

   Practice

   Build a now–next–later roadmap for the guided project and write a stakeholder update explaining one hard trade-off.

   Assessment

   Assignment: the roadmap and a one-page stakeholder update.

   You will be able to

   You can plan, communicate and adjust a product roadmap with a team.

6. 06Case study and capstone+2 live sessions · 4 hours · Apply the full process to your own case study and present it.

   Learning objectives

   • Complete a product case study from discovery to roadmap
   • Present your reasoning and decisions clearly and honestly

   Live sessions

   1. 15Case study studio and doubt-clearing2 hWorking session on capstone case studies with individual feedback on research, requirements, prioritisation and metrics.
   2. 16Case study presentations and final assessment2 hLearners present their case studies for live review; final assessment covering the whole course.

   Practice

   Finish the capstone deliverables and rehearse the case-study presentation.

   Assessment

   Capstone case study and presentation, and a final assessment (pass mark 60%).

   You will be able to

   You can take a product idea from a vague problem to a prioritised, measurable plan and explain it convincingly.

Teaching formats and fees

Every format teaches the full syllabus live, with the same projects, assessments and certificate rules. The fee is per student for the whole course.

Launch fee — GST treatment to be confirmed.

Fees are set in Indian rupees. Amounts in other currencies are estimates; the amount and currency you would pay are shown before payment once online enrolment opens.

Schedules and batches

Choose the schedule that fits your week. Both teach the same syllabus and the same 32 live hours; only the number of weeks differs.

• Weekday Intensive classes are one hour, so each 2 h syllabus session is taught across consecutive weekday classes.
• Weekend Evening classes run on Saturday and Sunday evenings; the exact time and time zone are set before a batch is confirmed.
• Public holidays are not class days unless the instructor confirms a class. Holidays, instructor leave and cancelled classes move the end date later so no live hours are lost.
• Plan about 4 hours a week of exercises, assignments and project work outside class.
• Group, Duo and One-to-One courses all follow one of these two schedules.

Final project

Certificate

Tools and skills

Where these skills apply

• Product management on software and digital product teams
• Business analysis for IT projects and internal systems
• Product ownership on Agile delivery teams
• Developers, designers and testers contributing to product decisions
• Improving processes and tools in operations-heavy businesses

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Questions about Product Management & Business Analysis