Cohort 1

The Chief Product Officer job is tough. With a small group of peers, you'll role play through real scenarios and practice hard situations.

Giff Constable

M&A for Product Leaders

[class enrollment by application only] No lectures. What if you could practice the trickiest parts of being a product executive ahead of time and, in doing so, learn from an expert and your peers on other approaches? This class takes a realistic scenario and over 6 weeks forces you make those hard decisions and have those tough conversations. You and your peers will play the CPO at a growth-stage software company. I play everyone else, from the CEO to a board member to C-suite peers to a PM reporting to you. Instead of talking abstractly about what one might do, you're going to do it. We'll play it out and you'll get feedback from both me and your peers. In turn, you'll give feedback when someone else is in the hot seat: how might one do it differently? Using Specific Scenarios for General Leadership TrainingI don't believe we learn from theory nearly as well as do from practice. While the below 6 topics seem very specific, they are chosen to expose critical, and difficult, aspects of being a product executive. In working through these scenarios, you'll end up thinking through general leadership values and approaches. What We'll CoverIn our scenario, you've just joined an exciting growth-stage software company. On your first day at work, the board announced that your business is merging with a competitor of similar size. Your new boss is the CEO of the other company, not the one who interviewed you. The new CEO has decided to keep you as the product leader and intends to integrate the two companies rather than run them separately. Now you have two product suites, two different teams with different cultures, and a whole bunch of new C-suite peers that you haven't spent any time with. What You'll Have to Solve1. Kick off as CPO at a new company with big strategic decisions looming, a roadmap is disarray, and a major acquisition just closed2. Create a 30-60-90 day plan for the CEO3. Handle fear and flight risk within your team around layoffs given the recent acquisition4. Deliver a proposal to the CEO and CFO on a new structure + cost implications for your 60-person team (located on two sides of the ocean);5. Decide how to handle a senior PM who's relationship with their team's engineering lead has gone bad6. Handle a situation where a CxO peer is not performing and the lack of accountability is hurting your part of the business7. Create an artifact to set expectations at the C-suite on product timelines; handle a CMO who is frustrated with your timelines and a VP of Sales who wants to control priorities.8. Present to the board and/or individual board members, per the CEOs request The ClassThe class is capped at 10 people. We will meet for 75 minutes each week for six weeks, with an optional hour-long roundtable on Fridays. There will be prep materials to read going into each class, including the first one. Who Can Take The Class?You must be at one of the following levels in either prod mgt, design, or engineering: VP, Director, Principal, or GPM level (or about to move into one of those roles). Class is by application only. There is a code of conduct below.

Practice the hard stuff before you're in the hot seat

To apply for the class, you must be VP, Director, Principal, or GPM level in product management or design.

Senior PMs or Designers with 6+ years of experience may apply and will be reviewed for fit on a case-by-case basis.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

By having actual conversations, even if role-played, you'll think through your leadership values and get feedback on your style. You'll get to see how others might approach a situation and expand your perspective on what might be good and possible.

Evolve your leadership style and learn from others

We'll be practicing not just how you interact with your reports and other members of the company, but also other high-powered executives and board members in our mock company.

Improve how you communicate with C-Suite and Board members

We practice so that when a challenging situation hits, as it inevitably and constantly does, you're not seeing it for the first time. Instead, you've thought through possible approaches both from your own instincts as well from your cohort peers.

Prepare for the hard situations

The class is by application-only. It's important that each cohort be made up of experienced practitioners who can learn from and help each other both during the class and into the future.

Build a trusted peer group

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

What people are saying

Meet your instructor

Before each class there will be pre-reading materials so that we can spend more time in action rather than reviewing context.

Pre-reading

6 Classes, Consecutive Wednesdays

Course schedule

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Active hands-on learning

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Interactive and project-based

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

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