This course is for current product managers, product owners, and related individual contributors.

January 2025

Product managers often wonder how to move "up" to director-level roles and how that would change their work.  We'll dissect that journey.

Rich Mironov

Moving Up to Director: Organizational and Career Skills for Product Managers

Getting your first product management job was very challenging. And it's going well -- understanding users/customers, working with engineers and designers, building products. But you may be thinking about what's next... We'll map out the next level in most product organizations: Director, Group Product Manager, or similar titles for people who oversee teams of product managers/product owners. What's the same/different versus PM roles? What do they do more of, less of? Is that a good fit for me, my current situation, my preferences?How do we pursue such roles? We'll talk about approaches, strategies, organizational challenges. And we'll have exercises around the Language of Money; product outcomes and financials; R&amp;D budgets at an executive level; building whole teams; and justifying product headcount. You'll get practical, hard-hitting, no-BS advice and tools that will help shape your career -- no out-of-bounds issue!

We will focus on product organizations, career paths and 'soft' prod/exec skills

We' focus on organizations, roles, and working better with executives/leaders. You will already know how to do core product management.

You're already thinking a bit about your next challenge or opportunity. You're succeeding as a PM but open to new challenges.

This course is a safe space to talk through careers, interview frustrations, company challenges, real stuff. We'll share what's happening.

This course is for current product managers/owners

What you’ll get out of this course

Every company has its own title scheme, division of labor, and approach to product work... but we'll map out the general approach

Understand a typical product career organization and ladder

Most product managers are great at managing their products, but not their own career paths. We'll walk through signaling that you're interested in moving "up", and thoughtful internal outreach

Learn how to raise your hand for director-level roles, humbly

Changing companies in order to get a bigger role/title is challenging. We'll dig into that, share some networking strategies, and do some quick resumé reviews.

How changing companies to get promotions works (or doesn't)

Product folks love to talk about development processes, tech, user experience. But most executives need to hear about economics, outcomes, revenue. We'll unpack this, practice, learn to identify our different audiences.

Practice the Language of Money

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

Cohort dates are January 8, 15 and 22. All three 2-hour sessions are on Wednesdays at 8am Pacific, 11am Eastern, 4pm/16.00 GMT. Via Zoom.

Wednesdays in January

Attendees will have some lightweight preparation ahead of each session: looking at your own R&amp;D spending budget, sketching out how your products make money, thinking about your own motivations/goals.

Very light preparation

All participants will get access to Rich's calendar for an hour of private 1-on-1 coaching or mentoring.

After the course is over...

Course schedule

We'll have a series of in-class exercises, discussions, and real-world examples.

Active hands-on learning

With very light preparation, you'll learn from Rich and each other - shared online worksheets, breakout rooms, and some peer social networking time.

Interactive 

Your class peers will be in similar roles and situations. We'll all be surprised (not!) that so we share many challenges/issues.

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