Project Management Specialization

Introduction

Project management is more than a role — it's a mindset rooted in empathy, adaptability, and problem-solving. This lesson traces its evolution from military logistics to a human-centered, innovation-driven practice. You’ll explore key methods like design thinking and critical path planning, while learning how to lead with clarity, collaborate across cultures, and turn complexity into meaningful solutions.

2m

Influences | Alessia Casillo

Here are some secrets about myself, as well as introducing you to the thoughts and personalities that have shaped my point of view.

3m

Influences | Sophie Simmons

What are the things in life that fuel inspiration? In this lesson, I will tell you what places, arts, and activities influenced my life and career decisions.

7m

Influences | Silvia Calvet

I found that it naturally facilitated design conversations and became an enthusiast of the design thinking and design process. In this lesson I will tell you what my main sources of inspiration have been. In addition, I will show you the different visualization models of the design process that have helped me understand the methodology and I will tell you why I consider them relevant to the topic of this course.

8m

Influences | Irene Prieto & María Granadino

We will share with you some of our influences, from a very personal point of view, in addition, we will explain how they have marked our trajectory. We'll show you some of our favorite books and tell you why we think they're relevant to this course.

6m

Influences | Victor Niharra

I have had several kinds of influences throughout my Product Management career. For the purpose of this course, however, I have selected three of the most influential people that have shaped my journey.

3m

Introduction to project management

Why do we need to plan? What is the purpose of planning? This lesson will help you understand the usefulness of project management and organization. I will also present to you what I would like the final project to be. It would be great if you continued to keep the needs of your own project in mind in subsequent lessons.

6m

Type of key steps and their usefulness

The organization is fundamental for management, but what is management? What types of steps could be useful for your project? Perhaps you are already applying management methods, but you don't know it; This lesson will help you theorize and understand management in its entirety.

7m

Basic project management tools

We are going to review the main tools from an organizational point of view. Sure you are already using one, but it will be interesting anyway!

18m

Project planning and visualization

In this lesson I will tell you why it is convenient to plan your projects and I will explain the methods that I use.

3m

Calendar

Now I am going to explain to you the first method of organization and planning; is the most important. I will also explain the time blocking technique to you. Your schedule and, above all, your life will thank you.

17m

Kanban boards

From Japan with love comes this planning technique, ideal for organizing your tasks and priorities. In addition, I will tell you about the Eisenhower diagram, your bible for defining your priorities.

11m

Gantt diagram

This is the third and final planning method I'm going to introduce you to, but perhaps the most useful for complex projects. I am going to explain five easy steps so that you can create your scheme.

9m

Customizing your method: accounting management example

In this lesson I want to share with you my personal form of organization of accounting management. Follow me to understand what I mean when I say that you have to personalize your method so that it adapts to your way of being and working and, therefore, it is not a burden and flows alone.

9m

Excel tricks

Finally, I am going to share some Excel tips with you. They are useful for those who have basic knowledge. If you don't know them, they will surprise you!

17m

Organization and well-being

In this lesson I'm going to give you tips so that you can enjoy your planning time. This is a win-win, you organize yourself to be better and take advantage of your planning time to do it being well.

6m

Communication

Now I am going to tell you how much communication influences our well-being and I am going to give you tips to create new communication habits.

4m

What Is Project Management?

We should start with the basics. First of all, I'll explain what a Project Manager actually does, as well as detail the benefits of having one in your team.

9m

Communication Is Key

I won't say it enough, establishing good communication is primordial. So, here, I will tell you some of the best ways to communicate with your client.

8m

Starting Point: The Brief

The brief is another important element of all project management. In this lesson, I will walk you through the basics of a brief and show you how to build a brief that will prove useful.

8m

The Client and the Team

Here I will talk you through a project and break down how I worked with the client and the team in different situations.

9m

The SOW: What Are We Doing?

In this lesson, I will explain what a Statement Of Work (SOW) is and tell you the benefits of using one with your client.

14m

Creating the SOW

Now that we know what a SOW is, I will help you write one and show you how to present this to your client.

15m

Client Management

Dealing with clients isn't always easy. In this lesson, we will have a deeper dive into how to manage your clients in different situations.

6m

Delivering Your Project

You are reaching the final steps of your project. It's time we discuss how to wrap it up. This is also an appropriate moment to reflect on your work (as a team and as a Project Manager) and see how to stay motivated.

8m

Keep the Spark Alive

As we have discussed before, communication is essential, and so is keeping long-lasting relationships with your clients. That can bring in more work! I will give you some practical tips on this matter and on working with different types of clients.

9m

How to Handle Stress (Or How to Disguise It!)

We all experience stress, no matter how many years we've been at the job. In this lesson, I will give you some tips on how to stay calm or pretend like you are!

9m

Change the traditional project

We will begin as all projects and ideas begin: defining what we want to do. I'll review common problems in the traditional way of developing solutions and show you how design thinking and agile will help us.

15m

Why design thinking?

In this lesson you will learn what design thinking is, its principles and why it works. At the end we will prepare to start the visual work mural.

14m

The methodology

Next, you will discover the steps of the design thinking methodology and you will learn how to define the problem or challenge globally, considering the people who are the recipients of the solution.

14m

Agile thinking and tools

In this lesson you will get introduced to the agile world and discover its principles and some basic tools.

11m

Discover

We are at the beginning of the first diamond: the first step is to diverge. So, for starters, you're going to find out more about the people to design the solution for. I will show you various tools that exist for this.

12m

Define

Now is the time to converge. You are going to review everything you have learned from your audience and your users. Then, you will interpret it and translate it into visual tools to crystallize what you know for yourself and for others. With my case study as a guide you will discover how to do it easily.

13m

Identify opportunities

In the last step of the empathize phase, you are going to deepen what you know, that is, who your users are and what is important to them, and you are going to identify possible opportunities. Here I will teach you how to do it!

17m

Select point of view

Now I will show you how to explore all the opportunities and choose the most relevant one. You are going to define this opportunity in such a way that you establish a clear point of view that will connect and land your project objective and challenge.

8m

Devise

In this lesson we are going to have a great time! It is time to devise. But before the brainstorming I will teach you some warm up exercises.

12m

Select and prioritize ideas

To find relevant solutions we do a second round of ideation. We then select the best idea or ideas and visualize them in the form of a story to share. Here I will explain all the steps.

12m

Create the prototype

In this lesson you will learn how to prototype. First, you have to identify what is the most important part of the solution that you need to confirm with the users, and then you can build the prototype.

8m

Validate

To collect feedback on your idea, it is essential to create a validation test and show your prototype to real people. Here I will show you some examples.

13m

Learnings

After talking with people in your target audience, you'll review what you've learned to identify what worked and didn't work with your prototype. In this lesson I will show you what the procedure is and you will see that before having built the final solution you will have already validated your idea.

10m

Integrate and iterate

The second diamond is already closed! At this time you will have to review what what you have learned means. I will explain possible results of the process and how to define the next steps.

7m

Digital Products

You will know what a digital product is, you will see some examples of products, in addition, we will talk about the life cycle of a product.

15m

Overall product development process

You will see the global process of product development and we will clarify the union of agile with Lean and Design Thinking.

6m

The role of the Product Manager

We will talk about the role of the Product Manager. We will tell you what a product team is like and what a stakeholder is. Then we will talk about the different types of Product Manager and their functions.

7m

Mission, vision and strategy

You will see the mission, vision and strategy. The basis for the creation of digital products, since they will help you understand at all times why you do what you do and if you are on the right track. You will know the characteristics to create a good vision, what is the product strategy and how it is related to the vision, you will also see the strategies of the best-known companies. In addition, for the practical part you will learn a template that will make it easier for you to create your vision, and the Product Canvas tool for you to create your own strategy.

14m

Discovery

You need to know the problems well before creating solutions, and for that we will teach you how to use Product Discovery or Research. You will see different quantitative and qualitative Discovery techniques to collect all possible information and to be able to know first of all the market, business and trends as the benchmark of the competition, and workshops with stakeholders. We will talk about the trend matrix. In addition, to get to know the users, you will learn different Research techniques in which you will work together with the UX team. Finally, we will explain how to organize and map all the information in a War Room to later analyze the information with the Customer Journey Map and Opportunity Decision Tree, so you can get the relevant insights and market opportunity that you will focus on with your product.

17m

Objectives, roadmap and prioritization 1

You will know what the well-known OKRs are in digital companies such as Google or Spotify. I will explain how to know and create your own roadmap to organize the objectives and work for the next six months.

10m

Objectives, roadmap and prioritization 2

During this second part of the lesson, we will talk about prioritization and show you how to do it with two techniques. This will help you ground and make the product strategy tangible to give way to day-to-day work with your Product Team.

11m

Experimentation and validation

In this lesson, you will see the importance of experimentation and why Discovery is not enough when making execution decisions. Then you will learn about different experimentation methods, what is an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and how to run an experiment.

11m

Agile methodologies

We will give you an overview of the most used terms when working in agile. We will also tell you about the most famous agile frameworks in the creation of digital products: Scrum and Kanban. In addition, we will show you how we like to work. To finish, we will talk to you and delve into the creation of user stories and you will see an example of a backlog.

15m

Throwing and Measuring

You will understand the importance of measuring for a Product Manager. You will know the data-driven and data-informed approaches, in addition, we will give you a review of different types of metrics. You will see how to use the framework that is used in Google, to start measuring from scratch. Finally, we will explain how we launch a digital product and You will see how to make a checklist of tasks to perform when you launch your product.

9m

Skills needed to be a Product Manager

We will tell you what are the main skills that are sought in Product Manager profiles. From hard skills to soft skills, we will also tell you everything you need to reinforce to become a Product Manager. To conclude, we will share some tips so that you can put them into practice and improve them.

6m

Communication and stakeholder management

As Product Managers we are constantly talking to other teams and people with very different profiles, in addition, we continuously make presentations and facilitate workshops. One of the most important parts of your day to day life will be stakeholder management. Therefore, it is essential to have good communication and expectations management skills. The best way to align teams for a product is by doing a Kick-Off session. This session has many steps to take into account, so you will see them in this lesson and you will be able to practice it in your Miro template.

12m

What Is Product Management?

So, what is Product Management really? And why should you even bother to learn about it? Let me give you a definition that is easy to understand but not too general, so you grasp the core of this task.

4m

Product vs. Program vs. Project

How are Product Managers different and similar to other roles in modern organizations, such as Program Managers and Project Managers? In this lesson, I will describe these different positions and explain the responsibilities behind each of them.

5m

The Frameworks 1

Product Management frameworks help Product Managers follow a methodology, providing both a comprehensive and objective process for things such as opportunity, evaluation, prioritization, and requirements definition. Here I will introduce some of the most successful frameworks used in the industry.

12m

The Frameworks 2

After explaining the last framework, GSD, I will introduce you to the main techniques that are commonly used within Product Management regardless of the framework the company is following.

9m

The Idea: The What and Why

To give some context to these lessons, I will be using the example of a company, Twice but Nice, that needs to increase monetization. You are the Product Manager. What will you do? How do you come up with an idea? Why should you do it now? It all starts with your customers.

14m

Stakeholder Management

A Product Manager is like a conductor. You need to manage different teams and disciplines effectively. The way you manage your stakeholders will define your success. Let's see how to do this.

8m

Breaking Down the Process

You cannot build great products if you don't prioritize. Sometimes the product vision may be too bold, and you cannot achieve it on the first try. In this lesson, we will cover different techniques that can help you slice a problem into smaller pieces and ensure you progress with your project.

11m

The Launch

The launch of a product starts well before the product is ready. Here I will cover the most common steps you need to take before releasing a product into the market.

6m

Measuring the Product’s Success

One of the most important questions Product Managers should ask themselves is whether customers love their product. Yet they too often fall into the trap of not focusing on this. Here I will introduce you to five key metrics you can use.

2m

Evolving vs. Transitioning vs. Sunsetting

A product's evolution is a cycle where the product evolves in terms of features, functionalities, quality, offerings, technology, etc. This happens over time to better serve the product's purpose and the customer's needs. However, sometimes you can leave the product as it is. Is it time to transition the product? Or do you need to sunset them if they are not working as expected?

5m