Welcome and Introduction from Nitin Joglekar

What does it take to product manage a digital product or service through its lifecycle?
Lean and agile practices are necessary but are they sufficient? Digital products generate
a tremendous amount of data in distribution and use, lend themselves to constant
iteration, and enable innovative business models. Digital product management (DPM)
therefore involves sophisticated analytics, design thinking, and business modeling in
addition to the central coordinating role of traditional product management. We have
designed this course based on the centrality of Digital Product Management Thinking
(DPMT) – a collection of systemic practices and skills that integrate Analytics, Business
modeling, Coordination, and Design thinking – the ABCD of DPMT. These practices and
skills are most relevant to the product manager, but DPMT is even more effective when
it is viewed as an organizational-wide competency.
Digital products and services have been mainstreamed in startups and established
organizations over the past decade. The demand for competent digital product
managers is quite evident in all types of industries. Products such as smartphones and
IoT based devices and application platforms, such as WhatsApp, are means for positive
social and economic change. Product managers often serve as the fulcrum for solving
problems and balancing conflicting issues surrounding the development of such
products. Varun and I hope that you will use the lessons from this course to make a
difference: for launching and nurturing products that serve the needs of your customers
and the society at large, for fulfilling the goals of your team, and for your own
professional growth.

Course Faculty
Nitin R. Joglekar is on the faculty at Boston University Questrom
School of Business. His interests involve Digital Product
Management Thinking (DPMT), deployment of analytics and
machine learning techniques in innovation processes, and
digitization & public policy issues in global supply chains.
In addition to his academic career, he has overseen product management and supply
chain implantations at established firms, and founded a software startup. He holds
degrees in engineering from IIT, Memorial University, and MIT. He also holds a
doctorate in management science from the MIT Sloan School.
Professor Joglekar is the department editor for Technology, Innovation Management,
and Entrepreneurship at IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. He is also a
department editor for industry studies and public policy at Production and Operations
Management. Feel free to check out his ongoing projects.

Varun Nagaraj is a Digital Learning and Innovation Fellow at

Boston University Questrom School of Business, and a PhD candidate
and Design and Innovation Fellow at the Weatherhead School of
Management at Case Western Reserve University.
Varun has been a product manager, consulted to product managers
on strategy and cycle time excellence while at PRTM management
consulting (now PwC), and hired and mentored product managers in his roles as VP of
Product Management and CEO in the fields of networking, security, data center
virtualization, medical instrumentation, and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Varun holds degrees in electrical and computer engineering from IIT Bombay and North
Carolina State University in Raleigh, and an MBA from Boston University.

Learning Facilitator
Ming Zou is an MBA and MSDi student at Boston University
Questrom School of Business and her concentrations are Technology
Management, Marketing Analytics and Finance. She spent her
summer this year as an MBA Operations Intern in Seattle with a
computer software company in the FinTech industry. In addition, she
is the VP of Finance for Asia Business Club at Questrom.
Ming earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Construction Management from
University of Washington - Seattle and worked in the Project Management field prior to
starting Business School. Some of her clients were Disney, Amazon and Simon Property
Group.
 Learning Approach
The course has been structured around multiple opportunities to access and hone
DPMT skills through a combination of (a) posted readings on key concepts and
tradeoffs; (b) optional links to blogs by industry experts; (c) video testimonials from
industry experts; (d) a course long problem context, CLPC, driven exercise; (e)
numerous discussion questions for giving and getting peer feedback, and (f) graded
quizzes in each part followed by a final exam. The course is divided into six parts. Each
part opens with an introductory video, followed by a sequence of (a) through (f)
activities.
This MOOC based course is breaking new ground – each learner’s CLPC based thought
experiment will draw upon the collective wisdom of thousands of fellow learners – with
diverse sets of demographic background and rich industry expertise. The output of the
CLPC exercise is accumulative so that each learner finishes the course with a product
concept and a roadmap for developing it, within a specified digital product/platform
context along with relevant business model analysis work. This course will also set the
learners up to take companion digital product management courses featuring themes
such as analytics, experiment design, platform economics, and social media marketing.

Prerequisites
Secondary school (High school) algebra; basic mathematics concepts
Background in one of these areas:
- Project and process (operations) management concepts
- Marketing concepts
- Software engineering concepts
Learners may develop a background in these three areas either through on-the-job
exposure or by auditing 3rd or 4th-year university level or online courses before taking
this course.

Course Outline

Part Title Estimated effort Release Date

Part I: Product Management ABCD:

Analytics, Business Model, Coordination 4-8 hours
& Design Thinking
Part II: Envisioning Products &
4-8 hours
Leveraging Organizational Processes

Part III: Requirements, MVP, and 4-8 hours

Evolution of Products September 4, 2019
20:00 UTC
Part IV: Development Iterations & Go- 4-8 hours
To-Market Effort

Part V: Systems Thinking: P&L, 4-8 hours

Lifecycles & Roadmap

Part VI: Taking a Long View: PM Career 4-8 hours

Paths

We attribute the anticipated variation in effort (4-8 hours) to two factors: (i) Verified
learners are provided with additional content for their proctored final exam, and (ii)
Learners without adequate prerequisites will have to fill up gaps in their know-how by
working through either optional links provided in this course or outside sources (e.g.
browse through online courses or sites to clarify basic concepts, terminologies etc).

Audit versus Verified Learners

● All learners may start as audit learners, and may upgrade to the verified track by
September 25.
● We recommend that learners get to verified status as soon as possible because
verified learners are responsible for additional tests and materials compared to
audit.
● If some learners upgrade midstream (before Sep 25), they should go back to all parts
of the course to ensure that they have completed all the verified work.
● Please, note that verified learners will have their own discussion threads, and will be
provided with additional content and questions throughout the course, in
anticipation of the proctored final examinations at the end of the course. Some of
this content is drawn from proprietary sources and its cost is bundled into the
verification fee.
 Assessments and Grading
In each part of the course, you will find assessments that test your understanding and
challenge you to apply what you’ve learned. Please make sure to complete them as soon
as possible, along with CLPC work. Please notice, for CLPC in part IV, the submission
deadline (for posting your own work) prior to peer assessment is October 9. The rest
of course deadlines are: October 30. Learners are only responsible for material posted
on the course website. That is, all graded questions have been drawn from the posted set
of material.
Below is the grade breakdown for your assignments, if you are a verified learner. There
are suitable quizzes for audit learners. However, we will not track audit learner’s grade:
they will neither get a final exam nor a certificate upon completion.

Verified Track Assessments Weight For those of you who are taking
the course for a Verified
Participation in Discussion Questions
6% Certificate, you will have to
throughout the course
complete additional assessments
Participation in CLPC Discussions in and you must meet a minimum
6%
Parts III and V grade of 67% in the course to be
Self Assessments of CLPC Part II and VI 6% eligible to receive a certificate
from edX.
Peer-graded Open Response
16% Learners switching to the
Assessments (ORA) in CLPC Part IV
verified track (after starting on
Quizzes with Multiple Choice Questions an audit track) should make sure
32%
(MCQs) in Parts II, III, IV, and V that they go back to each
assessment and complete any
Final Exam extra assignments that were
(Video Proctored Exam) 34% given to the verified track in
15 Multiple Choice Questions parts II through VI.

Detailed Tasks and Deadlines

This is a self-paced course. All the material will be released on September 4 (i.e,
verified learners may begin work on all the parts as soon as Sep 4). We indicate
“suggested” completion dates (assuming that you do the work at a steady pace) and
along with formal deadlines.
Part Grade Suggested Formal
Tasks
# Weight Deadline Deadline

October 30
Work through posted material September
I 0% at 20:00
and participate in discussions 11
UTC

October 30
September
I Quiz (Ungraded) 0% at 20:00
11
UTC

CLPC Work October 30

September
I (including participation in 0% at 20:00
14
discussions) UTC

October 30
Work through posted material September
II 1.2% at 20:00
and participate in discussions 18
UTC

October 30
September
II Quiz 8% at 20:00
18
UTC

October 30
CLPC Work September
II 3% at 20:00
(Self Assessment) 21
UTC

October 30
Work through posted material and September
III 1.2% at 20:00
participate in discussions 25
UTC

October 30
September
III Quiz 8% at 20:00
25
UTC

CLPC Work October 30

September
III (including participation in 3% at 20:00
28
discussions) UTC

October 30
Work through posted material and
IV 1.2% October 2 at 20:00
participate in discussions
UTC

October 30
IV Quiz 8% October 2 at 20:00
UTC
 October 9
CLPC Work - ORA
IV 16% October 2 at 20:00
Post Your Work
UTC

CLPC (Grade Peer Work): October 30

IV Your own work will not be graded 0% October 9 at 20:00
until you finish grading 5 peers UTC

October 30
Work through posted material and
V 1.2% October 9 at 20:00
participate in discussions
UTC

October 30
V Quiz 8% October 9 at 20:00
UTC

CLPC Work October 30

V (including participation in 3% October 12 at 20:00
discussions) UTC

October 30
Work through posted material and
VI 1.2 % October 16 at 20:00
participate in discussions
UTC

October 30
CLPC Work
VI 3% October 19 at 20:00
(Self Assessment)
UTC

October 30
VI Final Exam 34% October 23 at 20:00
UTC

ALL graded assessments must be completed before the end of the course date to
count towards your final grade --> October 30 at 20:00 UTC)

Please pay attention to ORA submission deadline in part IV.

Also, if you join verified track after Sep 4 (and before Sep 25), please be sure and go
back to each part to finish additional (graded) work required in the verified track.

Discussion Forum Guidelines

Throughout the course, you will be asked to comment on the posts of other learners. The
discussion forums are meant to be an area where learners can interact with each other,
ask questions, and share experiences and resources. We encourage you to explore
various posts and contribute to a lively discussion forum community!
To aid in this goal, we ask that you do not post comments that are derogatory,
defamatory, or in any way attack other learners. Be courteous and show the same
respect you hope to receive. We will have discussion forum moderators who will delete
posts that are rude, inappropriate, or off-topic. We also ask that you do not post answers
to assessment questions on these forums. You may discuss how to approach a problem
or help other learners who may have questions, but please do not directly provide
answers. Commenters who repeatedly abuse this public forum will be removed from the
course.
We do encourage course participants to answer questions posed by other learners. The
course staff may well purposely refrain from answering immediately, to encourage peer
discourse.
Additionally, there is a feature in the discussion forums that allows you to select from
two post types, which are Question and Discussion. When posting to the discussion
board, please bear in mind that the Question type is meant for specific issues with the
platform or with content, while the Discussion type is meant to share ideas and start a
conversation.
Please read the edX Learner Guide for more information about Participating in Course
Discussions.

Companion Book
We have authored an eBook, “Digital Product Management Thinking: Integrating
Analytics, Business Models, Coordination, and Design Thinking.” This book is available
on Kindle (ASIN: B0741RQM7R) for $9.99. For details see our Digital Product
Management Thinking website
This is NOT a “required” textbook. Learners will be able to complete all the graded work
without this book. We recommend this as a companion learning and reference book
during and after the course. Some clarifications about the differences between the eBook
and the online course:
1. The online course material is organized in a modular manner based on the
requirements of the edX platform. The online course material also provides optional
readings by drawing open source blogs etc. Such material is not included in the eBook.
The online material features the course long problem-solving exercise that is not
included in the eBook.
2. The eBook is organized as an “integrated” text for ease of understanding. The
book also offers additional content that we could not feature in the course because of the
anticipated time availability for the learners. And, the sequencing of some content, titles
of some sections, figures and tables have been modified (and will not match the course
content exactly) to reflect these differences.
3. Many learners will not access the eBook. Hence, the course facilitator will not
respond to the questions about the eBook online. If there are any conflicting messages,
learners should rely on the online course content.
The eBook and online course themselves are digital products. We view the first
version for you with a lot of thought, field testing and care. And, as with any digital
innovation, we have room to improve. With your feedback, we look forward to iterating
and improving the book and the online course over time. Online Course Feedback
should be provided on the platform. The eBook feedback is best handled through the
book’s own website.

FAQ
Q: Should I email the professor or any persons involved with this course
directly?
A: No. If you feel the need to contact the course staff involved in this course, please post
a question in the discussion forum. You will also have the opportunity to provide course
feedback in the Course Evaluation. Course related emails to the instructor’s personal
emails or social media sites will not be answered.

Q: Do I need to buy any personal materials to take this course?

A: No. You do not need to purchase textbooks or any materials to aid you in completing
the course. The material within the course website should be sufficient.

Q: I've never taken an edX course before and this is confusing. What do I
do?
A: For further information, please visit the demo edX course.

Q: I found a mistake in the course. Where do I report it?

A: To report an error or make suggestions, please post to the discussion forum and
provide feedback in the Course Evaluation.

Q. What should I do if I have accessibility related requests and queries?

A: Please visit the Help Center for necessary support.
 Honor Code
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edX Honor Code Pledge

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