UVA Darden Launches New Digital Product Management Specialization
By Dave Hendrick
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business has launched a new suite of courses on digital product management available to learners across the world.
The new Digital Product Management Specialization is available on the Coursera platform and builds on Darden Professor Alex Cowan’s work in the space.
“Digital product management is a job for the future,” said Cowan. “I keep hearing from learners who tell me they weren’t sure if they were a product manager before taking the courses, but now they know they are and they’re confidently focused on new possibilities.”
The courses introduce learners to a focused approach to the role, which revolves around testing for — and scaling — product and market fit with a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence.
The specialization includes the following courses:
- “Digital Product Management” — This course provides learners a survey of modern product management methods with a focus on two skills: 1) testing for product/market fit and 2) applying those results as a focal point for interdisciplinary collaboration.
- “Agile Meets Design Thinking” — In this course, students learn how to determine what’s valuable to a user early in the process — to frontload value — by focusing a team on narratives about the user and using interviews to test and refine those narratives, creating a strong shared perspective.
- “Hypothesis-Driven Development” — Driving toward testable ideas and maximizing the results of experimentation is at the heart of a high-functioning practice of agile. This course shows students how to facilitate alignment and create a culture of experimentation across the product pipeline.
- “Agile Analytics” — In this course, students learn how to make analytics a practical habit for all their key activities, integrating it with the core of the drive to value.
- “Managing an Agile Team” — This course focuses on helping students better charter and iteratively improve a team’s focus, definition of success and practice of agile.
Darden also recently updated its popular Agile Development Specialization.
All courses are eligible for professional development units from the Project Management Institute and are available for immediate enrollment.
The University of Virginia Darden School of Business prepares responsible global leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences. Darden’s graduate degree programs (MBA, MSBA and Ph.D.) and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact. Darden’s top-ranked faculty, renowned for teaching excellence, inspires and shapes modern business leadership worldwide through research, thought leadership and business publishing. Darden has Grounds in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the Washington, D.C., area and a global community that includes 18,000 alumni in 90 countries. Darden was established in 1955 at the University of Virginia, a top public university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Darden School of Business
University of Virginia
MitchellM@darden.virginia.edu
