A certification for product managers who have to write a strategy and defend it. Six modules with an assessment of 90 questions, built around the choices a strategy actually makes.
Practice questions (90)Free. Sign in to answer, so your result is kept and reported by module.
At a glance
Cost
Free There is no examination fee and no course fee.
Format
Six modules and a single assessment of 90 questions covering all of them. The reading is open to anyone. The assessment requires an account.
Pass mark
70 per cent, or 63 of 90, measured across the whole assessment rather than per module.
Prerequisites
None. The material assumes a few years of product experience and no background in corporate strategy. Somebody new to the role should take a product management course first, because this one starts from the assumption that a product already exists and somebody has to decide what it is for.
Renewal
None. A result records the syllabus as it stood at the time of assessment.
Based on
The a syllabus developed by Product Digest, drawing on the published strategy literature and on how product organisations actually make these choices
What it covers
What it covers. Product Digest issues this certification. No external body accredits it and the assessment is not proctored. It gives a structured route through the material and a record that a candidate has completed the reading.
The six modules follow the order in which the choices get made. What a strategy is, where to compete, how to win, whether the choice is right, what to spend on it, and how to turn it into work and change it when it stops working. Each module opens on the one before it, so the reading rewards being taken in order.
The material is weighted to practice. Named frameworks appear where they earn their place, including Rumelt's kernel, the strategy choice cascade, Porter's five forces and the product strategy stack, and the spine of every page is the decision a product manager actually has to make.
Two modules cover ground that most product strategy material skips. Evidence and uncertainty asks how a strategy is tested before the organisation commits to it. Allocation asks what happens when the funding model shapes the strategy rather than the other way round.
The syllabus6 domains · free
Product Digest’s own domains. Each opens its own page listing the concepts beneath it, and each concept has a page of its own.
A veterinary software company with thirty engineers can fund either inventory tools for independent practices or referral management for hospital groups. Its board funds both at half strength so that neither market is abandoned. What has the board done to the strategy?
ARemoved the choice the strategy existed to make, leaving two efforts that each lose to a competitor who picked one.
BReduced the risk, by spreading the investment across two markets that are unlikely to fail at the same time.
CDeferred the decision until more evidence arrives, which is the sound move while the market is still unclear.
DLeft the strategy intact and changed only the way it is funded.