Blackblot Courses

Blackblot’s comprehensive high-tech product management training program illustrates notable best practices and processes used by top technology companies to create successful market-driven products and services.

Each Blackblot course is:

·   Designed to provide students with all three job necessities: knowledge, skills and tools.

·   Delivered in a highly interactive mode, allowing attendees to participate and provide personal input as much as possible.

·   Extremely practical and interlaced with various historical high-tech case studies to promote a deep understanding of topics.

Download the Blackblot Course Syllabuses Pack, or view below each course syllabus individually.

See the course calendar for a list of upcoming public courses and events.

PRODUCT MANAGEMENT COURSES

·   Strategic Product Management for Planners™ - this course is comprised of the “Strategic Product Management™” (two-day) and “Procedural Requirements Management™” (one-day) seminar modules.

Download the course syllabus.

·   Strategic Product Management for Marketers™ - this course is comprised of the “Strategic Product Management™” (two-day) and “Business and Market Planning™” (one-day) seminar modules.

Download the course syllabus.

·   Market-Value Pricing™ - this course is comprised of the “Market-Value Pricing™” (one-day) seminar module.

Download the course syllabus.

·   Interactivity and Communication™ - this course is comprised of the “Interactivity and Communication™” (one-day) seminar module.

Download the course syllabus.

Seminar Modules

·   Strategic Product Management™ (SPM) - this two-day seminar provides attendees with the knowledge, skills and tools to effectively plan and market technology products and services.  Product management is a domain that holds two disciplines: product planning and product marketing.  Accordingly, this seminar is based on the Blackblot Product Manager’s Toolkit™ (PMTK) and PMTK Action Model - a comprehensive set of product planning and product marketing work templates, and accompanying process methodology, that illustrate notable best practices and processes (used by top technology companies) to create successful market-driven products.

·   Procedural Requirements Management™ (PRM) - this one-day seminar provides attendees with the knowledge, skills and tools to effectively identify and articulate market requirements.  Ambiguous market requirements lead to flawed products and dissatisfied customers, but well-defined market requirements are the basis for a smooth development process and marketplace success.  This seminar demonstrates effective practices that clearly identify and articulate market requirements.  The outcome is a whole “Market Requirements Document” (MRD) that represents an intelligent commitment to customers.

·   Business and Market Planning™ (BMP) - this one-day seminar provides attendees with the knowledge, skills and tools to effectively contribute to business and market planning activities.  Companies operate in dynamic and complex environments that impact their ability to be profitable.  Consequently, it only makes sense to pre-plan the direction of a business so that the products and services it provides meet the overall business objectives.  This seminar explores key concepts and processes used in formulating plans that evaluate market opportunities and shape the resulting marketing efforts; i.e., business cases and market plans.

·   Market-Value Pricing™ (MVP) - this one-day seminar provides attendees with the knowledge, skills and tools to effectively contribute to product pricing activities.  Pricing is immensely complex, multi-varied, and driven by numerous conjoint considerations with far reaching consequences.  This seminar delineates useful concepts, models and processes that aid the making of actual pricing decisions.

·   Interactivity and Communication™ (IC) - this one-day seminar provides attendees with the knowledge, skills and tools to effectively communicate with diverse audiences and individuals encountered in the course of a product manager’s job.  Soft skills are non-technical business skills that often impact the success of development projects more than technological skills.  The need for specific soft skills has become imperative to product managers’ job performance, as nowadays many of their activities are outbound oriented.  This seminar explores crucial soft skills, specifically in the context of a product manager’s line of work.

Seminar Prerequisites

Color Coding System

·   Blackblot’s course booklets and accompanying action plans are color coded for easy recognition and filing.  Below is the color coding system used by Blackblot to mark collateral material provided to attendees with each seminar.

Seminar Materials

·   All seminar attendees shall receive: printed seminar slides booklet, laminated seminar action plan, free membership in the “Blackblot Alumni” career networking group, and printed and digital copies of the official course certificate of completion.

·   “Strategic Product Management™” seminar attendees also receive: free printed and digital (CD) copies of “Blackblot Product Manager’s Toolkit™” (PMTK), lifetime free and unlimited updates and upgrades to Blackblot PMTK, and a one-time free registration to each of the available “Blackblot Product Management Professional™” (BPMP) certification tests.