Digital Product Management Thinking: Integrating Analytics, Business Model, Coordination and Design Thinking

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. The authors contend that the key to successful digital product management is Digital Product Management Thinking (DPMT) – a collection of systemic practices and skills that integrates 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. This book describes DPMT and its application across the life cycle of digital products – from up-front strategy formulation to product development to ongoing portfolio and roadmap management. 

The authors, Nitin Joglekar – Associate Professor at Boston University, and Varun Nagaraj – Fellow at Case Western Reserve University and Boston University draw upon current product management best practices, relevant academic research in strategy and innovation, and their own hands-on experiences as product managers, consultants, and executives in Boston and Silicon Valley. Writing in an engaging ‘practitioner-scholar’ style, the authors provide a succinct, practical, and rigorous approach to mastering and implementing DPMT. The book is supplemented by an online MOOC on digital product management (QD503) taught by the authors on the edX platform. (https://www.edx.org/micromasters/digital-product-management).