Case Study: Career Break to Product Management

“There are always two ways to enhance your knowledge and we at IPL believe that it is often a great idea to take inventory of what you are good at and extend out from your skills, even if it requires learning new skills.”

Find out how Institute for Product Leadership’s structured learning and preparatory approach helped

Prathiba Sriniwasan, ICPM Class of Fall 2013, after a career break managed to get back into a Sr. Product Management role Pratibha Sriniwasan from Bangalore has been in IT industry since 13 years. Her career revolved around consulting and retail space. She was a Principal Product Manager (Oracle Retail) at Oracle India Pvt Ltd in her previous job. Prior to her job at Oracle, she also worked as a Lead Consultant (Oracle Retail) at Infosys Technologies. In her words, she quotes herself as a “mix combination of service as well as product background”.

A time to think, to evaluate, to plan and to explore:

Pratibha was on a break from her career for more than a year due to some personal reasons and before restarting her work, she was looking for a program where she could learn more about product management and at this time she stumbled upon ICPM program where she found the main focus was “Product Management”. Subsequently, she decided to undertake the International Post Graduate Certificate Program in Product Management & Marketing (ICPM) from Institute of Product Leadership and joined the 20 week long ICPM Class of Fall 2013. This course looked perfect to help her get back to her career as she was not only looking at enhancing her skill set but also wanted to enhance her knowledge in the field of product management. Moreover, since her last held role was in product management, ICPM appeared a good fit to her. Unparalleled aspect about the program she figured out was “You Learn As You Do” concept. Pratibha found the course as experiential where she could learn so much not only from the industry leaders but from her peers as well.

When asked what she liked about the institute’s ICPM program, here is what Pratibha had to say,

Exploring the depth of Product Management:

The program helped her to pick up bits and pieces and build her own thoughts and ideas and what is required to be a good Product Manager. During the program, she learned how to present herself as a unique blend of business and technical savvy; a big-picture vision, an ability to work with various internal teams and to execute on a broader vision.

Exploring the depth of Product Management:

Seemingly, people from the technology background usually underestimate the power of networking. However, the program’s emphasis on the power of networking was significantly incredible and taught her to put an extra effort to reach out to people in respective areas and which she describes also a way to become a great Product Manager. “The ICPM program provided end to end coverage of product management and the product labs experience was great learning.”

Approachable, Committed and Expert faculty:

Pratibha found the faculty great and approachable. In her words, “The mentors were really helpful, down to earth as she could give them a call anytime on anything and got her doubts clarified and helped her to understand the nuts and bolts of product management.” “You get to meet so many people from different background and learn how to productize an idea and they give you the insight which no text book contains.” The main challenge she found was how to co-ordinate with her product idea teammates since they were all located in different places. They had to make a concerted effort to meet on Skype to keep the momentum on. However, Pratibha’s product lab experience was though challenging yet amazing as she had virtual team mates and working with them right from conceptualizing to final business plan was though not a cakewalk yet they all put their best efforts and seamlessly connected on Skype and executed the project successfully. “Behind every great product, there lies a great product manager and to become one, you need have a thorough understanding of the productizing process.”.

3 key takeaways from this program

● Appreciation of the entire productizing process
● Importance of one’s sphere of influence and networking
● Tools and techniques: when to use what

“It is rigorous yet thought-provoking course for six months period”.

Apparently, what Pratibha found was the entire “Industry Connect” part of the program as a brilliant experience where she could learn from the experienced product industry leaders. Additionally, various Industry Connect opportunities that the institute provided the participants before, during and after the program helped her with valuable networking opportunities in the product management community. Also, she feels that for product and technology managers in need of the skills and strategies to enhance product management effectiveness, this programme provides the learning, tools and frameworks to drive best practice performance.

Post ICPM program, recently, Pratibha has joined as a Senior Product Manager at JDA Software and implementing lessons learned during the ICPM program..