Attending this course and passing the exam earns 1 UX Certification credit, which also counts towards the optional UX Management Specialty.
Learn more about NN/g's UX Certification Program.
Product and UX: Building Partnerships for Better Outcomes
Explore the differences of UX and product roles (PM and PO) to better collaborate and partner in product development.
Learning Objectives
Learning Objectives
In this course, you’ll learn how to:
- Clarify UX and product management (PM and PO) roles
- Help product managers understand how to work with UX
- Adapt your UX work style to different types of product managers
- Resolve conflicts to realize the full potential of the partnership
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
- Defining product management
- Features, projects, and products
- Product terminology
- Team types
- Clarifying roles and goals
- UX and PM distinctions
- Product managers vs. owners
- Strengths and motivations
- Overlap impacts
- Partnership in product development
- Partnership building framework
- UX and product in the process
- Engineering collaboration
- Shared ownership vs. boundaries
- Workload considerations
- Contextual adaptations
- Navigating challenges
- Taking a stance
- Politics and negotiation
- Change management
- Conflict resolution
Who Should Attend
Who Should Attend
- UX roles on product teams
- UX generalists
- UX leads
- Product designers
- UX designers
- UX researchers
- Product managers, owners, and leadership
- UX managers
- Developers and engineers
Format
Format
This course is a combination of lecture format and participatory workshop. You will participate in activities and exercises to reinforce the learned principles, tools, and techniques.
The course also includes:
- Case studies from real product teams
- An adaptable framework for building UX and product partnerships
- Activities with feedback from the instructor
- Opportunities to ask questions and get answers
UX Certification Credit
UX Certification Credit
Participant Comments
Participant Comments
"This is a great course to understand the value of a structured UX/Design & Research process and how an org could conceivably be structured to provide outcomes, not output."
Marie Davis, Evention, LLC, Chicago, IL USA
"Some of the content (especially many of the concepts) was remedial for me, as I have officially been doing Product Design for about 6 years now, but there was also some excellent content that was new to me, and some that was a good refresher, so it was definitely worthwhile. My main takeaway, though, is that I'm going to recommend that all of our organization's Product people take this course, since the Product team is pretty immature, especially compared to our UX team."
Mark Richter, Entegral, St. Louis, MO, USA
"This course is a must! "Product and UX: Building Partnerships for Better Outcomes" was my first course with NNg, and I would say that I'm impressed! In only one day, we were able to cover all corners in this field. It should be taken for any organization doing UX and building products. This course is detailed with a lot of information about roles, tasks and more. I highly recommend this course. I will certainly use the tools provided and help my organization to understand the role of a PM."
Josianne Deschatelets, Canada School of Public Service, Gatineau, Canada
"I would HIGHLY recommend this course for multiple reasons. (1) The course content was very valuable and applicable. (2) Anna was a very knowledgeable instructor and her delivery of the material was impeccable. Her passion for UX was very apparent throughout the course. (3) Anna addressed many of the questions with authority and it was obvious she has lots of experience in the field."
Mark Dyson, Booz Allen Hamilton, Washington D.C., USA
More Participant Comments
"This was a great class packed with helpful information and tools to help build trust and boundaries. Loved the neutral (non-blaming) approach that was taking — everyone is trying their best reinforced that we're in this together and it's not an Us vs Them situation. I've already reached out to my PO to encourage her to take this course. I really enjoyed this course!"
"Really engaging delivery with a splattering of memes and gifs throw in for good measure — I feel this course was specifically made for me!"
Matthew Hodgkinson, Covea Insurance, Leeds, UK
"This is the course that shed light into my UX < > Product overlaps. I highly recommend it if you fit in either of these two domains."
Alecsandru Grigoriu, Leonnade Studio, Iasi, Romania
"I love it as I am venturing into the Product space and there were a lot of debunking of misinformation heard in organisation, and guidance to a more inclusive and collaborative mindset."
Renee Koh, Singapore
"I saw opportunities to apply the course learnings directly to my daily work environment and I am excited to do so."
Sean Fugate, NWEA, Portland, OR
"I would absolutely recommend this course! It was such a great learning experience where I got to dig into the work in practice!"
Aine Dillane, OST, Grand Rapids, MI
"This course was amazing. This is exactly the information I needed in order to enhance partnerships at work. The course has provided me with so much information, as well as resources to bring to my team. Anna Kaley is very knowledgeable, she answered all of our questions, and she explained the topics clearly and with purpose. I would highly recommend this course for anyone in, or working with, a product team."
Ali Petrizzi, Vera Bradley, Fort Wayne, IN, USA
"Definitely a great course even if you're a product manager or even a technical lead in order to understand better the other disciplines you work with."
"Pratical and realistic. I recommend."
Vieux Mamadou, Orange, Dakar, Senegal
"Great to understand how the product, ux and tech should collaborate, I love the emphasize of treating each other as partners, not a parts of process/hand offs."
Aga, Gdańsk, Poland
"This course helped me structure my ideas about collaboration better. The examples shown were great and applicable to different situations."
Helena Bukovac, Burra, Zagreb, Croatia
"I liked this course because it really hit home in regard to the struggles we have at our company and gave me a good boost of motivation to help get things to a better level of collaboration with product managers."
Dora, Trikoder, Zagreb, Croatia
"This course helped frame an understanding of how to differentiate roles to allow teammates to be empowered and shine in their roles. The tools provided to take back to the organization to help perpetuate or initiate change were a total gift that I look forward to applying!"
Megan Kelly, Symetra, Seattle, USA
"The information and solutions provided were a 100% match to the challenges that I'm currently facing at my company. I think it's fantastic that Anna gave us so many tools for hands-on implementation. With that, I can directly introduce what I've learned during the course in my company."
Carolin Osthoff, Berlin, Germany
"Really great way of understanding product and ux roles and responsibilities, and led by a great instructor."
Katherine Joyce, Capita, Middlesbrough, UK
"Great course for understanding what a healthy product development ecosystem looks like!"
Michael Shaw, Makati Philippines
"Will encourage my stakeholders, across functions to take this course up."
When UX and product management roles overlap, responsibilities become unclear. This leads to tension, lower productivity, morale, and product quality. UX is more effective when partnered with product managers and vice versa.
Clear communication of how UX works and why it’s important are critical throughout product development. This course clarifies roles and gives you tangible tools to build a stronger UX-product partnership to promote better outcomes for your users, team, and business.