Product Management 360Cornell

Certificate Program

To successfully and quickly solve business problems you need more than just intuition; you need solutions based on data. Data analytics is essential for any successful business. It helps us frame problems, make comparisons, forecast outcomes, and make decisions. You can use simple but very effective tools to analyze your data and make better, more informed decisions.

In this course, you will explore spreadsheet modeling for applied decision making. You will work with data sets and navigate in an Excel 2016 Workbook. You will examine data cleaning and modeling concepts, practice core Excel skills, and explore ways to apply data management techniques to the spreadsheet system by using its math and logic capabilities to their full potential. By performing data management, you can improve the structure and usefulness of your data.

Organizations go to great lengths to collect data to inform business decisions. However, given the volume of data, it can become difficult to sift through and find the needed answers. In this course you will gain exposure to the challenges of working with data and learn how you can use Excel to efficiently harvest data to make business decisions. Using Excel as a tool you will be able to quickly answer business questions by applying criteria to your data using Excel's logic functions, quickly retrieve information from a large set of data, and visually enhance your data.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Getting Started with Spreadsheet Modeling and Business Analytics

Data drives many real-world endeavors, which means that storing and accessing the data is foundational to success. Relational databases are an industry-standard data storage mechanism for maintaining data integrity while allowing flexible data retrieval.

You will begin this course by examining the basic table structures that form a relational database. Using the relational database format, you will define connections between your data fields and determine how those can be expressed. You will then practice normalizing a relational database to ensure data integrity and reduce redundancy. As this course concludes, you will use a relational database system called OmniDB along with structured query language (SQL) to retrieve specific information from the database.

After creating an initial version of a chart, how do you make it better? In this course, we'll explore the process for creating great charts. First, you'll explore how best to plan and draft your chart. Then, you'll need to eliminate distractions in the chart to make your visualization clear. It's also important to emphasize the most critical data in your chart. We'll look at how our brains process visualizations, and how you can use this information to better design your chart. Lastly, we'll examine how to adjust a chart to target your audience and the iterative process you can use to improve it.

You are required to have completed the following course or have equivalent experience before taking this course:

• Creating Data Visualizations with Tableau

The digital landscape continues to be a vital part of an organization's success. For organizations centered around digital technology, it is important to create a digital strategy that addresses the specific opportunities and challenges that arise in digital ecosystems. This includes harnessing the potential to become a digital platform or utilizing preexisting digital platforms from complementor organizations. How can you leverage the power of digital platforms to grow your organization and maximize profitability?

In this course, you will evaluate the state of digital platforms in the current market. You will use this evaluation to identify network effects that your organization can take advantage of and use to boost the value of your products and services in the market. Once you identify the state of platforms and network effects, you will develop a digital platform strategy to grow and maintain your digital strategy, particularly if your organization can create its own digital platform. Finally, you will explore best practices for interacting with digital platforms created by other organizations and develop a strategy for how to choose and interact with a platform created outside of your organization.

The right pricing strategy can make or break a business — yet pricing impacts can be difficult to fully measure and understand.

In this course, you will analyze pricing data, evaluate key factors relevant to pricing effectiveness, and use your insights to optimize product prices. You will have the opportunity to apply a variety of popular pricing formulas and determine the business impact of the resulting price changes. Ultimately, the skills developed in this course will allow you to make pricing decisions that will maximize profits for each product or service in your organization.

It is recommended that students be comfortable using Microsoft Excel before beginning this course.

An enterprise with an innovation culture doesn't just happen. You must plan for both financial success and cultural change. There are several types of and approaches to innovation. How do you create an innovation strategy for your enterprise?

In this course, you will begin to create a roadmap called the innovation placemat. You will identify your organization's goals and align your innovation strategy to it. You will cultivate an executive champion and set SMART goals for your new product, service, or technology. You will identify risks and barriers to deployment and create mitigation plans to overcome them. Along the way, you will hear case studies of organizations large and small, private and government, established and startup, and in many domains who have successfully established an innovation strategy with sustainable positive effects on their bottom lines.

To create and sustain a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in your organization, it is helpful to establish an environment that supports certain mindsets. And these mindsets can create first a culture change in your organization, often followed by a higher financial return on investment. These mindsets are the competencies that convert ideas to impact.

In this course, you will learn about and apply three key innovation competencies: lean startup, maker culture, and design thinking. Each of these competencies are used by large and small organizations, resulting in new products and services and satisfied employees and customers.

Lean thinking is a form of customer discovery where you will develop a series of hypotheses and then test them. Maker culture is based on the do-it-yourself ethos and can help you prototype and test products quickly, reducing time to market. Design thinking is a process of empathetically listening to and then co-designing with your customers. While the three competencies have some overlapping methodology, one or two of them will best support your innovation strategy and tie in more effectively with your organization's overall strategy.

The following course is required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy

There are many exciting tools you can use to implement innovation at your organization. These tools are the “hammer and nails” of innovation. In this course, you will learn about 14 innovation tools. You will also see how other organizations have used them to successfully increase cultural and financial ROI, please customers, and improve operational efficiencies. These tools range from simpler activities such as conducting employee training, hosting hackathons, and implementing design sprints to more complex methods such as establishing an external incubator, founding a center of excellence, and acquiring another company. You will then further iterate your innovation placemat.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies

So far you have created an innovation strategy and established a vision, SMART goals, and outcome measures. You've identified competencies such as lean startup, makerspace, and design thinking, and selected tools to build an innovation culture. Now you will learn how to implement your strategy. After you map key internal stakeholders, you will devise a campaign plan for your strategy and build a dedicated team. You will understand the different motivations of your innovation shop and “the performance engine” and learn to work effectively with performance engine team members. You will further build out your innovation placemat with your implementation plan, identifying policies that can enhance innovation at your organization.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies
• Innovation Tools

In this course, you will devise a strategy to manage a portfolio of innovation projects at your organization. You will examine best practices for portfolio management and establish a plan to spread your innovation and innovation culture. Then you will examine typical risks to your scaling strategy and establish a sustainment plan. Finally, you will revise your innovation placemat and present a practice pitch. This activity will prepare you to pitch your innovation placemat at your organization.

The following courses are required to be completed before taking this course:

• Developing Innovation Strategy
• Building Innovation Competencies
• Innovation Tools
• Implementing Innovation

To be an effective leader, you must be able to articulate your thoughts and positions in a clear and concise manner.

Professor Angela Noble-Grange of Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management draws on her own extensive experience as a speaker and communicator to guide students through the preparation and delivery process. She discusses how to identify the communication purpose and analyze your expected audience. She then shares how to formulate and rehearse your message, including how to pay attention to nonverbal communication.

To fine-tune these skills, this course includes interacting with fellow students. Students will participate in discussion forums and will record and share a video of a short presentation that serves as the course project. This provides rich opportunities for students to hone their communication and presentation skills in a practical way, and to learn from the efforts of others.

Success in business often depends on the ability to influence others and gain their support for your objectives, but it takes more than charisma to win over your leaders or colleagues. Persuasive writing can help you present your case in a way that will secure critical stakeholder support.

This course will help you gain and strengthen your persuasive writing skills. You will be guided through the process of narrowing your objective to a very specific "ask," analyzing your audience to know how to appeal to their sense of reason as well as their emotions, and then building the evidence that you will use to present your case.

You will examine how to create a one-page proposal, step by step, and delve into basic design principles to maximize your writing's impact. Since electronic communication is so predominant in today's business world, you will also discover how to transform your proposal into an email. Through this course, you'll be on your way to becoming a stronger writer and business professional.

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Leadership Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium in which we’ll discuss the ways that leaders across industries have continued engaging their teams over the past two years while pivoting in strategic ways. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to relevant topics for leaders. Throughout this Symposium, you will examine different areas of leadership, including innovation, strategy, and engagement. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from various industries.

Upcoming Symposium: February 11, 12 and 13, 2025 from 11am – 1pm ET

• Tuesday, February 11, 2025 11am – 1pm ET
• Wednesday, February 12, 2025 11am – 1pm ET
• Thursday, February 13, 2025 11am – 1pm ET

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.

Symposium sessions feature two days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Marketing Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium, in which we’ll share experiences from across the industry, inspiring real-time conversations about best practices, innovation, and the future of marketing work. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to some of the most pressing topics and trends in the marketing field. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from across the industry.

Upcoming Symposium: March 11th – 12th, 2025: 

• Tuesday, March 11, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET
• Wednesday, March 12, 2025 11AM – 1PM ET

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.