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Product Sense and the Art of Championing the Customer

A product manager is not the person who writes the longest list of features. A product champion is the person in the room who keeps asking, "Who is this for, and how will we know it helped them?" You advocate for the customer and the product inside your team, decide what to build next (and what not to), and measure whether it worked. In 2026, AI agents can draft a spec or a backlog in seconds, which makes the human part, judgement, taste and honest conversations with stakeholders, the part that matters most. This course is the P in P.I.L.O.T.: Product sense.

What you'll be able to do

Put Outcomes Before Output

Describe a product vision and strategy in plain words, and tie every piece of work to a result for a real customer, not just a shipped feature. Learn the difference between discovery (are we solving the right problem?) and delivery (are we building it well?).

Prioritise With Evidence

Use RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort), MoSCoW (Must, Should, Could, Won't) and the Kano model to rank ideas, and explain the reasoning so stakeholders can disagree with the numbers instead of with you.

Write Clear PRDs and User Stories

Turn a messy customer problem into a one-page PRD and user stories with testable acceptance criteria that a team can pick up without a meeting.

Manage Stakeholders and Say No Kindly

Keep sponsors informed, hear the loudest voices without being ruled by them, and decline requests with a respectful, evidence-based "not now, and here is why."

Measure What Matters

Pick a North Star metric, support it with a few input metrics, and read product data honestly, including the days it tells you your idea did not work.

Launch and Close the Feedback Loop

Plan a launch, collect feedback after it, and feed what you learn straight back into the roadmap so the product keeps getting better.

Your certification path ($0 from start to finish)

Work through these in order. Every step below is free to complete. Hours are rough estimates, so go at your own pace. Certificate and badge details are as published by each provider at the time of writing; confirm on the official page when you enrol.

1

Step 1: Claude 101

Provider: Anthropic Academy
You earn: Certificate of completion
Cost: Free certificate · Time: approx. 2 hours

Learn how to work with Claude day to day. You will use it in the agentic exercise below.

OPEN COURSE

2

Step 2: AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations

Provider: Anthropic Academy
You earn: Certificate of completion after a final assessment
Cost: Free certificate · Time: approx. 3 hours

A framework for collaborating with AI effectively and responsibly: how to delegate, describe a task well, and check the result. Perfect for a PM who will brief AI agents.

OPEN COURSE

3

Step 3: Product Management Basics Certification

Provider: Pendo
You earn: Verifiable, shareable digital badge (listed on Credly as a Foundational-level certification)
Cost: Free badge · Time: approx. 1 hour (6 modules, 29 lessons, short final quiz)

Covers the product manager role and the product management life cycle, from discovery through to evaluating results.

OPEN COURSE

4

Step 4: Product Owner Open Assessment

Provider: Scrum.org
You earn: A score and feedback only. This is a practice assessment, not a certification.
Cost: Free assessment (no certificate) · Time: approx. 1 hour including reading the Scrum Guide

Fifteen questions that test how you think about the Product Owner accountability. Read the Scrum Guide first, then take it and log your score in GitLab. The Scrum.org site sometimes blocks automated link checkers, so if the page does not open, search "Scrum.org Product Owner Open assessment."

OPEN ASSESSMENT

5

Step 5 (later, optional): Paid certification

Provider: Product School
You earn: Industry credential after a graded final project (for example, Product Management Foundations, 12 live hours over 3 weeks)
Cost: Paid: $2,999 for a single certification at the time of writing

Not part of your $0 path. We list it only so you know what a paid, instructor-led option costs. Your free badges and your GitLab portfolio come first.

SEE PRICE AND DETAILS

Practice in GitLab

Do these on your real project board. There is no code involved and you do not need to create a new project.

Exercise 1: Write a mini-PRD as an issue

Create an issue titled "PRD: [feature name]". In the description, use Markdown headings for: Problem, Who it is for, Goal and success metric, Out of scope, User stories and Open questions. Write acceptance criteria as a task list (- [ ] Given... when... then...) so the team can tick them off. Once it works for you, ask your coach or project maintainer to turn it into a reusable description template, since templates are stored with the project.

Exercise 2: Score five ideas with RICE

Pick five backlog items. Add scoped labels such as reach::500, impact::2, confidence::80 and effort::3. In a comment, show your sum: (Reach × Impact × Confidence) ÷ Effort. Round the result and enter it as the issue weight (weight must be a whole number), then sort your board by weight. Write one sentence on whether the top item surprised you.

Exercise 3: Build a Now / Next / Later roadmap with milestones

Create three milestones named "Now", "Next" and "Later" (give Now and Next real dates). Assign your top-ranked issues to them and write a two-line goal in each milestone description, phrased as an outcome ("customers can find X in under a minute"), not a feature list. If your group has epics (a paid GitLab tier), also look at the Roadmap view.

Exercise 4: Define your North Star in one issue

Create an issue labelled north-star with: the metric, why it reflects customer value, three input metrics you can influence, and how often you will check it. Open your issue board, add a list for that label and keep this issue as the first card so everyone sees it. Link it from each milestone description.

Exercise 5: Practise saying no

Take one request that does not fit the North Star. Add a label such as status::not-now, then comment with a kind, evidence-based reply: what you heard, what you scored it, what you chose instead, and when you will look again. Use quick actions like /label to speed it up.

The agentic angle

Claude can turn a pile of customer notes into a draft PRD, a set of user stories with acceptance criteria and a list of open questions in a minute. It can also play devil's advocate on your priorities. What it cannot do is know your customer, your team's real capacity or what your organisation is willing to bet on. Think of Claude as a fast, tireless analyst. You are still the product champion: you decide, you own the trade-offs and you explain them.

Practical exercise: Draft, critique, decide

1. Take real or realistic customer notes (interview bullets, support messages, survey comments). Remove names and anything confidential before pasting them into any AI tool.
2. Ask Claude: "Summarise the top three customer problems, quoting the notes. Then draft a one-page PRD and five user stories with acceptance criteria for the biggest problem. List what you are unsure about."
3. Paste your RICE table from Exercise 2 and ask: "Challenge this ranking. Which score looks overconfident, and what evidence would change it?"
4. In your GitLab PRD issue, add a comment titled "My decision" saying what you accepted, what you rejected from Claude's output and why. That comment is the skill you are practising.

Free resource library

Strategy and vision
Prioritisation and roadmaps
Requirements and user stories
Metrics and learning loops
GitLab how-tos

Product Champion FAQ

What does a product champion actually do?

A product champion speaks up for the customer and the product inside the team. They find the right problems, decide priorities, write down what "done" means, and check afterwards whether the work helped.

No. Curiosity about customers and clear writing matter far more. You will learn enough technical vocabulary on the job by asking good questions.

Yes. Steps 1 to 4 cost nothing. Step 5 is a paid option we list only for information, and you do not need it to complete this course.

Start with RICE when you have numbers to compare, MoSCoW when you need to agree scope for a release, and Kano when you are deciding what delights customers. No framework replaces judgement; they just make your reasoning visible.

AI will do more of the drafting and analysing. Deciding what matters, building trust with customers and stakeholders, and being accountable for the outcome stay human work, which is why this course trains judgement alongside the tools.

Track your progress

Log each step as a to-do in your GitLab workspace: add one issue per step with the label learning::pilot, and close it when you have earned the certificate or badge. Paste your certificate link into the issue so your progress is easy to share with your coach.

Learners collaborating on a project
BACK TO PILOT PROGRAM BOOK A COACH

Your 12-week PILOT path: Week 3 of 12. Move at your own pace; the order is a suggestion, not a rule.

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