Professional Product Management (PPM): Product Discovery & Product Design
24 May, 2027 – Hilversum, The Netherlands
Many product teams are still stuck in a delivery system; quickly delivering what’s being asked for. And then, in practice what was delivered isn’t always what the user had in mind. In this two-day training you learn to reduce uncertainty before you start building. You work on your own product and by the end of the training you walk you with a defined problem statement, experiments to run and an AI prototype you can put to use right away!
Any questions?
Michiel will gladly help you further with any personal or in-company needs you might have.
Michiel Zeinstra
Training Advisor
Duration
2 days
Time
09:00 – 17:00 (GMT +2:00)
Language
English
Lunch
Included
Certification
Yes
Level
Professional
What will you learn?
Many product teams skip discovery or do it ad hoc. Decisions then come from stakeholder opinions, what the competition is doing, or gut feeling. That makes it no surprise that features don’t land. In Product Discovery & Design, you learn a structured, evidence-based approach. You learn to really understand your customers’ problems, you make your assumptions visible, and you test the riskiest ones first. Then you translate what you’ve learned into a concept that’s worth building. That’s how you move from product decisions based on opinions to product decisions based on evidence. Besides that being real Product Management, it also saves you a lot of time and money by not building the wrong thing!
Key takeaways
- Formulate a clear, outcome-oriented problem statement based on customer insights
- Map and prioritize assumptions
- Formulate testable hypotheses and design experiments with clear success criteria
- Turn validated insights into an AI prototype and a well-founded product decision
Program
This is not a pure theoretical training. You bring your own product and spend two days building real discovery results. So it’s a lot of hands-on application: short content blocks and above all a lot of doing it yourself, individually, in pairs and in small groups. You’ll be working hands-on about 60% of the time!
There are 2 to 4 weeks between day 1 and day 2. During that time, you apply what you’ve learned in your own work. Day 2 starts by sharing those experiences, and that’s often where the best lessons are.
We use AI where it really adds value, with an AI tool of choice. You don’t need a paid subscription, and you can also do all the exercises without AI.
- Discovery foundations: why discovery, and where does your product stand today?
- Problem framing: from the solution back to the real problem
- Customer and user insight: designing an interview, practicing it live and extracting insights
- Assumptions and risks: making your assumptions visible, challenging them and prioritizing them
- Opportunity Solution Tree: connecting it all, from desired outcome to experiment
- Looking back at your hands-on experiences from the past few weeks
- Experimentation: formulating hypotheses, designing and pitching experiments
- From concept to prototype with AI, and improving it with Human-Centered Design and Design Thinking
- Evidence and decisions: weighing insights and making a well-founded choice about what to build
- Your personal discovery strategy for the first weeks after the training
Who is it for?
This training is for product professionals who know the basics of product management and now want to do discovery really well. Think of Product Managers, Product Owners and Senior Product Managers. UX designers, service designers and product analysts who increasingly have a say in the product are also very welcome! Already doing some discovery, but missing structure? Or do you know you should be doing more of it? Then you’re in the right place.
Requirements
You have completed the PPM Product Management Bootcamp, PSPO I or PSPO-A, or have comparable experience
You have a laptop with access to an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini (optional)
You bring a real product you work on, with context about your users and the problem space
No experience with discovery frameworks, design or AI is needed
Why should I follow this training?
Real results for your own product
You go home with seven discovery results you can use right away.
From opinion to evidence
A repeatable approach to back up product decisions with evidence.
AI as a discovery accelerator
You learn where AI speeds up your discovery, and where to stay critical.
Exam and Certification
There is no exam for this training. You do receive a Xebia PPM (Professional Product Management) Certificate for this module. This training is all about what you learn and build for your own product, and you take that back to your team! Afterwards, you receive digital templates of all canvases, so you can keep working with them together with your team.
What does it look like?
What else
should I know?
After registration for this training, you will receive a confirmation email with practical information. A week before the training, we will ask you about any dietary requirements.
See you soon!
Course information
Training will consist of a healthy mix of theory, examples, and exercises
Travel & accommodation expenses are not included
Lunch is included
You work on your own product throughout, not on a fictional case
Day 2 takes place 2 to 4 weeks after day 1, so you can apply what you learned
Meet the trainers
Robbin Schuurman
Robbin Schuurman is a trainer (PST), Professional Product Management creator and product leader at Xebia Academy.
Willem Vermaak
Meet Willem Vermaak, a trainer and author at Xebia Academy. Willem is a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) and teaches you all about Product Management.
Sander Dur
Sander is Lead Agile Consultant at Xebia and a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) at Xebia Academy.
