TRAINING

Continuing Product Education

In 2022, I started product education working towards becoming a Product Manager. I applied for Disney’s CODE:Roise program and was a finalist.

Application Process & General Assembly

CODE:Roise is Disney’s women in tech career pivot program. The first phase in the application process was to make a video, pitching why switching careers to Product Management would be beneficial for the potential candidate. Once accepted into Phase II, we had to take a six-part Digital Foundations course and create a product task using a made-up data set and one of Disney’s current digital products. Phase III, the final phase, was the interview round where you had to walk through your product tasks and why it was beneficial for the business you chose to consider it. I made it all three phases of the CODE:Roise program and was a finalist, but ultimately not chosen for the program. Below is a brief walk through of my product task:

THE PROBLEM
We had to be able to read the data set (which was a generic one given to every applicant in this phase) and use the data set to identify the product’s issue needing to be solved. In this case, I had chosen the ESPN app and then had to use the data set to build solution for my deduced or assumed problem.

SURVEY RESULTS
I then did user surveys, reaching out to my most avid sports fan friends who I knew used the ESPN app for their daily sports coverage. Using the data set and the user research, I proposed my hypothesis: There was an engagement decline amongst male sports fans.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS & DESIGN CRITIQUE
Using the survey results and the data set, I had to come up with a proposed solution. I did a competitive analysis and a design critique to look at what other apps offered that ESPN didn’t. In the real world, I’d like to supplement this with more in-depth user interviews that went through both app usage and product competitor usage.

OPPORTUNITY AREA
I determined that the opportunity was to update to a simpler user experience that had more personalization — putting the games, teams, and articles up higher on the scroll that was more specific to what the user cared about.

USER FLOWS & PROOF OF CONCEPT
I created a new user flow to align with my proposed solution and created high-fidelity wireframes to illustrate my choices.

SUCCESS METRICS
Lastly, we had to determine how we would build the success metrics. I used research from interviews as a bar for engagement and user adoption.

Learnings

  • The General Assembly course covered digital marketing, UX design, agile project management, data and analytics, and product processes. I realized that I had learned much of this already through my 5 years at Movies Anywhere, working on a cross-functional team within a matrix reporting structure. The team I led worked directly with Product, Product Design, Data & Analytics, and Business Development to build out product features, bug fixes, platform integrations, retailer partnerships, and visual design elements. I wish that someone had sent me to this class when I first started at Movies Anywhere because I learned so much through trial and error.

  • Product Management was a good direction for my career is that I enjoy using research to build out strategy and direction to create business impact. I want a role that is autonomous and ambitious.