We had a good response to last month’s survey about career development; it’s not surprising, coming from readers of a newsletter for professional development!  It’s also not surprising that readers read… books, that is.

Second-ranked are free or low-cost educational webinars, indicated by 47% as a source of career guidance. For the detail that books lack, and for training that doesn’t stretch the budget, webinars are the next logical step.  Pivotal PM’s most popular recorded webinars are available here.

Professional training — in person and online — ranked third, the choice of 41% of respondents.  These are the PMs who strive to be the best in their fields.  The “Product Management Intensive™” is coming up on September 30, and there’s still room for you!

We hoped to see more PMs leveraging local university classes, either on campus or online, but we suspect that in many regions academia hasn’t kept up with our fast-changing profession. The Software Product Management Certificate Program we teach at the University of Washington is a model that we hope other universities will adopt.

Note that some respondents selected more than one choice, so the total exceeds 100%.

Tags: Product manager career