Individual Reflection

Signing up for CS177 I didn’t have a good sense of what I was getting into but I’ve been really happy with all I’ve been able to get out of this class. From the readings to the guest speakers, I definitely have a better sense of the PM space and what exactly PMs do within companies to make teams and products successful. The most valuable portion of this class was the project work — I really enjoyed focusing on a singular product with other people in the class that were interested in CS education and working on fleshing out the details, conducting user interviews, and building a proof of concept. One thing in particular that was helpful when working on the project was the system we had in place to rotate roles. I found it *super* valuable to spend some time with my “PM hat” on and then transition to an engineering role for example. Seeing the product vision from different lenses over the course of the same quarter made for a really interesting and nuanced experience to make sure we were building the product the way we wanted to. I found that focusing our development, design, and product vision on what our users / potential customers were saying they would want from the product was the most effective way to build out the proof of concept and this is the biggest takeaway for me in terms of how to go about working on a product of this nature.