In today’s fast-moving and unpredictable business environment, the ability to lead projects with clarity, adaptability, and strategic thinking is a vital asset. The Product Manager program is designed to prepare emerging professionals to work effectively in cross-functional teams, manage change, and deliver results, while always aligning with business goals.

By working with our students, businesses gain support on real projects, from early-stage scoping and idea development to implementation planning and stakeholder communication. Students bring fresh perspectives, structured workflows, and modern tools to help organisations move forward, whether that means validating a concept, improving a process, or accelerating a strategic initiative. 

• Explain how business and revenue models inform product strategy, market positioning, and return on investment.
• Apply product discovery methods to identify user needs and support data-informed product decision-making.
• Assess how Agile and Scrum methodologies can be adopted to support product development in different organisational contexts.
• Pitch strategic product concepts and recommendations to relevant stakeholders to gain alignment, engagement, and buy-in.

This course offers a unique opportunity for students to collaborate directly with real businesses on live challenges that reflect the complexities of today’s market. Each such a project is co-designed with the client, who brings a current need, idea, or opportunity into the process, such as improving internal workflows, exploring a new service concept, or aligning cross-functional teams around a shared goal. From there, student teams take ownership of shaping and driving the project forward, applying agile methods, user insights, and strategic thinking - all in communication with the clients.

For businesses, this collaboration offers structured support in moving an initiative forward with fresh energy and a new perspective. Students are guided throughout by Hyper Island learning designers and active industry professionals who ensure quality, focus, and alignment. The process includes regular check-ins, transparent communication, and room for iteration based on ongoing feedback. While outcomes will vary depending on the scope, the emphasis is on creating tangible value: helping businesses test ideas, clarify direction, or identify new opportunities in a fast, collaborative, and insight-driven way.

In summary this partnership gives businesses access to fresh thinking and new talent while offering students a meaningful, real-world challenge. Clients benefit from structured, collaborative work that brings momentum to existing initiatives, or sparks new ones, without a heavy investment of time or resources. Meanwhile, students develop essential capabilities in leadership, communication, and solution design within a professional context.

Project outcomes vary based on the brief and scope, but typically may fall into one of these levels (or all of them if time permits):

Strategic Insights & Recommendations - students analyse your current situation (an audit) and deliver clear insights, opportunity areas, and actionable recommendations, presented in a final report or presentation.

Product or Process Improvement - students explore ways to enhance an existing product, service, or workflow around a product, offering new features, optimised processes, and tested concepts aligned with user and business needs.

New Concept Development - students design a new product, service, or digital solution from the ground up, including user journeys, prototypes, and go-to-market ideas tailored to your context.

While specific deliverables are defined by the student team in collaboration with the client, it is the students who lead the work, take ownership of the process, and shape the results. Hyper Island staff, industry leaders, and mentors provide the tools, mindset, and guidance needed to navigate complexity, but it is up to the students to drive progress, stay aligned with the brief, and deliver outcomes that create value.

In this collaborative experience the students will apply a Design Thinking approach following the process of empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test alongside the Hyper Island Experience Based Learning process of doing, reflecting, generalising and applying. In connection with this, the client will take an active role in providing feedback-loops and anchoring the process and progress of the work to their business needs.

Meetings: The client and the student team are expected to meet at least once a week.