Forward Deployed Product Manager

The complete guide

The course →

The whole playbook in writing — 11 chapters, 67 sections, diagrams included. Free to read, no account needed. The hands-on sessions, exercises and practice live inside the course.

Chapters

  1. 1. The Role, Economics & Rhythm

    Understand the FDPM/FDE operating model and economics.

    The Field Product Function · Deployment Economics · Operating Rhythm & Sustainability

  2. 2. Workflow Discovery & Domain Speed

    Map real customer workflows and establish data readiness.

    Mapping the real workflow · Operator vs buyer vs champion · Non-leading discovery · Credible in a new domain in 10 days · Data readiness

  3. 3. ICP & Account Architecture

    Qualify accounts and map stakeholder power/incentives.

    ICP layers & scoring · Anti-ICP & disqualifiers · ICP as capacity allocation · Stakeholder & political mapping

  4. 4. GenAI & Technical Fluency

    Build practical fluency across GenAI, APIs, MCP, data and enterprise architecture.

    Generative AI fundamentals · Model selection · APIs, webhooks & integrations · Tool calling · MCP fundamentals · MCP integration design · Data & architecture literacy · Data handling, privacy & residency · Security & enterprise constraints · Production architecture

  5. 5. AI Product Judgment

    Choose and prototype the right AI approach: prompting, RAG, tools, MCP and agents.

    Prompting fundamentals · Advanced prompting · Context engineering · Prompt evaluation · RAG fundamentals · RAG architecture & diagnosis · Choosing the lever · Structured outputs & workflow seam · Agent vs workflow · Agent architecture · Prototype to settle an argument

  6. 6. Evaluation, Safety & Production Readiness

    Prove quality, safety, governance, observability and production readiness.

    Eval design & reading · Evaluation methodology · Prompt injection & adversarial testing · Guardrails, fallback & human-in-the-loop · Token economics & model economics · Model selection & versioning · Governance & auditability · Observability · Incident response

  7. 7. Pre-Sales & Commercial Scoping

    Turn customer discovery into a shippable and commercially defensible engagement.

    Technical discovery in the sales cycle · Problem to shippable units · KPIs, milestones & gates · SOW & commercial scoping · Acceptance criteria & change control

  8. 8. Workshops, Executives & Refusal

    Align stakeholders, advise executives and manage resistance.

    Facilitating use-case workshops · VP/C-level advisory · Saying no · Stakeholder alignment · Organisational resistance

  9. 9. Delivery, Triage & Recovery

    Operate multiple deployments and recover failing AI systems.

    Multi-account triage · Blocker diagnosis · AI failure diagnosis · Post-launch iteration & recovery

  10. 10. Generalization & Product Input

    Convert field learning into reusable assets and high-signal product input.

    Config vs service vs product · High-signal product input · Patterns to reusable assets · Product feedback loop

  11. 11. Adoption, Commercial & Exit

    Drive adoption, quantify value, expand accounts and transfer ownership.

    Change management & user adoption · Business value measurement · ROI & value narrative · Expansion from delivered value · Account strategy · Pricing & margin discipline · Capability transfer

Ready to actually do the work?

The guide gives you the map. The course gives you the workspace — practice, tools and feedback on every session.

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