Product management training firms are a dime a dozen.

There are thousands of organizations that offer product management training.

Organizations range anywhere from large training firms, specialists, and boutique consultancies. Each one providing training that can take just a few hours to over 6 weeks to complete.

And if that is not confusing enough, costs can range anywhere between $50 to $10,000 per student.

Given all this noise, how do you pick the perfect training partner?

You could do what most organizations do.

Find the 2 – 3 most popular product management training organizations (through word of mouth / Google search), buy their standard services, and then hope.

Hope that the training will be enough to help upskill their product managers and install a product mindset.

Unfortunately, the above approach rarely works.

I was on a call with a VP of Product recently. Her goal was simple, she wanted to upskill her current product team so that they can start building better products and experiences.

So she did what everyone else does – she bought the most popular service from a very popular provider. Unfortunately, by the end of the training she was lamenting that not only was the quality poor but that some of the concepts were just flat out wrong.

She shared,

“The training was a complete waste of time and money. It actually set us back on our efforts to move towards a more product centric organization.

First, the training focused on just one way of doing it, the silicon valley way, and that does not always work at a traditional large enterprise. We needed it to be customized to us, not our way or the high way attitude. Second, they threw so much at us it was hard to digest. I hope they would have focused on just a handful of key skills that we really needed. And third, the worse part, the trainer had never worked in a traditional org., so he had a hard time relating to our situation.

We picked the most popular trainer, what we really needed was some one who could take the best practices and customize it so that it can fit our situation”.

So what’s the alternative? How do you pick a product management training partner who will be your true catalyst for change?

If you are looking to make a real change so that your teams can adopt a product centric mindset and start leveraging modern product development best practices.

Consider the following 5 step approach.

#1. Begin with a self assessment:

To get the most out of training the first step is to assess the team’s current capabilities.

Doing so, delivers three key benefits.

1. Define what good looks like: Hard to upskill your team if you cant don’t have a clear vision of what good means. Here is what we use with our clients.
2. Identify key skill gaps: An assessment can provide you with a holistic perspective of where your team really is (the good, the bad, and the ugly) and what they need.
3. Provides focus: The skill gaps can then be used to help you narrow down both the type of training and the trainer you need (more on that below).

All too often, most organizations skip this step. Instead of identifying what they need and where they should focus, they jump to finding a trainer and letting them set the training agenda. No wonder they end up disappointed. Just like the VP in the above example.

As for the assessment itself. Take a look at the following three frameworks. These are my go to approaches. And of the three, if you are looking for something quick and easy, consider option 1.

#2. Narrow down to a handful of trainers:

There are three types of trainers in the market,

1. Generalist Trainers: Large training organizations that do all types of training including product management
2. Specialist Trainers: Highly specialized and focused only on PM training, and
3. Boutique Consultants: Consultants who also do training

As for which ones to partner with?

It really comes down to which one you are most comfortable with. Each has its benefits and drawbacks. There is no one right answer.

Here is my take on the three types,

I usually recommend that you stay away from generalist trainers. Generalist rarely have the talent and the experience to deliver great training. However, they are useful if you need training in a pinch (e.g. you need to burn budget before you loose it). Many of them have existing contracts with procurement, which makes buying easy. But you are sacrificing quality for convenience.

Specialist trainers are a better bet. Since you know you are getting a qualified product manager to lead the training. But not all specialists are created equal. You want to stay away from fixed / rigid training agenda (see #3 why that is a problem). And you always want to vet the trainer (see #4). You rarely ever get the big shiny name that attracted you to them in the first place.

Boutique consultants, who do both consulting and training, are in my opinion the best. Because you are getting some one who is doing the work, not just training. You just can’t beat real world experience. However the challenge with boutiques is finding them and they may not be able to scale if the goal is to train 1000s within a short period of time.

My advice, talk to a few trainers, find out who you are comfortable with, identify 2 or 3 you would like to work with, and then move to the next step.

You will know if you have discovered a good partner, if they ask you if you have completed step #1. And if you have not, the best ones will even help you assess your team before they move to step #3.

#3. Customize, Customize, Customize:

Training is not software – write once replicate a 1000 times.

Yet that is exactly what most product management training organizations do. Which is why, it is never a good idea to let the trainer set the agenda. They will always pick a cookie cutter training approach.

To get the best training experience, a better approach is to ruthlessly customize. Consider the following three steps,

1. Pick a handful of relevant topics. Use the output from the assessment (step #1) to help you create a customized agenda. No point talking about option trees and hypothesis driven development, when your team is still trying to master the basics of product discovery and experimenting.
2. Ask the trainer to go deep. Don’t just have the trainer do their regular dog and pony show. Have them go deep into the selected topics. Ask them to not just talk about theory (you can Google that). But also ask them to provide examples from their experiences and run hands on workshops. Workshops, in my opinion, is how most people learn – by doing. This is where boutiques shine.
3. Resist the temptation to try to cover everything under the sun. The human brain can only retain so much. The goal is to have the team get better at a few things.

As for how to get all this done?

Go back to the 2 – 3 partners you selected, share with them your assessment findings, and have them customize the training with you.

#4. Pick the right instructor:

The best trainers are knowledgeable, personable, and relatable.

Just because they come from digital natives like Netflix, Google, Meta etc. does not make them great.

You want someone who will connect with your team. Someone who does not have a “this is the way silicon valley does it, so you should do it that way too” attitude. But a trainer who can meet your team where they are.

This is especially important if you are a traditional organization trying to build a product mindset. You want a training partner that understands, both your world as well as digital champions. And can be the bridge between the two.

So make sure you vet the instructor, especially if you are planning to go with a large training company.

#5. Ask for post training report:

The best training organizations will give you a report at the end.

Which will not only summarize class engagement (customer satisfaction, student feedback) but also share with you their observations.

This delivers two benefits. First it keeps the training organization on their toes. Second, it provides you valuable insights (anonymously of course) on team’s strengths and weaknesses.

Remember, training is just the first step.

If your goal is to transform the way your team builds products, then I cannot stress this enough, training alone is not going to cut it.

Don’t get me wrong.

Training is important and it will help you build a foundation with your team. But if you expect them to suddenly take what they have learnt and apply it immediately, then you are sadly mistaken.

For the behaviors to take hold, the teams to adopt new ways of working, and the change to stick, you will also need to,

1. Train leadership. Because without leaders actively supporting the change, your team is not going to even attempt to do things differently
2. Provide support to drive adoption / behavior changes. Unlearning the old ways of doing things is the hardest. Training teaches your team what needs to be done, support (in all it’s form) allows them to stop doing the old and adopt the new.
3. Build new processes. If you want the change to stick, you will also need to update your processes, create new frameworks, and revamp your operating model. My advice do this last not first. Much easier to change operating model after you have proven that the new ways of working work.

For more details on how to transform your product team, check out this step by step guide to transforming your product organization.

So set your expectations straight. Don’t go in, expecting that the training will solve all your problems. Training is only the first step.

As for, how much you should expect to pay for product management training? 

The figure varies considerably.

But if you stick to the steps outlined above, expect to pay anywhere between $2,500 – $5,000 per student for a 1 – 2 day training session. 

Prices will vary based on your choice of training partners and delivery format.  As a rule of thumb, the bigger the provider the higher the cost.  

The one outliner in the above price range is the accelerator model. Here the prices really depend on duration. Expect to pay closer to management consulting rates.

One more thing….

Yes the above steps seem a lot of work, but trust me it is worth it.

If you are serious about changing “how” you build products, then finding the right training partner is critical. They can be your catalyst for change and the work they do will pay out dividends long after they have left.

Happy Building!!

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