I moved into a Product Practice Leadership position in my current company, and what you are saying very closely align with how we have been approaching PM learning. We actively teach towards principles by demonstrating different tools/methods, with contextually relevant tailoring, and pair it with a small cohort ~9-12 class size. We have found it to be extremely effective in building foundational skills and accelerating skill growth.
I love the framing of declining PMF, but I don't think it's the course-based format that's the issue, but rather the delivery organized around the instructor, teaching a bunch of students from different companies
I think an emerging format is tailored courses (with pre-work from the course instructors) delivered to product org (and maybe key partners) with follow on advisory / coaching services
Your point about "pay for my own courses and hopefully get a raise" is a very relevant signal - I've seen this from a lot of PMs and that tells me that some new content format / price point / delivery mechanism is due to emerge that addresses this need
I moved into a Product Practice Leadership position in my current company, and what you are saying very closely align with how we have been approaching PM learning. We actively teach towards principles by demonstrating different tools/methods, with contextually relevant tailoring, and pair it with a small cohort ~9-12 class size. We have found it to be extremely effective in building foundational skills and accelerating skill growth.
Would love to chat about it more.
I'd be happy to chat! Send me a note on LinkedIn or a message via Substack?
What I’ve observed personally is the declining PMF of course-based learning:
On one hand, there is rising cost of in-depth courses like Reforge, which often exceeds the company’s PD budget.
On the other hand, there is increasing demand for tangible business ROI.
What I started doing is a combination of
• bite-sized learning
• take on more projects to learn on the job
• take on more community building (hard for an introvert)
• pay for my own courses and hopefully get a raise.
Curious what others are doing 🧐
I love the framing of declining PMF, but I don't think it's the course-based format that's the issue, but rather the delivery organized around the instructor, teaching a bunch of students from different companies
I think an emerging format is tailored courses (with pre-work from the course instructors) delivered to product org (and maybe key partners) with follow on advisory / coaching services
Your point about "pay for my own courses and hopefully get a raise" is a very relevant signal - I've seen this from a lot of PMs and that tells me that some new content format / price point / delivery mechanism is due to emerge that addresses this need