Incorporating Product Management Principles Into Your L&D Approach: A 5-Step Framework by Anne-Marie Burbidge

Viewing an L&D approach with a product management lens is growing in prominence due to its focus on delivering demonstrable and meaningful results.

But what does a combined product management and learning and development approach look like? And how is it different and better than traditional L&D methods at reaching desired outcomes?

In this podcast recap, I speak with Anne-Marie Burbidge who has been applying the principles of product management to her L&D strategy to answer these critical questions. We discuss how Anne-Marie was inspired to apply product management techniques, how she set about implementing them, and where she first began. Check out the full episode here.

Anne-Marie has 15 years experience of running L&D teams and has in this time cultivated an interest in adopting Agile principles to understand how data can help L&D professionals. Her experience has taught her to use a range of tools and approaches to understand what's really going in order to grow capability and confidence effectively.

So, what was Anne-Marie’s inspiration for exploring and introducing a product management approach in her L&D practice? Read on to find out.

The inspiration behind a L&D-product management approach

Anne-Marie begins by describing the importance of prioritizing user research to solve business problems. She started researching product management because it was how the business around her worked.

“In tech marketing,” she says, “they're thinking about consumer or customer products. So, this language around iteration, sprints and sprint mapping, backlogs, and use cases–this was just language that was around me. Then I started exploring more of what that looked like and how I could implement it within areas of my control.”

In applying the product management approach, Anne-Marie finds that everything is in play because you’re looking to understand the problem and who’s experiencing it. You can come up with a product or service that helps people whilst they’re in the flow of their day-to-day business.

So, how do you get started? Read on to hear how Anne-Marie kick-started her product management approach in her L&D roles.

5 steps to incorporate product management techniques into L&D strategies

Anne-Marie’s steps for introducing a product management approach in L&D begin by understanding the journey that people are on within their organizations.

1. Map the employee lifecycle

First, Anne-Marie started by understanding and mapping the employee lifecycle within the organization to understand her audience.

“Of course,” she says, “there are nuances for everybody, every journey, every career, but there are certain things that every employee will do. Everybody joins the organization at some point, and you need to onboard them but also take the opportunity to learn from new starters.”

2. Understand the organization’s goals and matrix

Next, Anne-Marie explains that it’s important to understand the goals of the business and what teams are doing to deliver on those objectives.

“What is their strategy for how they are going to deliver these business deliverables?” says Anne-Maire, “ and how do different teams and the parts of the organization work together? Who's dependent on who, for what, when, and what does that look like? Understanding the matrix that is an organization and its purpose is fundamental.”

3. Start with a product that is within your control

In this stage, Anne-Marie begins researching the idea of implementing a more structured product approach within the L&D team. To that end, they started with a product that was within their control.

“Onboarding was something that we were responsible for,” she says. “So we started speaking to users and obtaining market research. We asked questions like: what's it like being a new starter here? What questions have you got? What do you want to know? What do you wish you had that you didn't have?”

Once the team had all the rich information they needed, they started breaking it down.

4. Prioritize themes or issues identified in the backlog

Anne-Marie and her team now had a deeper understanding of the work they could do to make an impact.

“This is where the concept of a backlog (a product management principle) starts to come in,” she says, “this is all the work we could do. But you need a way of refining, prioritizing, and understanding it: the concept of impact versus effort. Then it starts to come into how prominent is this as a problem and how easy is it for us to solve?”

Once you’ve got all the options, the obvious challenges start to float to the surface which you can work to solve rapidly because you are aware of what the business and the audience are trying to achieve.

5. Iterate as you go

“One of the real spirits of developing and launching products is the focus on iteration,” Anne-Marie explains. “It means that you don't disappear. You don't do this piece of research then disappear underground for six months and then come up and say, ‘Here is our new onboarding program’.”

For example, Anne-Marie and her team gathered all the questions people asked when onboarded and released those incrementally as they answered them.

“So, no one's waiting for the answer until you've answered all the questions,” she says. “Get the answer out now. That's an easy fix and not a training course on what to wear on your first day of work. It’s an email to somebody the week before they start when they are likely to have some questions.”

Those are Anne-Marie’s five steps to kick-start a product management approach in L&D, but where do you start in terms of making the biggest impact?

Where to start when implementing a product management approach?

Anne-Maire explains that a lot of performance support, development, or risks that people encounter happen at transition points.

The points of real change, transition, or shift are where people are often bumping into the most obvious challenge and therefore where the project you are delivering is of most value. “It's about being there with something that you feel is going to solve the problem and then getting feedback and iterating.”

“And of course, the other part that hinges on is understanding what the problem is. You've got to understand what good looks like. You've got to understand what people are trying to do. You've got to understand how people would describe high performance in this area.”

Test to see if you’re having an impact

The question to ask is: what’s the minimum thing you can do to test if you’re onto something, rather than spending ages building something that may or may not work,

“Get something out there quickly and then you've got more data to go off that helps you hone, refine and iterate,” says Anne-Marie.

By looking at the problems people are experiencing, you might be able to solve multiple problems at the same time by creating that backlog.

The question to ask is: what’s the minimum thing you can do to test if you’re onto something, rather than spending ages building something that may or may not work.

“What that backlog does is give real clarity around what you could do, and then having those conversations,” says Anne-Marie. “What do we think is going to be a high priority for us this year? Then quarterly checking on your progress.”

It’s about outcomes and performance, not input

What’s key, as Anne-Maire explains, is understanding that it’s about the outcome and performance, and not about the input.

“So, building those capabilities around asking good questions and understanding the business,” she says, “because this is foundational stuff that applies almost irrespective of the problem that presents itself. You’ve got to know what the priorities are as an organization. What the challenges are. What the business-level data is telling us.”

Lastly, Anne-Marie encourages anyone looking to explore this approach to consider why you’re looking to explore it, why it’s important, and why you’re doing it. By doing so, you can feel confident and comfortable going into conversations with stakeholders and asking those evidence-based questions, and exploring outcome and performance-based solutions.

Thanks to Anne-Marie for sharing her product management in L&D approach and experience with us! Excited about learning from more L&D experts? Check out my discussion with Filip Lam on driving better learning outcomes with smart tech and automation.

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