Why Team Training is Key to Product Organization Change, According to Melissa Perri

In a recent LinkedIn post, Melissa Perri discusses a common pitfall in organizational change initiatives within product teams: the limitations of sending a single product manager to training. Perri, founder of Product Institute, argues that this approach, while well-intentioned, is often the slowest and least effective way to foster lasting change in how a company develops and manages its products.

Perri highlights a recurring pattern she’s observed:

Sending your best PM to training is the slowest way to change how product works at your company.

She elaborates on the challenges faced by an individual returning from such training, explaining that their newfound knowledge often gets diluted through translation and compromise within the existing organizational structure. This leads to a situation where the intended impact is significantly diminished.

The Need for Shared Organizational Capability

Melissa Perri emphasizes that true organizational capability is built on a foundation of shared understanding and practices. According to Perri, a new methodology or framework only becomes embedded when it’s adopted collectively, eliminating the need for constant explanation and translation by a single individual.

“Organizational capability needs shared language, shared frameworks, and shared practice,” Perri writes. “A new approach only sticks when the people using it don’t have to explain it.”

This distinction, Perri argues, is crucial in understanding the difference between individual learning and genuine organizational transformation. While individual training offers linear improvements, team-wide training offers compounding benefits.

Individual Learning vs. Team Compounding

Perri contrasts the outcomes of these two training models:

Individual training adds linearly. One person, a little bit sharper. Team training compounds. Everyone speaks the same dialect of product, which means faster communication, better decisions, and peer accountability that doesn’t need a manager in the room.

This shared language, as Perri points out, fosters better decision-making and creates a system of peer accountability. When an entire team is aligned on product principles and practices, communication becomes more fluid, and the collective intelligence of the team can be leveraged more effectively, reducing reliance on management oversight for day-to-day alignment.

The Product Institute’s Approach to Team Training

Leveraging her observations and expertise, Melissa Perri explains that Product Institute has developed team license options specifically to address this organizational challenge. She posits that serious commitment to changing product organization operations necessitates training multiple individuals simultaneously.

“This is why we built team license options at Product Institute,” Perri states. “If you’re serious about changing how your product organization operates, it starts with training more than one person at a time.”

Perri concludes by prompting readers to consider which of their teams might benefit most from establishing a shared language and framework for product development, reinforcing the idea that collective learning is the most potent driver of organizational change.