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Product Management

Unlocking the Power of Immersive Learning for Product Management

Published on 12 August 2024

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

6 minute read

In today’s fast-paced business environment, continuous learning is not just a luxury—it’s a necessity. But how do we move beyond traditional learning methods to something that truly makes an impact? Enter immersive learning, a game-changing approach designed to not only impart knowledge but also drive real-world application and transformation within organizations.

What is Immersive Learning?

Immersive learning is about more than just delivering content; it’s a holistic approach that integrates learning with practical application over an extended period. This approach allows participants to deeply engage with the material, ensuring that they not only understand new concepts but also know how to apply them in their day-to-day work.

Key Features of Immersive Learning:

Extended Learning Periods: Instead of cramming knowledge into a short timeframe, immersive learning stretches over weeks or even months.
Practical Application: Participants are encouraged to apply what they’ve learned to their actual work environments, bridging the gap between theory and practice.
Outcome-Based Assignments: Each learning module is accompanied by assignments that are directly tied to achieving specific outcomes within the organization.

Learning and Application Through Outcome-Based Assignments

One of the most powerful aspects of immersive learning is its focus on outcome-based assignments. After each learning session, participants are tasked with applying what they’ve learned to their own organizations. This is where the real magic happens—it’s not just about acquiring knowledge; it’s about using that knowledge to drive meaningful change.

Example: Product Management in Sri Lanka

Let me share a personal example to illustrate this. Recently, I conducted the third session of a product management mentorship program for a company in Sri Lanka. During this session, we focused on the concept of value—how to understand it, measure it, and communicate it effectively.

Learning Session: We discussed various tools like the value pyramid, evidence-based management, and flow metrics. The participants were highly engaged, driving the conversation and bringing up relevant challenges they face in their daily work.
Outcome-Based Assignment: After the session, their assignment was to analyze the metrics currently used in their organization. They needed to evaluate how these metrics impact decision-making and whether they truly reflect the value being delivered.

This exercise wasn’t just about gathering data—it was about sparking conversations within their teams. They began questioning the effectiveness of their current metrics and discussing potential improvements. This is where the real learning took place, as they started to see the practical implications of the concepts we discussed.

Focusing on Value and Evidence-Based Management

Understanding and measuring value is crucial in product management, but it’s often easier said than done. Many organizations fall into the trap of relying on vanity metrics—numbers that look impressive on the surface but don’t actually contribute to meaningful outcomes.

The Pitfalls of Vanity Metrics:

Velocity: It’s easy to get caught up in the speed of work, but does a higher velocity truly indicate better value delivery?
Story Points: While useful in some contexts, story points can sometimes become a goal in themselves rather than a means to an end.

In our immersive learning program, we challenge participants to go beyond these surface-level metrics. By focusing on evidence-based management, we encourage them to look at the metrics that genuinely matter—those that provide insights into customer value, predictability, and overall organizational effectiveness.

Encouraging Organizational Change Through Conversations

One of the most rewarding outcomes of the immersive learning approach is the conversations it sparks within organizations. After participants complete their assignments, they often return with stories of the discussions they’ve had with their colleagues.

Real-World Impact: A Case Study

In the Sri Lankan product management program, the participants didn’t just complete their assignments—they initiated meaningful conversations about the metrics their organization uses. They began to question whether these metrics were truly serving their intended purpose and explored ways to optimize them.

Conversations: Participants started dialogues about the relevance of their metrics, engaging with both their peers and higher management.
Challenges: Some were met with resistance—being told to “stay in your lane” or that certain topics were “above their pay grade.” But even these challenges are valuable learning experiences. They highlight the cultural and organizational barriers that need to be addressed for true change to occur.

These conversations are the seeds of change. Even if the organization doesn’t immediately adopt new practices, the discussions lay the groundwork for future improvements. By revisiting these topics in subsequent sessions, we reinforce the importance of continuous reflection and adaptation.

Reflective Sessions and Continuous Learning

Reflective sessions are a cornerstone of the immersive learning approach. After participants have had time to apply their new knowledge and engage in conversations within their organization, we reconvene to discuss their experiences.

What Happens in Reflective Sessions:

Sharing Experiences: Participants share what worked, what didn’t, and what they learned from the process.
Problem-Solving: As a group, we explore potential solutions to the challenges they encountered.
Continuous Improvement: The goal is not just to solve immediate problems but to foster a mindset of continuous improvement. Over time, participants become more adept at identifying opportunities for growth and implementing effective changes.

Overcoming Challenges in Product Management

Immersive learning is not without its challenges. Participants may face resistance within their organizations, or they may struggle to apply new concepts in complex environments. However, these challenges are an integral part of the learning process.

Strategies for Success:

Facilitated Reflection: By providing a structured environment for reflection, we help participants process their experiences and draw valuable lessons from them.
Encouraging Persistence: Change doesn’t happen overnight. We emphasize the importance of persistence and encourage participants to keep pushing for improvements, even in the face of obstacles.

Enabling Long-Term Organizational Impact

The ultimate goal of immersive learning is to enable long-term, sustainable change within organizations. Each assignment, each conversation, and each reflective session is designed to build momentum toward this goal.

Key Takeaways:

Catalysts for Change: Every assignment is a catalyst for organizational change. It’s about more than just individual learning—it’s about driving transformation at a broader level.
Empowering Teams: By engaging in these immersive programs, teams become more effective in achieving their goals and delivering value to the organization.
Sustained Growth: The impact of immersive learning doesn’t end with the program. The lessons learned and the conversations started continue to influence the organization long after the program concludes.

In conclusion, immersive learning is a powerful tool for organizations looking to foster continuous improvement and drive meaningful change. By combining knowledge acquisition with practical application and reflective learning, we can help teams achieve better outcomes, not just for their projects, but for their entire organization. So, are you ready to take the plunge into immersive learning? 🌟

So the new immersive learning program for that we apply to pretty much everything we do now is designed around this idea of not just imparting knowledge, right? Not just going through some content, but it’s an immersive format where we have the content delivered over a much longer period of time. So we have a structured program over a much longer period of time, and it includes some learning. Right? We want to learn some new things, some new tools, some new techniques, some new philosophies, some new ideas.

But at the end of each of those learning sessions, even though we’ve done some exercises, perhaps practical exercises demonstrating how it might work within the context of the learning, right? We use liberating structures to help create smaller groups and have people figure out how to use the knowledge. But it’s still within the context of that group of people, right? It’s not out in your real organisation; it’s not out with your real product and your real teams and your real customers.

So at the end of each kind of learning session where we learn something new, we have an assignment, and that is an outcome-based assignment. The idea is that for each assignment, we’re trying to achieve something. So, for example, I just had the third session of the product management mentor program for a company in Sri Lanka and their product managers. We talked about value with the product managers.

The learning piece, the new information I was providing for them was, “Here’s how you can think about value. Here’s how you can understand value. Here’s how you can potentially measure value.” So we talked about evidence-based management. We talked about the value pyramid, then we talked about evidence-based management, and we talked about other metrics and stories around that.

Even people, because we were talking about metrics, they started to bring up other questions around, you know, answering that old question, “When will it be done?” So we talked a little bit about just a little bit about probabilistic forecasting and flow metrics as well, right? So they drove the learning content as well as me having a plan for what I would like them to understand.

And then the outcome-based assignment, the assignment that they’ve got is to go apply that to their organisation. Like, what metrics go out into your organisation and figure out what metrics do you currently use in your organisation? How, what do you collect? How do you use them, and how does it impact on decision-making, right? That’s the kind of core part of their assignment is to go understand what it is the company has and what the company’s doing.

But then, in addition to that, perhaps they should start a conversation about, “Do we have the right metrics? Is there a simpler way to collect the thing we’re trying to achieve? Can we optimise this?” and start having those conversations.

So the outcome from that that I’m trying to achieve is that they, as a group—so this was about 16 product managers for one company—they, as a group, either in small groups go off and have those conversations, as individuals have those conversations, or they can do it all together. I leave it up to them. But when they come back and we’re doing our facilitated reflections, the idea that I’m trying to achieve is that they understand more about what it is that their product does and how does it work and what they’re trying to achieve with it because they’ve looked at how they’re measuring their success.

They’ve looked at how they’re measuring their capability to deliver the product, and then they’re thinking about whether those are the right things they should be looking at, right? Because a lot of the time in organisations, we’re looking at the wrong things. We’re looking at the wrong data. We perhaps have vanity metrics—metrics that look great, you know, like velocity or story points—but don’t actually add any value to the conversation.

You know, we’ve managed to get our original estimate and our actuals within, you know, 10% of each other. We’re awesome! Yeah, but what value does that PR provide to the organisation? Does it actually provide any greater degree of predictability? Does it actually help the organisation understand when things will be done?

And the answer is no. But trying to figure out and have those conversations, so they’re starting to have those conversations within the organisation, not just within themselves but with other people within the organisation. So they’re starting that conversation generally in the organisation.

And then when we come back for the next session, which is usually a week later, a week or two weeks later, depending on what it is we’re doing, when we come back for that reflective session, they’re explaining what it is they did, what they managed to learn, what they discovered in their organisation as they were doing those things.

And really sharing with not just with each other, but I can help provide them with potential directions that they could take if things weren’t working for them or if things were working well, what might be possible next steps that they could try.

And hopefully, over time, they’re able to figure out a lot of those things themselves, right? When you start from a position of not necessarily understanding something, not doing it, not knowing that you have to do it, and not knowing what you’re trying to achieve with it, you need that kind of facilitated reflection to start thinking about what value it brings.

As you start understanding the value, the outcome that we’re trying to achieve and the value it provides to you and your business, you start getting more engaged with that topic. You start poking at it and pulling at threads and trying to figure that out.

So this idea of immersive learning, right? Immersive, the immersive programme. So we apply it both to our training classes and to our mentorship programmes that you have.

These outcomes will hopefully enable changes within your organisation. So there’s no guarantees for anything, right? Absolutely no guarantees for anything. Your organisation could completely ignore everything you’re trying to do. But I find that this type of engagement has the best chance of impact because the participants are able to go start that conversation and then come back, and we can all share ideas on why did that not work? Why did people ignore you? Why did they dismiss what it was that you said?

I’ve had product managers come back, and they’ve been told, “Stay in your lane, right? This is above your pay grade. You know, you need to stay out of this,” when in fact it’s something that somebody who is a product manager should be heavily involved in and heavily engaged in. Where do the requirements come from, right?

So each of those assignments is designed to be a catalyst for change within the organisation through conversation and discussion within that organisation. And what we want to be able to do is enable the teams and people within the organisation to be able to become more effective, right? By having those conversations, discussing those things, hopefully, we’ll even make small changes or at least plant the seeds for changes and then start them growing over multiple sessions, right?

Because we come back around on similar topics to reinforce them, and that should enable teams and people within the organisation to become more effective and be able to focus more effectively on the goals that they’re trying to achieve and hopefully have better outcomes for their team, for the people, for the organisation, and for the business.

Discovery and Learning Metrics and Learning Change Management People and Process Ability to Innovate Continuous Learning Evidence Based Management Pragmatic Thinking Value Delivery Agile Product Management

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