From training to transformation: 5 signs your product management investment isn’t delivering results

You know that post-training glow? Everyone’s fired up, talking frameworks, and ready to work smarter.

And then… life happens. Deadlines hit. Bad habits creep back. The energy fades.

Without the right follow-through in the workplace, even the best training risks becoming just a good intention that doesn’t translate into behavior change and better results.

If you’ve committed time, money, and energy into developing your product teams, but you’re not seeing meaningful changes, you’re not alone. According to the 70/20/10 learning model, most learning happens on the job.  Skills acquired during training are the essential foundations—but lasting change comes from applying those skills daily on the job and learning socially from peers, mentors, and managers.

The challenge? Many organizations stop after the training event, and don’t follow through in the workplace. This means new skills may not be consistently applied, drastically reducing business impact.

🚩 Five warning signs your training investment is at risk

1. New techniques aren’t showing up in the day-to-day

Your team left the training course energized and full of ideas—but weeks later, you’re still seeing the same old habits. Roadmaps remain vague. Stakeholder meetings feel like status updates. Decision-making lacks structure.

💡 Action steps: Create deliberate opportunities within your existing workflow. Identify upcoming decisions or deliverables where specific training concepts or materials must be applied. For example:

• Oversee a prioritization session requiring your newly agreed approach.
• Request roadmaps follow standardized format with clear connections to customer value.

2. Managers can’t describe specific improvements

Ask a product people manager what’s different since the training, and you may get blank stares or general comments like “they seemed to enjoy it.” If managers can’t recognize new behaviors or improvements, they can’t effectively support or sustain them.

💡 Action steps: Equip managers with concrete people development skills and tools that can support long-term growth.  Include team leaders in training course customization to ensure relevance and buy-in. Consider providing them with:

• Observation guides: One-page checklists for managers to evaluate how product managers apply training concepts during real work activities.
• Feedback frameworks: Structured approaches to deliver targeted feedback specifically connected to product management skills covered in training.
• Coaching conversation prompts: Simple discussion starters for 1-to-1 discussions or development conversations, that keep training concepts alive through regular dialogue about current work.
• Modeling best practices: Managers demonstrating trained techniques in their own work, showing commitment and creating safety for teams to adopt new approaches.

3. No shared product language across teams

One team’s using OKRs, another fixates on MVPs, and no one agrees on what “discovery” actually entails. Without common understanding of product management language, approaches and mindset, collaboration suffers, and misalignments lead to poor outcomes. Training should unify—not fragment—your product culture.

💡 Action steps: Standardize your product management approach across teams:

• Invest in training that establishes common concepts, practices, and vocabulary.
• Consider developing a ‘Product Book’ outlining expectations for product managers.
• Use standardized templates for key deliverables (vision, strategies, roadmaps, etc.).
• Schedule team sessions where product managers present work in agreed formats.

This consistency creates a foundation for collaboration and collective improvement.

4. Training materials are unused and gather digital dust

If frameworks, canvases, or templates aren’t being referenced, they either weren’t practical enough or haven’t been integrated into processes and daily work. New habits and skills require repetition to become embedded.

💡 Action steps:

• Make it easy to access, revisit, and apply tools, templates, and frameworks.
• Establish clear triggers within your processes/workflows to use specific tools — e.g., “Before any discovery phase, complete this canvas”.
• Regularly audit which resources are being used and refine accordingly.

Make the right way the easy way by embedding resources precisely where teams need them—create triggers and prompts to use them in context.

5. You can’t connect training to business impact

Here’s the crucial one. If you can’t trace how your product training influenced key items that matter to you e.g., time-to-market, product quality, or customer outcomes, you’re missing the strategic link between learning and performance.

💡 Action steps: Implement some before-and-after measurements:

• Use a maturity model to benchmark your product organization.
• Conduct a competency assessment with your PMs—spot strengths and opportunities to improve.
• Track metrics that matter to you (time to market, customer satisfaction, etc.).
• Share and celebrate progress or ‘bright spots’ to reinforce the value of continuous improvement.

Training as sustained transformation—not an event

If any of these signs resonate with you, it’s time to rethink your approach. Training shouldn’t be a box to check—it should be a catalyst for transformation.

The 70/20/10 model reminds us that learning doesn’t end after the training course finishes. It happens through application, experimentation, feedback, and collaboration in your team’s everyday work.

Your role as a leader is to ensure:

• Product managers have structured opportunities to apply new skills.
• People managers are equipped to coach and reinforce best practices.
• Systems and processes support (rather than hinder) improved ways of working.
• Progress is measured in terms that matter to your team and business.

From knowledge to results: The Product Focus approach

At Product Focus, we don’t just train world-class product managers—we transform product organizations. We help you embed sustainable skills that drive real business results long after the training ends.

Request a consultation to align training with your strategic goals and uplift your team’s full potential.

Let’s transform product management capability into business performance.

P.S. Get more great ideas and read our white paper: “Maximizing the impact of product management training and development.”