Technical training product management encompasses the process of designing, building, operating and maintaining the training offering. Many technology-based companies apply product management techniques to ensure they are creating a training service that motivates and adds value, with the end objective to ensure the customer wants to buy and continues to apply training for business benefit.

Product management also takes into account the current marketing need, position, price and lifecycle management to ensure continued fitness for purpose over time.

This chapter looks at roles and responsibilities of employees engaged in supporting the process, including details on the specific elements and activities associated in implementing a typical product management lifecycle.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

A multi-disciplinary team normally performs product management, although this depends upon organisation size, departmental complexity and the number of products. Team members can include, for example, product developers and managers, training business development managers, training business unit owners, content developers and curriculum managers, certification specialists and training programme managers.

Normally, the training product manager or director serves as the leader of a cross functional team, in essence acting as a project leader by way of guiding, coordinating and supervising the work to deliver a training offering that launches with the technology product and remains aligned throughout its lifecycle.

Training product manager

Training product management defines the training offering. To achieve this, a product manager’s responsibilities includes the following:

• interpreting the product-based, technology-strategic goals into tactical training tasks and deliverables to ensure consistency and alignment;
• defining and planning training offerings and curricula;
• establishing strategic training direction, based on customer needs and business goals;
• obtaining senior management buy-in for proposed training plans in support of technology releases;
• gaining internal and external client feedback on needs and market opportunities;
• evaluating risks and returns on investment versus not investing in training;
• proposing contingency plans;
• managing financial modelling and business analysis;
• branding and marketing;
• launching training products and enabling sales;
• managing the training product lifecycle;
• defining and implementing quality management throughout the training product lifecycle.

The training product manager engages the following employees in the execution of their role:

• Technology/product developer: a subject matter expert who works closely with the training content developer to provide insight on the product’s features and the skills required to use or apply the technology.
• Technology product manager: responsible for technology product releases and ensuring that all service-based offerings are included for consideration and implementation within an overall offering prior to release.
• Technology design manager: provides advice on overall technology direction and works with the content curriculum manager to advise on product family direction.
• Project manager: works closely with the training product manager to ensure successful completion of the training offering lifecycle.
• Training business development manager: runs the training business at a geographic level and has valuable input into the process of new product launches.
• Training business unit owner: owns the commercial aspects of the business and is consulted regarding investment decisions.
• Training content developer: subject matter expert with responsibility to develop course objectives and course content. Both the technology product manager and training product manager sign off on course objectives. The project manager oversees overall progress.
• Content curriculum manager: responsible for managing and ensuring the development of relevant content and courses to support the broader technology family curriculum.
• Certification specialist: works closely with both the training content developer and the content curriculum manager to agree on the nature of testing (certification or accreditation) and relevancy to both customer and the company.
• Marketing specialist: responsible for developing the marketing programmes required to promote and drive both demand and lead generation activities.
• Business analyst: responsible for assessing market potential, coverage and price points for new and existing training offerings. In some training organisations this may come under the remit of the training programme manager.
• Finance specialist: works closely with the business analyst and training product manager to develop investment plans, pricing and the assessment of return on investment (ROI) potential.
• Training programme manager: responsible for managing all aspects of new and existing training offerings, including marketing requirements, sales enablement, lifecycle management and validating investment decision requests.

Training product managers are accountable to executive management for overall training direction, key decisions, training budget allocations and revenue/profits on individual training offerings. They play a lead role in ensuring a training offering aligns with technology service requirements, and evangelising training to internal and external stakeholders. They are also responsible for the lifecycle management of the training offerings. The training lifecycle comprises seven stages (see Figure 3.1).

1. concept;
2. feasibility;
3. design and planning;
4. development;
5. verification;
6. release;
7. maintenance.

Training product lifecycle management

A process used to manage the lifecycle of a training offering involving seven stages commencing with a concept phase and then: feasibility, design and planning, development, verification, release and maintenance. Explicit throughout the various stages of lifecycle management is the requirement to define and implement strong quality management. This entails quality control, quality planning, quality assurance and quality improvement.

The level of quality provided is also linked to value from the customer perspective and that of the sales team. Quality offerings help to provide confidence and boost motivation in sales teams to promote the training offering and provide confidence to customers that they are purchasing a quality product.

Initiating the concept phase of lifecycle management

All projects including training commence with a concept phase whereby the idea for the training is explored and expanded upon. The goal here is to assess the feasibility of the project.

The phase starts when either the training product management team, technology team, training business development manager or training business unit owner submits a request to the training product manager for a new training offering or modification.

In a large organisation, the training product manager or programme management office defines prioritisation of requests. This is followed by a review of the requests, by stakeholders with an interest in training, to assess the business opportunity and viability of the request in the context of relevance to the training group’s business needs and corporate strategy. Funding is allocated if the request gains approval. This is typically in the form of manpower, to undertake the feasibility phase.

Assessing business relevance via the feasibility phase

Before any investment decision can be undertaken, the training being proposed needs to be assessed in terms of its feasibility and relevance to the training business overall.

To assess business relevance, high-level training requirements are defined, including training objectives along with a proposed route to market (RTM) and go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

Once the RTM and GTM offerings are defined, ROI modelling is undertaken and balanced against the market opportunity. At this point, a business case is developed for stakeholders to review. If approved, funding to proceed to the design and planning phase is allocated to the request.

Undertaking the training offering design and planning phase

This is one of the most important phases, as it defines the structure and nature of the training offering. The high-level training requirements from the feasibility phase are used to design the overall specification of the offering, covering module content requirements and practical session needs. Other core documents are specified and completed, such as the marketing GTM requirements, training technical infrastructure descriptions, train the trainer requirements, sales and training partner enablement certification or accreditation requirements, and training operation updates.

Once these have been completed and aligned to a budget and ROI plan, they are combined into an overall planning schedule and checklist, which is then presented to the stakeholders for approval. Once approved, development of the offering starts.

Starting the development phase

This phase is where the training offering and business support functional requirements are developed with other teams, such as training instructors, working in parallel to test modules and practical sessions as they become available.

Certification exam development questions are written on a module-by-module basis. However, the final compilation and validation of the exam is not started until all the content is finalised. This is recorded in the planning document.

From the business support perspective, the project manager ensures all core planning documents and checklist activities are completed on time. Failure to complete tasks can be catastrophic. For example, if no sales enablement or technical infrastructure are in place, meeting a course launch date is seriously jeopardised.

The following set of conditions must be met before moving to the next phase of verification:

• Training offering content complete and ready for testing.
• All business support documentation and enablement programmes complete.
• Training infrastructure in place and functional.

Once the project manager has confirmed that all development items on the checklist are complete, the stakeholders are requested to approve the moving on to the verification phase.

Undertaking the verification phase

Verification, sometimes known as the testing phase, is where the developed training offering is validated and business support functions tested for their effectiveness prior to launch.

The training offering is validated for accuracy and the achievement of its objectives. A series of courses are delivered to a mix of internal employees, partners and selected customers to gain feedback. Any infrastructure changes are also tested.

Business and operational changes undergo functional and live testing to ensure operational readiness prior to deployment. Having completed quality assurance (QA) and operations readiness testing, including any change or corrective action requests, the project manager requests approval from the stakeholders to start the release phase.

Releasing training offerings

In this phase, the training delivery and the operations teams initiate and coordinate the deployment of the new or modified training offering. They work closely with marketing and sales to ensure traction and availability in the target market.

During this phase, training partners are enabled and, where appropriate, organisations are given access to any new support processes. Once deployed, the project manager and nominated training programme manager check that all aspects of the launch are complete and readily available.

Any corrections are addressed and the project manager passes control to the training programme manager, whose responsibility it is to deploy and drive the success of the new training offering.

Maintaining the lifecycle of a training offering

This is often known as the operation phase and is normally the longest of the phases, during which the training offering generates its ROI.

Sustaining the life of the new training offering requires the monitoring of sales results, customer satisfaction metrics and trends in the target market. These are then balanced against any changes to the technology that might affect its success and relevancy in the marketplace, potentially resulting in course content modifications to be implemented.

As a training offering moves towards its end of life, the training programme manager requests an orderly closing down of the product or service and instigates an agreed series of actions to ensure all relevant parties, partners and customers, are aware of its controlled removal from the market.

GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGIES

Part of the product management role is to decide what marketing strategies should be used to launch a training offering to the market. Marketing in itself covers who to sell to, what to sell and how to offer it in terms of maximising training offering penetration.

From the perspective of this section, focus is on the ‘how to offer’, which falls into the category of GTM. GTM plays a significant part in the training product management lifecycle.

GTM strategy covers:

• how training connects with its customer base;
• how unique value is delivered to customers purchasing training;
• how brand promise is fulfilled.

Spending time on developing a training GTM strategy helps the business to succeed. The challenge is in understanding which aspects the strategy can assist with, including customer profile, industry sectors, promotional channels and training accessibility. The first is one that most product managers are aware of: reducing costs associated with failed training offering launches. The second is to ensure there is an effective customer experience and a plan with clear direction defined for all elements of the product management lifecycle.

The key objective of a training GTM strategy is to improve the required business outcomes and align with the needs of the customer. To be of value and provide a template for future use and development, the training GTM strategy should cover and define these six key points:

1. Target market: for a particular training offering, decide on what markets are to be targeted.
2. Customers: decide on which customers and which industry sectors to sell to.
3. Channels: where will customers buy the training offering and how will it be promoted?
4. Training offering: what is being sold and what is the unique value being offered to the targeted customer?
5. Price: what should be charged for the training offering?
6. Positioning: how does the training offering support the brand and its relevancy to the customer?

Let’s take a more detailed look at the six key points.

Targeting markets

Not all training offerings are appropriate for every market. For example, positioning a five-day instructor-led course to traders on the stock market is not going to get much traction in an environment where time is money. However, if the offering is based around on-demand eLearning, then it has more interest and value.

Taking time to clarify in detail the ideal target market(s) is vital to maximise effectiveness and make judgement calls on where to invest development funds. Considerations include demographics, language, geography, strategic importance of the technology that training is proposed for, and the training drivers of need.

One business challenge that all training product managers are faced with is how to balance the training financial return against the need to provide a full technology product support service in the situation where the product may not have a large training target audience. It is important to balance the effects of not providing training against not getting product traction. By applying a value to both sides of the equation, it is possible to come to an amicable agreement – normally, the technology product team covering some or all of the training investment.

There are times in every market when it is not possible to attain profitability. It is therefore important to determine and locate the most profitable customers to benefit from the training offering.

When considering a target market, typical metrics to consider are the market size, growth trends, barriers to entry and the financial benefits. From a training perspective, considerations should also be given to:

• Identifying market segments with the biggest and most urgent training need.
• Identifying gaps in the market; for example, there may be comprehensive coverage of the technology at the competency level, but coverage may be lacking in showing companies how to gain business performance benefits.
• Identifying which markets are most easily reached; this helps in deciding whether a two tier (distributor/reseller) sales model and/or training partner model is required.
• Identifying which markets have the largest market size and least competition; this is crucial when considering the implication of grey market training. Large market volumes often attract competition from third-party non-authorised training partners.

Understanding customers

In order to make valid decisions on what to offer and how training should be positioned, it is important to understand how customers feel about the training in terms of how they value what is provided and what their training needs are.

This information can be obtained by running web surveys, focus groups, one-to-one interviews, or simply organising a visit with a product sales representative. For example, customers will appreciate that training addresses skills shortfalls, but other factors, such as how the technology is being applied and budgetary restrictions, can impact on the decision process and its timing. Being able to factor these considerations into the overall GTM process provides useful insight into positioning the training offering to satisfy the market and customer needs.

Channel selection

All organisations operate through channels in order to position and sell their training offerings to customers. Some channels are direct and others indirect. The level of involvement depends upon budgets, market complexity, size and geographic spread.

Direct channels include product sales, training sales, the web and trade shows. Indirect channels include distributors, resellers, value-add resellers, strategic alliances, authorised training partners and, in some instances, retail stores.

Whichever way the customer is being engaged, it is important that they have a consistent brand experience. Get this wrong and the market is confused with mixed messages and interpretations that are difficult to control, which may ultimately result in lost sales.

To be in a strong position to decide on which channels the training product manager should be targeting, the following assessment should be undertaken:

• Identify how to reach the target customers.
• Identify where the target customers normally buy.
• Identify where training offerings are to be promoted.
• Identify the right distribution model for the training offering.
• Identify how to develop the right distribution channels.
• Identify how the training offering fits with the target market and supporting channels.
• Identify how customers prefer to interact with the training group.
• Identify what level of interaction customers require from the channel.

Fitness for purpose is the key dynamic here. For example, selling a custom training solution requiring consultative selling techniques is not suitable for a high-volume product reseller or for selling via the web. A strategic alliance would not undertake the selling of public, scheduled instructor-led courses. For them, transactional selling is inappropriate.

Training offerings: value proposition

As with any product, it is important to define a training offering’s unique value proposition. Understanding the offering’s key features and benefits is the initial step, followed by understanding exactly how the training connects with the customer in terms of how it is used, the problems it solves and the benefits it provides.

Consider the following points when clarifying the nature of the training offering:

• Identify the specific customer needs that require solving.
• Decide if the training offering is feature-, function- or performance-based, or a combination.
• Identify which delivery modalities are required.
• Identify how the training is accessed.
• Identify how customers use the training offering.
• Identify the important attributes or benefits of the training offering.
• Identify how the training offering is differentiated in the marketplace. Is it disruptive?

Determine the all-important unique value proposition by considering it from the customer’s position. Consider testing thoughts and ideas with trusted customers beforehand. Key considerations should be:

• What reaction are you looking for from your customers?
• What level of trust and respect do you want?
• What importance do they place on training as a worthwhile investment?
• What is the key takeaway from the customer perspective?

Pricing

A number of factors come into play when deciding on the pricing structure for a proposed training offering. The first consideration is the estimate of the costs to develop and produce it that need to be recovered over an agreed period. This varies from company to company, but is typically an 18- to 24-month period. The next consideration is the cost of delivery, followed by cost of sales, all of which need to contribute to an agreed return on investment over the lifecycle of the offering. In addition, the pricing model should also factor in:

• Additional value associated with the offering for which customers would pay more.
• Existing price points in the market.
• Pricing training relative to other similar technology company offerings.
• Using disruptive pricing to drive competitive advantage and grow market share.
• Channel considerations; all routes to market require some form of sales incentive – the incentive needs to be part of any profitability calculation.
• Discount policies for large volume transactions.
• Number of transactions.

As with any investment decision, it is important to consider the risks and undertake financial modelling to help mitigate them and provide ideas on what strategies might be required to overcome risk in the medium to long term. Pricing is discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

Positioning training offerings

Positioning is intended to create an impression about the training offering and brand in the customer’s mind so they can relate to it specifically in a way that differentiates the offering and brand from the rest of the marketplace.

Before embarking on a unique training-related brand position, care must be given to assessing how it relates to the corporate one. With training not always seen as core business, it is important not to dilute the broader brand position message. It should be more about complementing it.

The objective is to create a unique impression in the customer’s mind that associates the training with something specific and desirable that is distinct from that of competitors.

There are a number of steps to creating a position statement:

• Obtain and understand the current corporate brand position.
• Understand how technology competitors are positioning their training brand and aligning it with their corporate branding.
• Understand the uniqueness of the proposed positioning by comparing it with other technology competitors.
• Develop the unique value-based positioning statement.

These steps allow the creation of a positioning statement that will cover target customer, market definition, compelling benefit and evidence-based results that can be delivered.

For example, if the training group was part of a company providing web services, then this positioning statement might be relevant:

For web users of Company XYZ productivity tools, we provide access to flexible training services to develop skills and competencies. As part of our commitment to success we assess business performance improvement and follow up with post-training support.

Having established a positioning statement, create tag lines. For example:

BMW: The ultimate driving machine

Intel: Look Inside

For our example, it could be ‘Performance Improvement: it’s a commitment!’

OFFERINGS AND MODALITIES

Part of the training GTM strategy covers the training offering in terms of what is sold and the unique value it offers to the targeted customer. In making decisions regarding the offering, it is important to consider the delivery modality. The nature of the delivery depends upon market need, opportunity, cost of development and expected ROI.

At a high level, training offerings can be categorised as shown in Table 3.2.

Table 3.2 Training offering categories

Offering category	Description
Course	Covers an agreed number of topics over a sequential period of time. Typically, the duration is between three to five days, but can be longer or shorter.
Subscription	Provides access to a series of training offerings for an agreed period of time for a regular payment. The payment can be monthly or annual.
Seminar	Short duration session typically covering advanced topics presented by a subject matter expert. Can be used to exchange information and hold discussions.
Lab/practical	Normally included within a course offering, but can be provided as a separate offering to assist in the reinforcement of learning.
Certification/accreditation	Theoretical or practical test to validate that learning has taken place or skills have been acquired.

Training modality relates to a number of factors, which involve the preferred learning style, budget and logistical needs of customers, all of which can be factored into a solution that optimises the learning experience. If done well, it significantly reinforces brand awareness and loyalty. Table 3.3 summarises typical approaches that are currently prevalent in the market.

Table 3.3 Technical training modalities

PACKAGING AND BUNDLING

Being able to package or bundle training is a powerful way that training product management and marketing can increase the value perceived by customers and increase sales productivity.

Packaging and bundling are terms often used interchangeably. In some circles, packaging is viewed as combining training service offerings with technology product sales, whereas bundling combines multiple training offerings. Either way, the benefits of packaging or bundling training, apart from increasing sales, also provides:

• The ability to position and sell advanced curriculum offerings that might normally have a lower volume uptake.
• Automation of the up-selling process.
• A more efficient way of using the marketing budget with more than one training offering being positioned.
• Opening up new customer prospects if training is combined with product sales or a strategic partner.
• Higher perceived value to both the sales channel and the end customer.

One of the big challenges that training has is how and when it is positioned within the product sales cycle. Often, it is left to the end when the customer has already mentally decided on the budget they are prepared to spend. One way of addressing this is to apply a little bit of psychology, by combining product and training as part of a bundled deal. This can result in influencing the buyer to think they need the combined offering or making them aware they need the training service later. It also adds value.

From a value perspective, it is important to understand what that means in the eyes of the customer. Typically, it relates to either lowering the overall price, increasing the benefits or a combination of the two.

In developing a training bundle or package, consideration needs to be given to the problem the customer may often experience and the potential solutions that can be offered to help solve the problem. Table 3.4 highlights some typical examples.

Table 3.4 Packaging and bundling examples

These three examples provide a view on what can be packaged and bundled to address customer problems and provide value to them and to the training provider. When implementing, there are a number of important considerations that should be factored into any decision before going to market, particularly:

• Do not offer a training package or bundle unless it is addressing a customer or market problem.
• Any additional training content or service included in a basic offering needs to be cost-effective to ensure it drives increased profit contribution while allowing a price to be charged that is attractive to the customer. Packaging and bundling training provides opportunities to increase its value in the eyes of the customer, especially when it is solving a problem, and provides a sales and marketing vehicle for increasing revenue and profitability.

ROUTE TO MARKET CONSIDERATIONS

In order to consider which routes to market to activate, a training group needs to consider the following:

• Understand the customer – main contact points, level and nature of engagement and buying behaviour.
• Understand the training offering value proposition from the sales channel perspective.
• Assess available sales channels and their fitness for purpose.
• Enable sales channels.
• Consider cost of sales, including operational management.

Understanding the customer

From the perspective of understanding the customer, it is important to understand where they buy, how they prefer to buy and why they buy. This needs to be tempered with relevant industry sector nuances. Doing this allows consideration to be given as to which sales channel would be most effective.

Sales are usually divided into direct and indirect channels. Direct typically includes product sales, professional service sales, training sales and inside sales. Indirect channels include resellers, value-add resellers, distributors, strategic alliances and authorised training partners.

Whoever is being sold to, it is important that the needs of the individual buyer are catered for from within the appropriate sales channel. Part of the equation for success is getting the value proposition right.

Training offering value proposition

In terms of the training offering value proposition, there are two recipients. The first is the customer in terms of the compelling reason to buy and its relationship to a value proposition. The second, which is relevant to RTM, is what the business value proposition to the sales channel is. This normally relates to how they make money and, if it is a channel partner, why they should sell the training being offered.

From the direct sales perspective, it is an easier proposition as training is seen as a natural extension to the product sale. Normally, once sales compensation and support from senior sales management is obtained, it tends to be reasonably straightforward to action.

In partner channels, it is more challenging as they normally want to know how they can make money from your training offering compared to other vendors’ training offerings. To achieve this, one approach is to consider how the training offering fits within the solutions they sell, their ROI needs, brand relevance and market opportunity.

From the solution fit perspective, it is important to understand how the training offering complements what they sell. If the training assists in enhancing their service provision and establishing stronger, more trusted ties with their customers, the more compelling it is for sales to include training in the solution offering. If the training is easy to understand and matches with their current sales competencies, the solution fit is further reinforced.

From the ROI perspective, the partner sales channel wants to know what is in it for them. Margin contribution is critical to any channel partner. While they may be given 20–25% discount off the retail price, they still have to factor in staff training, operational changes and marketing costs. These can be compensated for by increasing discounts and offering access to marketing funds in return for achievement of forecasts.

Brand recognition for a channel partner is a definite plus as it validates their involvement and credibility with potential customers. It also implies a good potential market opportunity.

Finally on the topic of the value proposition, being able to show the nature of the training market opportunity provides partners with information allowing an analysis of potential revenue streams and validation of expected ROI.

Assessing sales channel fitness for purpose

Locating a sales channel is arguably straightforward; the challenge is being able to validate its fitness for purpose. From the direct channel perspective, there tends to be three key options: selling via product sales, services sales or dedicated training sales staff. Therefore, unless there are internal restrictions on the use of sales outside training, their fitness for purpose once initial sales enablement has been undertaken should be very effective.

On the topic of indirect partner channel sales, the advantage over a direct sales team is one of size and coverage. The challenges relate to their relevance.

One approach to filtering out who to engage is to understand what segments they specialise in. From a technology perspective, there are three broad categories: hardware, software and services.

As a training provider, if the supported product is software-based, then, obviously, it would not be relevant to engage hardware partners. However, if the partner is a value-added reseller or solution provider, they would be worth consideration. Of course, this is an over simplification and Table 3.5 provides other factors that need to be considered when deciding on sales channel fitness for purpose.

Sales channel enablement

Having assessed sales channel fitness for purpose, the fourth element to be considered regarding RTM is that of sales enablement. Having a good training offering and a market opportunity to match is of no benefit if the sales channel is not enabled.

In essence, this means providing sales with an insight into the market opportunity in terms of why the customer would want to buy, how they buy and the value it provides them, including motivating the sales channel to achieve the desired business results of increased sales figures. A typical approach to the provision of sales enablement is:

• Ensuring there is appropriate sales content available and mapped to the buying cycle covering prospecting, qualifying, presenting, objection handling and closure.
• Aligning sales content with the appropriate sales person; a sales representative requires presentations and cheat sheets (quick reference guides with key points regarding the specific training offering), whereas an inside sales person requires pre-written narrative and content to send to prospective customers.
• Providing sales with content that is readily available in multiple formats (PDF, email, hard copy and presentations for laptop or tablet).
• Providing sales enablement sessions that clearly define market opportunity, pricing and discount policies, incentives and how to engage training sales support.

Table 3.5 Training sales channel fitness for purpose

Cost of sales

The final element regarding RTM considerations is cost of sales and operational management. On the cost of sales side, this typically relates to the cost of training products sold. Product management needs to assess which training offerings yield the best results for particular routes to market. Some training prospers better than others depending on target audience and sales channel segmentation.

Another sales cost that includes the actual cost of selling is often referred to as selling, general and administration (SG&A) and also needs to be considered when deciding which RTM to use. SG&A includes sales compensation, commissions, advertising and promotional materials.

In relation to RTM, it is critical to monitor progress in order to assess and understand what actions need to be taken to capitalise on sales growth or address any unexpected shortfalls. This includes the number of enquiries, sales conversions, discounts and sales cycle duration from each of the engaged sales channels.

This level of detail provides valuable information regarding which training offerings and RTM are effective and which ones require review and adjustment. This in turn assists in measuring the training ROI, not just at the offering level but at a specific market level, which helps to decide on where the business focus is applied.

ROI VERSUS ROE

In the commercial world of technical training, ROI relates to the financial return on the committed and operational expenditure associated with the development and delivery of a particular training offering. With return on expectation (ROE), it is more to do with what level of change, be it behavioural or developmental, occurred at individual or group employee level. In the longer term, ROE leads to ROI whereby employees are being more effective and productive in their roles.

From a commercial point of view, ROE can be used very effectively in the sales process. All courses have defined objectives, which can be viewed at a high level as expectations. In a consultative selling situation, sales and the customer agree on the required training outcome, which in itself is setting an expectation.

In taking this approach, it is important to be able to measure the expected outcome. This is done by way of certification or the setting of practical tests. For example, a customer may require all staff to be knowledgeable in the concepts of client–server security and be able to demonstrate their ability to implement it on a live system. From an expectation perspective, there are two components: the first is testing that knowledge has been gained, and the second is that the student can demonstrate they can implement the skills successfully. Both of these can be monitored and tested, which in turn provides a measurable ROE.

Depending on the sales relationship with the customer, this can be expanded to a measurable ROI by way of measuring improved time to implement and number of reduced support calls made over an agreed extended period.

From a training product management point of view, ROE provides a mechanism by which to validate what opportunities are out there in the market, as it reflects the actual need of the customer.

PRICING STRATEGY

As part of the training product lifecycle, training product managers with feedback from marketing set prices during the development stage. To do this, there needs to be a pricing strategy in place. Setting this is part of ensuring the training product or offering is a success and delivers to its ROI commitment.

Pricing strategy defines how the training group sets the price of its offerings based on costs, value, demand and competition, which in turn must align with corporate directives in force at the time. Table 3.6 summarises some well-known pricing strategies.

Table 3.6 Pricing strategies

TIME TO MARKET

Many factors affect decisions regarding timing, specifically in relation to training availability prior to alpha, beta and market readiness releases. Typically, in terms of the nature, depth and quality of content, this requires decisions on who, when and how it is developed, and complicated further by costs and availability of subject matter experts and content developers.

In some instances, content development work may need to be subcontracted out to either other internal groups or third-party developers. From the training product management perspective, this has to be balanced in relation to training ROI versus loss or slower product market growth and traction. Loss of market traction can significantly affect the longer-term training ROI and therefore requires a risk assessment to be undertaken with respect to the factors given in Table 3.7.

Table 3.7 Time to market ROI assessment factors

ACCREDITATION, CERTIFICATION OR ALTERNATIVE TESTING

From a training product management perspective, the business goal is about ensuring that the service or offering motivates and adds value to customers. This ensures customers want to buy and continue to apply the training for further business benefit.

To ensure fitness for purpose, proof points need to be established. In training, this comes in the form of testing. Testing itself comes in a variety of forms:

• End of course survey: a series of questions to establish the level of customer/student satisfaction.
• Qualification: typically involves passing an examination that tests whether students can demonstrate their knowledge of a particular subject.
• Accreditation: often used interchangeably with certification and tests a student’s competence level to perform specific tasks.
• Certification: a formal process validating that students have met a recognised standard. It usually involves attending a training course, gaining experience in the use of the technology and ratification by way of sitting an exam to test knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform a particular job or task.
• Performance-based testing: a formal process involving the testing and validation of knowledge, skills, competencies and the practical ability to implement them in a real-world situation to achieve desired business results.

For a product manager, the decision to develop and offer some form of testing is about four key factors:

1. Does the training undertaken by a student need to be validated in terms of their ability to prove in practice they have command of the technology?
2. Does it provide value to the student or business sponsor?
3. Does it drive market credibility?
4. Does it make economic sense in terms of ROI and minimising the total cost of ownership (TCO)?

With industry in general being short on skills, the business value of technical testing, particularly competency-based certification, and performance-based testing is high. The value of training staff and knowing that they can actually apply what they have learned for real business benefit makes testing an integral part of the overall training offering.

SUMMARY

Technical training product management involves the process of designing, building, operating and maintaining the training offering. The end objective of this is to create a training service that motivates and adds value, and ensures the customer wants to buy and continues to apply training for business benefit.

It involves multi-disciplinary teams being established comprising, for example, product developers and managers, training business development managers, training business unit owners, content developers and curriculum managers, certification specialists and training programme managers.

The training product manager takes responsibility for the lifecycle management of the training offering and ensures that it launches with the technology product and remains aligned throughout its lifecycle.

When launching a training offering, decisions will be made regarding how it will go-to-market (GTM). GTM plays a significant part in the training product management lifecycle, including what is sold, when it is sold, packaging, how training connects with its customer base, how value is delivered and the brand promise fulfilled. Pricing is also factored in, based on costs, value, demand, competition and required return on investment (ROI) needs.

The route to market (RTM) is also defined in terms of understanding customer behaviour, engagement and which sales channels to access.

The final stage of training product management ensures that the service or offering motivates and adds value so that customers want to buy and continue to apply the training for further business benefit, which is achieved via the validation process through testing and certification.