Owner

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Bring expertise on platform businesses, marketplaces and digital ecosystems to AWS customers. Principal Advisor to senior executives and product teams for key Customers in FSI and Manufacturing across EMEA. Helping to identify new business opportunities and incubate new products and services. Leading business conversations to drive innovation and improve customer’s capabilities. Helping to improve their business by using the full potential of AWS. Building solutions from the customer perspective. Advising top management on their digital transformation.

Principal Advisor

Hotpatch

Product Agency. Projects & Clients:
- Led squad at McKinsey to develop an internal suite of products to create presentations.
- Advised Datev Executive on creating an Executive Briefing Center.
- Created a platform for Google to host an international event.
- Led User Research for Leonardo, a children's TV producer.

Quit after catching Covid and taking a parental leave.

Hypoport AG

introduced design thinking and agile approaches into the company. 
fired for disagreeing with the strategy to create a holacratic organisation

Director People and Change

Berlin School of Digital Business GmbH

consulting & coaching companies in digital transformation, focus on design thinking and agile

Head of Innovation

GE Power Conversion

introducing new approaches to collaboration, social networking and design thinking to GE

Innovation Lead

spent about 2 months in china training managers in design thinking.

Project Lead, Design Thinking

Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society

co-created and co-founded the premier internet research institute in Germany. 
quit, because there was nothing left for me to do

Co-Founder, Program Manager

Ingosu

Productizing design thinking to SME customers. 
Dissolved because founders decided to split ways.

Chief Product Officer, Co-Founder

Hasso Plattner Institute, School of Design Thinking

building the dschool infrastructure, teaching students, facilitation and coaching in projects.
quit to pursue my Ph.D.
then quit the Ph.D. to build an agency

Program Manager

Old-school innovation tactics don't work in the crowded digital experience space, especially for traditional companies struggling with digital transformation. Over the last five years, I've built a new approach to creating digital products that lets teams juggling multiple projects compete with startups at high speed and at a fraction of the cost. Now old players can compete again on the market more quickly and with a smaller budget. 

I'm a seasoned advisor with a track record in driving product and platform efforts across tech leaders like AWS, Google, and Meta with $39M overall growth. 

Key achievements in the last decade include:

1. Secured over $20M contracts for **AWS** and ingrained best practices among top customers.
2. Modernized **McKinsey's** visual asset delivery, enhancing consultant efficiency.
3. Created distinctive event platforms and a $5M research institute for **Google** and a $10M executive briefing center for **DATEV**.
4. Initiated a transformative digital academy, raising $2M in sponsorships, leading to exit to EY.
5. Boosted a finance SMB's workforce by 30% and expanded an innovation agency to 80 coaches with $5M+ revenue.
6. Spearheaded **Meta's** education drive in Germany to upskill 1M+ European youth.

Expertly poised to amplify products and initiatives with strategic insight.

Mentor at Carbon-13, the venture builder for sustainability and climate solutions. Mentor at StartSocial, McKinsey accelerator for social impact startups

Experiences with education, internet, cloud computing, finance, automotive, and Pharma industries. 

Created  30+ new products / marketplaces / events / business units for AWS, McKinsey, Google, General Electric, SAP, T-Systems, and various startups. 

Frequently asked about design thinking, business innovation, product strategy, product management, product design, product development, and Amazon's best practices.

About 25% of all 🎓 Stanford University undergrads take a class on how to train Large Language Models (LLMs) 🔥 This may seem surprising, but it makes sense. LLMs are becoming a building block for software like compute, network and storage.

Below the latest statistics on AI class enrollment (via Christopher Manning). The overall exponential is impressive, but what stands out is the growth of CS224N. According to Chris 480 out of a class of 1950 undergrads took the class meaning 25% of students learn how to build LLMs (the default final project is a miniature version of BERT).

I don't thin this is just because LLM's are in fashion right now. In the early 2000's, lots of people at Stanford where taking classes on networking. And that's still the case, in fact it is now a requirement for a number of degrees (e.g. MS in CS) as networking is a core component of the entire software industry. And the software industry is the main growth driver of the US economy.

To phrase it differently, what happened is:
🗓 1990's: Software runs on: Compute+Storage
💡  Internet happens, everyone takes networking classes
🗓 2000's: Software runs on: Compute+Networking+Storage
💡  AI happens, everyone takes AI classes
🗓 2020's: Software runs on: Compute+Networking+Storage+Models

So if in the future your business leverages LLMs in a core process, you better understand what they can and can not do. 

And the best part is you can listen to the lectures on YouTube for free. It's a fantastic class and much of what I know about NLP is from it.

Lectures on Youtube: https://lnkd.in/gdhsfW4C
And class home page for 2024: https://lnkd.in/g5VPwfCR

AHMET ACAR

Pieces of advice from my 9-figure friends:

11 best pieces of advice from my biz owner friends

Divorce is awful.  
 
Here’s true lessons from going through it... 
 
1. Marrying well is the biggest life hack of all. 
 
2. Marrying poorly is a costly path to misery. Choose wisely. 
 
3. When someone gets divorced I often say, “I’m sorry and congratulations.” Usually there is pain and freedom. 
 
4. Money makes people a shell of themselves during divorce, do not fall to that level. You can make more money later. 
 
5. There is always an exit tax on freedom, expect it. 
 
6. Careful of shadow influences, people who whisper in the ear of your former spouse fear and pain that can take an amicable divorce and turn it into a nightmare. 
 
7. Find someone who has walked the path before you, taboo subjects will leave you feeling lonely and alone. 
 
8. It is going to be ok. If you learn from this, you will be better. And likely so will your spouse. 
 
9. Mediation, arbitration, trial. Avoid trial at all costs, try for mediation. Cheaper, faster, less contentious. 
 
10. Find an attorney who lists on their website they help do divorce amicably, if one spouse has a wartime attorney, it will turn into war. Try to avoid that. 
 
11. Grab your loved ones close. A place to stay, a friend to wake up to, a person to watch movies into the night. 
 
12. Don’t allow anyone to shame you. Of course you wanted it to work, hopefully you tried hard. Those who secretly want divorces are often the loudest to yell at you for your choice. 
 
13. Tears. You will shed a lot of them. It’s ok. 
 
14. Find something to look forward to, a trip, a project. You can get lost looking at the past, look forward. 
 
15. You can find incredible love and commitment after this, I did. It will take work but it will be worth it. 
 
16. Write daily and often. Pain will be repeated until you learn from it. 
 
17. If no one else says this to you, and you have given it your all, and your marriage is truly not right... you are making a very brave move. Hold your head up. 
 
18. You will lose friends. They will choose sides, they won’t all choose yours. BUT the real gems for you will. 
 
19. People will talk about you. Who cares.

↓ ↓ ↓

The clip is from BigDeal. Listen to the whole episode wherever you do podcasts:
→ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/em9R4uUV
→ Apple: https://lnkd.in/ewdcHXUc
→ YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eFgRJR8B

I’m the CEO of a $100 million business.

But I’ve tried (and failed) to build 20+ startups before. 

Here are 10 pieces of brutally honest advice after two decades of entrepreneurship:

1/ Leverage your Zone of Influence

Your Zone of Influence is the intersection between your existing knowledge, skills, and network.

To find yours, ask yourself:

• What do I get paid for in my day job?
• Who do I have access to in my network?
• What hobbies have people commented positively on?

You likely have $100,000+ worth of knowledge, skills, and experience RIGHT NOW that others would pay for.

2/ Focus on ONE goal

One of the biggest lessons I learned from working directly under Mark Zuckerberg was this:

Pick ONE goal… then focus relentlessly on reaching it.

Mark’s goal was 1 billion users on Facebook.

Every idea we’d bring, he’d always ask, “Does this help user growth or not?”

I remember pitching him about doing monetization. He grabbed a marker and wrote “GROWTH” on the whiteboard.

You don’t grow fast by doing many things, but by doing ONE thing extremely well.

3/ The best marketing is a great product

When I was Director of Marketing at Mint, we grew from 0 to 1 million users in 6 months.

We tested many marketing strategies - PR, blogs, influencer marketing, affiliate programs, etc.

But ultimately, the best marketing is a great product.

Marketing was easy because we had a product that customers LOVED, not liked.

First-time entrepreneurs focus on customer acquisition. Second-time entrepreneurs focus on customer retention.

4/ Buyers buy again

When I ran my conference business (CommunityNext), I didn't know how to find sponsors.

So I looked at who was sponsoring OTHER conferences and reached out to them.

Instead of trying to find NEW customers - find the ones who are already spending money.

5/ The industry you pick matters

When we started AppSumo, there were ~10 SaaS tools. Now, there are 10,000+.

I’ve watched super hard-working people spend years working on ideas in shrinking markets with little to show for it.

WHAT you work on matters more than HOW hard you work.

A growing market makes business easy. A shrinking market makes business hard.

6/ Work backward from your lifestyle

In my 20s, I was obsessed with getting rich and proving Facebook wrong for firing me. But when I became a millionaire...

I still found myself chasing money for the sake of money. Sometimes I still do.

Far too often, I see entrepreneurs start a business for freedom but get sucked into their business and end up working MORE than if they just stuck with their day job.

Don’t trade your 9-5 for a 5-9.

7/ Practice Leadership

The advice I’d give my younger self is to practice leadership.

For example, start by hiring a cleaner.

You learn how to agree on the money, make sure they’re responsible, and check in on them regularly.

Follow Noah Kagan for more content like this!

Continued in the comments... 👇👇

I'm gonna say the quiet part out loud. 
Have you applied for a job and got that sad little rejection email? 

You're not being rejected for the reasons that you think. You don't suck!

If you click "apply now" and submit an application through workday or one of these terrible platforms, you'll almost always be rejected with one of those "quality of candidates has been high, we were overwhelmed by the number of applicants... bla bla bla" emails, written by a recruitment specialist (who is actually just a data entry person, also known as a 'sourcer'). 

The mistake you made was clicking "apply now" in the first place, because you subjected yourself to the scrutiny of a non-expert (I'm being nice and not using better words). You allowed the uniform inadequacy of a fundamentally flawed process to measure you before you've even spoken to a human who might actually have a real heuristic to measure you by.

How do I know this? I mentor people in UX/Product/Tech and help them get jobs, and from time to time I have to prove to them why "apply now" doesn't work. I conduct little experiments, and I apply for a few jobs that I should easily be able to get and show my students the 100% failure rate that I have at getting interviews lined up. The apply now button = ☠️.

I've learned that many people don't realise that if you know what you're doing and you know how this insipid game is played, recruitment is a process that you can absolutely hack. I know, because I've received offers from google/amazon/fb/microsoft/bookingcom/spotify and numerous agencies & finance institutions over my career, and I've gone on to work at at least a few of these companies.  Now, maybe I suck at these jobs... who knows, but that's not the point. The point is, I am certain that I am really good at getting these jobs and I have receipts to prove it.

Today's experiment ended exactly like it usually does. 
I was rejected for a generic group product manager role at a medium sized ai language startup called DeepL. I speak 4 languages. I am an AI expert who has worked at Google and Amazon on AI projects, I created my own AI startup and have been working in tech for ~20 years. 

If people with my level of experience are getting auto rejected, it is not because the "quality of candidates has been high". It's because the well is poisoned. I'm the canary. The system is broken. 

Which means you're not the problem! You don't suck. They do.

Don't click "apply now".... ever.
Instead, see if you can find who posted the ad, or who is in a hiring manager role, and connect with them either directly, or through a mutual connection, and let them know that you're interested in the role and that you'd love to have a chat about it as you have a few questions. And do actually prepare meaningful questions to ask them. 

You might be ignored with this approach, but I promise you being ignored is far less damaging to your self esteem than receiving these shitty emails telling you that you're no good.


So you just hit 40.  
Congrats, here's what's gonna happen: 
 
1) Hair will be growing in places it shouldn't be growing. There is no manual for this. 
 
2) Recruiters will contact you less, but an executive search might. 
 
3) That full, vibrant hair will turn grey overnight. Welcome to the elders. 
 
4) If three happens, you can join a consultancy. That's the partner look they want. 
 
5) Somehow, you'll have less time to go out, stay out, get out, tune out. Unless you are still single, you handsome devil you. 
 
6) Suddenly, you are someone's mentor. You can't say you just winged it, so you make up some wisdom in hindsight. 
 
7) People look at you weirdly when you try new things. If you change your appearance, it's 75% midlife crisis. 
 
8) You start appreciating quality. That Mcdonald's burger you just had? It was so much better 20 years ago. Or you were drunker. 
 
9) You're both more and less patient. Less with anything that steals your time. Come on, I only have so many more moons to live. More with other people. 
 
10) The exception to nine are idiots. You learned to recognize them. If you haven't learned to ignore them, wait till you're 50.

ahmet acar

Learning about AI and NoCode technologies. | innovation advisory | digital transformation | training

What is the significance of a midlife crisis at 40?

How does turning 40 affect recruiter contact?

How does one make up wisdom in hindsight?

Stupid is a word you should use. 
Today, this stupid thing happened. 

I went with my kid to the MP Shah hospital in Village Market, Nairobi. 

We sat down to register. It’s always painful here because they only open 2 out of 5 cashiers. Naturally, there is a line. 

The glorious idea to keep track of the line?

Implementing a first in first out system. 

A few minutes in, a guard with a modicum of authority comes in an asks everyone to move one seat to the left. 

After all we are sitting in line. 

Everyone follows the order. 
Well, almost everyone. 

You can guess what happened next. 

I pointed out that this was a stupid system because you can’t ask people to stand up and sit down over and over again. 

What if I have a bad back? Or a broken leg? Or a heart problem?

No, Mr authority tells me that this is the system. And some random woman tells me I should mind my language because there are kids in the room. 

I turn to the kids and explain to them the meaning of stupid:

Lacking common sense or intelligence. 

Then I tell them to use that word whenever the shoe fits. As adults, it will be their responsibility to point out stupid things and fix them. 

This is the 3rd stupid waiting system they tried. It’s the same stupid mess. 

If you see stupid, call it out.

"We can’t find a single German or European applicant"
If you pay peanuts, you don't get talent.

The startups in the article pay 60K on average for a role that pays 105K on average outside of the EU.

Guess why they can't find candidates?

https://lnkd.in/ebUXjqrM is the article.

There is no talent shortage. 
You're just paying in bananas.
Here is the average salary https://lnkd.in/eQZfEntd

Maybe you need to relocate out of the country.

sifted.eu • 6 min read

‘We can’t find a single German or European applicant’: Deeptech startups feel bite of talent shortage

Unpopular opinion: 
You don't have access to all the knowledge of the world with your smartphone. 
 
Instead, you have apps that lock you in, distract you, and pester your with ads, and nag you for money. 
 
Facebook, Youtube, Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram, Google Search... 
 
The most used apps are designed to hook you, to entertain you, to create bubbles. 
 
Apps that actually provide access to global knowledge, e.g. Wikipedia and Pubmed? 
 
Not in the top 100 most used apps. 
 
In theory, you can access mankind's information online.  
 
In practice, most information is still locked in vaults, on paper, behind digital walls, or inside organisations. 
 
That said... 
 
If you put in the work to gain access, you can become a trusted go-to resource for other people. 
 
Most companies have internal wikis, shared folders, and other sources of valuable information.  
 
However, most people in companies to not take the time to actually explore, read, and bookmark those resources. 
 
In my last role, people would often ask: 
"How the hell do you know this?" 
 
Take the time to make existing information accessible to yourself and others.  
 
This will neither happen through osmosis nor because you are young and grew up with mobiles.  
 
Using AI tools blindly doesn't help either. 
 
Sharpening your reasoning, your critical thinking, and your research skills, does.

For 6 months, my kid tried standing up and failed. Every day.
That's 180 fails to 1 success.

And you think the thing you're releasing into the world will be successful.

Just keep trying.

Chief Sumo at AppSumo.com | Helping entrepreneurs get started at MillionDollarWeekend.com

I’ve written 1000+ articles. 4 have gone viral.
I’ve done 300+ YouTube videos, 5 have gone viral.
I’ve started 20 companies, 1 has worked really well.

Keep starting!

The Kenya Red Cross Society reports that as of April 18, approximately 103,485 people from 20,697 households have been impacted. Among them, 40,265 people from 8,053 households have been displaced. Tragically, there have been 32 reported deaths and 15 injuries nationwide.

Ken Muli, ACIM on LinkedIn • 2 min read

Rains of Disaster: Thousands of people Displaced as floods hit Kenya

The discussion on product teams vs feature teams in corporates hurts the people on the ground. 

Product people point to companies that are product-driven and to PMs who have ownership, authority, and autonomy. 

Then they point out that PMs / POs / PLs in most companies are in name only and only produce features pushed by stakeholders. 

“Those” people juggle multiple products, don’t have stable teams, don’t have dedicated resources, are measured against wrong metrics, and don’t have product leaders educating and restructuring the org to be product driven. 

Then they give them advice like “here are things you can still do” or share templates and frameworks. 

But what that really does is asking people to risk their jobs. 

Nobody is stupid enough to do that. So things don’t change, people upskill on the side and try to apply elsewhere. 

What they really need is sound advice on how to perform in their feature team without losing their mind. 

And advice to their management on how to transform the org with comprehensive programs starting with forming teams. 

But that is too real. It’s easier to say:
“Look, this is what great should look like.”

But that just frustrates people. 
Pick them up where they are, improve their world first, then transition.

Google Search is finally broken.
Considering it's >90% of search on the planet, this is bad.

I was looking for a concept artist, couldn't remember their name, but knew the work itself. Searching for it got me:

- AI garbled garbage
- sponsored ads (wanna learn how to draw?)
- obvious platforms (pinterest, artstation, deviantart...)
- stock art (shutterstock, etc)
- shops, shops, shops (etsy, shopify...)
- unrelated results (concept art means...)
- lots of unrelated images

I thought fine, maybe I can find an image that is close and reverse search, looking for artists.

Nope, more garbage.

This used to work.
I am doing the exact types of searches I was doing 3 years ago.

This is just an example.
I had the same thing happen when looking for studies, literature sources...

This is really bad for anyone that relies on the search engine to drive traffic. 
Also bad for anyone who relies on search to do their research.
So, pretty much everyone.

Looks like the AI avalanche buried Google under it.

Anyone else experiencing similar problems?

#search #google

What impact does AI have on search engine results?

What are the challenges of finding concept artists online?

How can Google Search improve result relevance?

Many people I talk to say that their business is slow in creating something new because of their drive for perfection. 
 
If that is the case, why are so many products and services so bad? 
 
Quality, not quantity. 
 
I hear that often. 
 
But at the same time, companies throw multiple projects at people, dividing their attention, resulting in mediocre outcomes. 
 
If quality is really the thing you want, shouldn't you stop working on too many different things? 
 
 

"Young people are better informed." 
No, they ain't. 
 
Hitting keywords into google search or scrolling through social media is not "knowing how to find out stuff." 
 
If you want to be informed: 
 
Go into online archives, online libraries, dig through literature, ask and interview experts, experiment and do original research... 
 
That is "how to find stuff". 
 
23% of the time, people under 25 just use Google’s autocomplete suggestions.  
 
This isn't finding stuff.  
It's being fed stuff. 
 
Big difference. 
 
50% of Google users click on their results within 9 seconds of searching. No browsing through the next pages, no using alternative search engines or alternative expressions. 
 
9% of Google searchers even make it to the bottom of the 1st page. Scrolling is so 2010. 
 
15% of users modify their initial search terms. Only 9% use advanced search tools.  
 
Think about those stats.  
 
It's like running into a library (remember those?) and grabbing the 1st book you see. 
 
Young people: You are not better informed. 
But people want you to believe you are. 
 
That's how you get controlled. 
 
Learn how to do research and inform yourself. That's how you gain control. 

Feelings have no place in the workplace. 
Right?

I can hear you thinking. 
Of course they do. To a point. 

Fair enough, but why then are they acknowledged so rarely?

Acknowledging feelings is not a trick or a technique. It’s a tool that transforms relationships. 

Next time you’re struggling to connect with someone at the company, don’t be a corporate drone.

Here is a controversial thought on new products:
do not integrate AI into them.

While I am typing this, LinkedIn urges me to "Rewrite with AI", Grammarly tells me enshittification is not a word, and you'll see AI questions below the post.

We are reaching peak enshittification on most platforms, including this one.

So if everyone is throwing AI around like ai,ai,ai Caramba - why shouldn't you?

My hunch is that most people - you and me included - are getting sick of this pretty soon. Social media platforms have become overbloated. Just open facebook and try figuring out what all the new features are.

This is a great opportunity for people who want to build specialised niche communities as alternative social platforms - just copy and clean up.

If you are in product, you might want to think about leaving out AI from the user interaction and just present something that is clean and simple, doesn't bug the user with notifications, ads, and attention hacks.

You can always use it behind the scene to analyse traffic, interactions, or automate your work.

But for the sake of all that is holy - get rid of the genAI crap that's now embedded everywhere.

And no, I don't want to Rewrite with AI. 
Because that's what the BS feature would make out of my rant:

---

Are you tired of the constant bombardment of AI in new products? Our feeds are becoming overbloated with notifications, ads, and attention hacks. It's time to simplify the user experience and leave out the genAI crap. As a product builder, consider presenting something clean and straightforward without the unnecessary bells and whistles. Specialized niche communities are an excellent alternative to the mainstream social media platforms. Let's get back to the basics and provide users with a refreshing experience. #AI #ProductBuilding #SimplifyTheUserExperience 

---
I think this quote from Dune summarises what's wrong today:

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” 

Being sick and working doesn’t make you a hero. It’s just stupid. 

I was sick the last couple of days. Cough, shivers, joint pain… no voice. 

But I could have just kept working at a small pace, do less, take breaks. I used to do that in my 20s. So if you’re early in your career, you need to hear this. 

20 years after and those harmless episodes accumulate. 

Some people are stupid enough to actually go to the office in that state and spread the love. 

Others pop a few pills and keep grinding from home. 

Your colleagues are treating you like a hero. Of course they tell you to get rest and that they would be off by now. 

When it’s their turn, they also keep going. Your mind after all can do more than you think. But it comes at a cost. And that’s on you. 

The problem is, the corporate talk on this is just meant to check some legal boxes. The employers take empathy trainings and leadership is supposed to prioritise health. 

But push comes to shove, your managers will do both. I had people call me at night and on the weekends. They clearly heard my voice on the phone. They didn’t care. 

One manager actually told me:
“Ahmet, you are such a good actor, I bet you are faking it.”

I should have gone to the office and coughed at his face.

If this happens to you, here is a way to deal with it:

First, make sure you get an official diagnosis from a doctor and send that to HR. 

Add an auto responder explaining what’s going on and when you will be back. 

Let your team and manager know. If people push, here is what you say:

“I can be sick for a few days now, or push through it and collapse for a few weeks at the worst possible moment later. Your choice.”

Most will be smart enough to get the message. For those who aren’t. Block calls and don’t check messages. Grab a tea, sleep, and relax instead.

70% of knowledge is lost 3 days after a training.
Here's how to fix that.

I ran a lot of workshops, training programs, and educational efforts in the past 25 years. I trained thousands of students and professionals since then.

e-Learning was my first job when I entered university. I built educational conferences, e.g. GML and NMI with Klaus Rebensburg. I built educational institutions, e.g. HPI d-school with Uli Weinberg and HIIG with Max Senges. 

In the past 4 years, I built in-house training programs for Maersk, TUI, NN Group, and Standard Bank. Currently, I am training 10 cohorts (200 people) in product management.

I pointed out what the problem with these trainings is in the last post. 
Here's what works:

1) Microlearning: instead of content dumps for hours, break it down into focused delivery of 10-15 minutes. 

2) Spaced repetition: check understanding & repeat key concepts, increasing intervals between each repetition.

3) Active learning: overindex on exercises, discussions, and problem-solving activities. 80% activity to 20% content.

4) project and problem based content: start with application to an existing goal participants are already working on. case studies and examples should help them solver their burning problems

5) Retrieval practice: have participants recall and apply what they learned. could be done with quizzes and assessments, but i am not a fan of those

6) Collaborative learning: build a community where learners share their experiences, insights, and questions. go from peer-to-peer learning to building the next trainers

7) Continuous feedback and reinforcement: give people regular feedback on their individual progress and performance. 

8) Flexibility and self-pacing: give access training materials 24/7 and let people learn at their own pace to accommodate different schedules and work commitments.

9) Blended learning: focus content delivery on online self-paced learning with occasional virtual sessions. the onsite sessions should be reserved for  discussion, ad hoc collaboration, and practice. 

On the last two points:  The onsite session should not be reserved for content dumps. Unfortunately, that's often the case. For some reason, people want to see a person upfront, giving lectures for hours.

Maybe it's what they know from school or higher education. But that's the least effective form of learning. It's a practice from a time when there weren't enough books to go around. The German word for lecture (Vorlesung) makes that very obvious. 

So, even if you ignore 1-7, the best thing you can do for corporate training is:

A) put all lectures in the intranet as 10min self-contained clips, along with required reading

B) use the time onsite to discuss and solve business problems applying the content that was presented online

I'll talk about how this changes knowledge retention and how you can measure the ROI of training in the next post.

Your thoughts on the above? 👇 

#training #learning

How can building a community help improve learning?

How can microlearning improve knowledge retention?

What kind of in-house training program did the author build for Maersk?

10 takeaways from training 500+ product managers at 8+ companies.  
 
1) Most new PM have read some book, taken some course, and already own some product. They don't need the basics again. 
 
2) Most PM in companies do not work in product team or in a product org. They are - at best - in feature factories. But it doesn't help rubbing their noses into it. 
 
3) Frameworks, tools, and artifacts like product vision documents and roadmaps are just training wheels. But often, that is what management wants to see. 
 
4) PMs in companies can't compete with an ambitious small startup team that is out to compete with them. Don't even try. 
 
5) You don't need to innovate. You need to get the product out the door. In most cases, that is it. If the system hands sales, ops, and service to other teams, don't fight it. 
 
6) RTE, SAFe / Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters are not there to help you. None of the 500+ people I trained told me how much they loved having them. Keep them away. 
 
7) The 8+ companies I worked with sucked at software because they turn great designers and developers into trained monkeys. It isn't a people problem. It's processes, structures, and incentives. 
 
8) Most trainings are too long, with too much content, and too many expectations for any kind of ROI. If you want people to apply what they learn, create a whole program with team reorg, incentives, KPI, and do just in time microlearning. 
 
9) Most people don't have an incentive to train and upskill. They collect certificates, check the boxes, but never learn. 
 
Offer real opportunities, and force people to build and actually show their skills. 
 
10) People in training don't really get time to focus on it. Everyone does meetings, email, and work on the side or on top. 
 
You know this situation.  
This needs to change. 
  
If you are a...  
manager, free their schedules.  
learner, demand dedicated time.  
colleague - let them have their training. 
L&D lead - only train if they can focus on it. 
 
what's the best training you had? 
 
#productmanagement #training

How can dedicated time improve training outcomes?

What are the common misconceptions about product managers?

What are the key challenges in product management training?

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