I’m continually evaluating how to invest in my team’s professional development in ways that create lasting capability, not just momentary enthusiasm. Recently, I revisited a compelling conversation featuring Teresa Torres and Petra Wille that zeroes in on how product teams actually learn best—especially when we’re accountable for product management leadership and sustainable practice change across empowered product teams.
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What's the best way to invest in your team's professional development — train everyone at once, let people self-direct, or something in between?
In my experience, the answer depends on your goals, the maturity of your product discovery habits, and how you create peer accountability. What resonated most with me was their argument that small, intentional groups are a powerful (and underused) learning model—one that aligns with how we build momentum in product discovery, product strategy, and continuous discovery routines.
Three Models of Team Learning
Train everyone at once — builds shared language, but not everyone is ready at the same time
Self-directed learning — works for highly motivated individuals, but lacks accountability
Small-group learning — the sweet spot: peer accountability, shared momentum, and just-in-time relevance
Across my teams, I’ve seen organization-wide training create useful common ground, but it rarely changes day-to-day behaviors without a follow-on mechanism for practice. Self-directed learning can inspire, yet it often fails to translate into consistent habits without peer pressure and shared goals. Small-group learning, especially within product trios or adjacent squads, consistently drives the most adoption because it blends relevance, peer accountability, and just-in-time application to real customer interviews, roadmap decisions, and stakeholder management challenges.
Why Learning Together Works
Creates natural accountability and deadlines
Helps people apply concepts to their own real work
Especially valuable for product leaders, who rarely have built-in peers to learn alongside
I’ve found small cohorts particularly effective for product leaders who need a safe space to pressure-test decisions, compare notes on org design, and align on product strategy trade-offs—without slipping into status updates. When leaders learn together, they build shared muscle memory that makes it easier to reinforce practices like continuous discovery and communities of practice across the organization.
Group Coaching vs. One-on-One Coaching
Individual: sounding board, holding space, powerful questions
Group/team: real work in the room, peer learning, bridges between leaders who rarely collaborate
Keep participants as close colleagues — trust and vulnerability go up when people already know each other
One-on-one coaching is invaluable for personal reflection and targeted growth. But when I need to accelerate collective behavior change—like improving discovery cadence, refining opportunity solution tree reviews, or aligning around outcome-based roadmapping—group coaching wins. Keeping participants as close colleagues increases vulnerability and candor, which in turn speeds up learning and leads to real changes in how teams plan, prioritize, and ship.
Key Takeaways
Start a book club — debriefing together beats reading alone
Train pilot teams before rolling out org-wide
Encourage duos or trios to take courses together
Match your learning format to your actual goal
Keep coaching groups tight for more honest, productive sessions
Here’s how I operationalize this: I start with a pilot team to validate the learning format and cadence, then expand to adjacent trios to build a network effect. We anchor learning to current initiatives (not abstract theory), ensure weekly touchpoints, and capture playbooks in our internal knowledge base so improvements persist beyond the cohort.
Resources & Links:
Follow Teresa Torres: https://ProductTalk.org
Follow Petra Wille: https://Petra-Wille.com
Mentioned in this episode:
Communities of Practice
Petra Wille's book Strong Product Communities – The Essential Guide to Product
Become a Better Product Leader: A 52-Week Transformation Journey – Petra's email course with quarterly live Q&A
Teresa Torres’ book Continuous Discovery Habits
Continuous Discovery Habits (CDH) Book Club
Petra’s STRONG Product People Corporate book clubs
Teresa's Product Discovery Fundamentals course
Work with Petra
Learning together at a conference like Product at Heart
Teresa & Hope Gurion's group leadership coaching program through Product Talk Train Your Team
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