Serres educated their new Product Managers with remote training

"The learning environment was really good: it felt safe and supportive. The training was well paced and really well put together.”

A better basis to product management.

Medical fluid management solution provider, Serres, committed to scale up their Agile ways of working using the SAFe Framework. Jira Align was introduced by one business unit, and by then rolling it out across the enterprise, improvement followed everywhere.

Contribyte (now part of Eficode) provided Serres with customized training in general product management, helping the team improve their work. Serres had several employees that were new to product management, so they wanted them to gain an understanding of what product management is, and what they need to take into account in their new roles. The goal was also to help the team get to know each other, learn to work well as a team, and have an updated view of product management best practices.

A sudden switch to remote training

Serres had requested traditional classroom training but, due to the coronavirus situation, it had to be converted to remote learning. The change was sudden, but Serres didn’t want to wait, so they were happy to do the training remotely.

Laure Lacoste, the Product Group Director at Serres, recognises that there are both pros and cons with remote training. The biggest challenge was that concentrating on online learning can be quite overwhelming, so that needs to be taken into account in the course schedule. She explains, “The only problem with the remote training was that the first day was a little bit too full, but the trainer made adjustments for the next sessions, and they worked really well.” She also explains that the group discussions were a little difficult to do online and it was difficult to make small talk.

But Lacoste noticed that, for some people, it was actually much easier to participate the discussions and ask questions online than in real life. She muses, “It depends on the personality: if people miss the social interaction of on-site training or if they prefer studying by themselves.” But Lacoste concludes, “The learning environment was really good: it felt safe and supportive. The training was well paced and really well put together.”

A good option for anybody

Lacoste says she only got positive feedback from the participants.

They all said that everything worked really well and fluently, even though the training was converted to be held online at the last minute.

The level of knowledge they got from the training was really good – the best, most up-to-date product management practices. The trainers had a good level of understanding about all the newest and most relevant methods and theories, and the quizzes and assignments made the training exciting. Lacoste adds, “The training gave an overview and a good basis to product management.”

Would she recommend it? Yes. Her exact words were, “I could recommend this kind of remote learning to any company, since it works very well. Of course it’s different from traditional on-site training but, if you can concentrate from home, it’s a good option for anybody! The collaboration with Contribyte was very smooth and fluent, and everything went really well.”