Baseline, Train, Practice, Level-Set
Turn hundreds of legacy product owners into real PMs by letting people self-select out
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 90%
Perri's repeatable sequence for converting a large population of product owners / business analysts / project managers into a genuine product organization. The insight is that you do not screen people up front — you baseline and train everyone, show them what the job really is, let them practice, and then re-level. A meaningful share opt out voluntarily once they see the accountability involved, which is far cheaper and kinder than firing.
Origin
Developed by Melissa Perri through Product Institute engagements at Fortune 50/100 companies; the fullest version ran at Athena Health, where 365 product people with scattered titles were consolidated and re-leveled.
Core principles
- 01Give everyone the opportunity to learn before you judge who can do the job.
- 02Awareness of the real role is itself a filter — many people opt out once they see it.
- 03Nobody has to be cut; adjacent roles (ops, data, user research) absorb the self-selectors.
- 04A team with no experienced product person on it has nobody to learn from — that is a staffing bug, not a training bug.
How to run it
- 1
Consolidate the titles first
Collapse the sprawl of product owner / product associate / product innovation titles into one product manager ladder so everyone is being measured against the same job description.
Pro tip Perri has seen orgs with 47 different product titles. Rename first; assess second.
Watch out Renaming a product owner to product manager does not make them one — this step only sets the bar, it doesn't clear it.
- 2
Baseline everyone with the same training
Run every product person through the same end-to-end product management training (strategy, discovery, customer conversations, measurement) so you have a common definition of the job and a common vocabulary.
Watch out Training alone was the eight-year-ago failure mode: you train everyone, the consultants leave, and there is nobody in the building to keep learning from.
- 3
Show them what the role actually is
Make the full accountability explicit — influencing stakeholders, owning outcomes, being measured on value not throughput — not just the pleasant parts.
Pro tip Be blunt about the influence work. That is the part people most often did not sign up for.
- 4
Give them a chance to practice
Let people actually do the job with real work before you evaluate. Practice, not the classroom, is where the self-selection happens.
- 5
Let people opt out, and re-place them
Accept the raised hands. Move people who want defined process into operations, SQL/analysis strengths into data roles, people who love customers but not the accountability into user research. Some will leave; that's their call.
Pro tip Frame the opt-out as a route to a better-fitting role, not a demotion — it keeps institutional knowledge in the building.
- 6
Level-set and intersperse
Re-audit who is strong, who is weak, and which teams have nobody experienced on them. Hire experienced ICs and directors of product into exactly those teams so learning has a local source.
Pro tip Given a year or two with the right person nearby, Perri has seen former product owners become genuinely excellent PMs.
Watch out Skipping this step leaves teams trained but with no model of good — the training decays.
In the wild
Athena Health had 365 people doing product work under scattered titles (product innovation, product owner, and more). Perri consolidated them all to product manager, trained everyone, and gave everyone the chance to practice the full role.
→ A significant group raised their hands and said this was not the job they wanted. Nobody was cut — they were moved into operations, data and user research roles. The remainder were re-leveled and staffed alongside experienced hires.
Rather than a second round of external classes, orgs Perri worked with hired experienced ICs and directors of product management and scattered them across the teams that had nobody to learn from.
→ Product owners who had not been doing real product management leveled up and, in her words, are now doing fantastic work.
Common mistakes
Pre-screening instead of letting people self-select
Deciding up front who is 'PM material' is both unfair and inaccurate. People reveal fit by practicing the job, and the opt-outs handle a large part of the sorting for you at zero political cost.
Training as a one-shot event
Bringing in consultants, certifying everyone and leaving means people have no one in the organization to keep learning from. Training must be followed by practice, level-setting, and experienced hires embedded on teams.
Is it for you?
Best for
Transformation leaders at large enterprises inheriting hundreds of product owners with no career path or consistent skill level
Not ideal for
Small teams, or organizations that already have experienced PMs modeling the role on every team
From the transcript
“you Baseline everybody you give them the exper you show them what the role is right and then you let them go practice it and…”
“we didn't cut anybody but we moved some people into operations”
“some more individual contributors who are experienced here and those organizations I think are wildly successful”
From the episode
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about SAFe and the product owner role
Melissa Perri (author, founder of Product Institute)