The University of Arkansas Global Campus has partnered with Emergn, a leading global professional services firm, to offer a 10-week online training course focusing on product management that can be customized for local businesses.

U of A Professional and Workforce Development, a part of the Global Campus, worked with Steven Angelo-Eadie, Emergn's Head of Learning Services, to offer the project-based course. The course was introduced to the public last year and is now being offered to companies that want a customized version for their employees. Engagement with J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. led to the idea of offering a customized version of the course directly to a group of product managers and product owners at J.B. Hunt. The Fortune 500 company based in Lowell offered the course to its employees last spring.

Participants can apply what they learn in the workplace, allowing them to bring a structured approach to managing products and applying strategy. They study true industry scenarios and the most effective strategies for building better relationships with stakeholders: bosses, teams and customers.

"The case studies we use are applicable to the company we're working with," Angelo-Eadie said. "Employees can take what they learn and apply it to their context. From beginning to end, they will have a roadmap of how to apply product management techniques to their companies' products. It's real-life education."

The 10-session course includes eight one-hour, work-based classes; two one-on-one sessions with Emergn product management experts; and two to three hours per week of practical application and additional study.

In 2020, Emergn helped lead an effort to create the Northwest Arkansas Product Management Guild to support local businesses. Emergn developed the product management course with the U of A because of interest from companies that wanted their employees to gain more knowledge specific to their work.

"Product management and these new ways of working are applicable to all industries and sectors," Angelo-Eadie said. "Software, digital services, e-commerce, finance, energy, gas, banking, this is applicable to all."

The guild's mission is to lead the product management profession in developing and promoting vendor-neutral product management approaches, industry best practices, body of knowledge expertise and educational services.

"Our industry partners are instrumental in helping us bring skills training to the region that local businesses need to thrive," said Mark Berkowick, assistant director of workforce readiness at the U of A Global Campus Bentonville. "Online training helps us bring high-demand courses to working professionals who want to improve their contributions to their companies."

Other training options are showcased on the U of A Professional and Workforce Development website, managed by the Global Campus.

The Product Management Training Course is a practical, online course for those working in and around product management. Emergn facilitators will focus on the skills and competencies needed to launch products and services as well as the features that satisfy the needs of consumers.

"Understanding the latest thinking in product management via textbooks doesn't cut it when it comes to navigating the complexity of transforming an idea into a value proposition and product that users love," according to Emergn. "Emergn designed this course to help participants apply what they learn outside of the classroom."

The course includes techniques and tools from many modern schools of management, including Design Thinking and Lean and Agile, and aligns them with the outcomes of Value, Flow, Quality, which is Emergn's trusted set of models, techniques and tools, along with unique guidance on concepts, frameworks and methods. VFQ is used by hundreds of organizations globally, according to Emergn.