Is your company setting up new employees for failure?

Everyone at your company should know how your product looks and functions.

8 min readDec 11, 2020

As obvious as it may sound, it’s important that employees understand their company’s products — both how they look and how they function. While departments and employees specialize in certain functions and roles, it is crucial that everyone has a high-level foundational understanding of the organization — its mission, goals, offerings, and clients. They must understand the larger context in order to do their jobs effectively.

A Tale of Two Companies

Minimal Product Exposure

When I started, I didn’t receive much introduction to or explanation of our products. Concerningly, it was a full month or two before I could convincingly name and describe our product offering. I was the only researcher, and our UX budget was lean to nonexistent, so I started doing studies with internal stakeholders and users. I was surprised by how often participants — backend engineers, data analysts, marketing associates, and others — would complete the session and genuinely thank me for including them, as they had rarely seen our actual products, let alone interacted with them.

Robust Product Exposure

In contrast, I recently started a new job at a no-code software platform. Each new hire goes through a three-week bootcamp to immerse themselves in the platform. I found it time well spent to understand the platform, build a common language and shared experience across internal associates, and gain empathy for our users.

While I am by no means an expert in the platform, now I am equipped to have more informed conversations with colleagues and stakeholders and conduct more discerning research studies. Had I not gone through bootcamp, I would’ve spent months trying to keep up in conversations and piece together an understanding of which features and functionality different terms applied to.

The Benefits of Early Product Exposure

Creating a shared understanding and language

Going through a robust bootcamp ensures new hires are well-versed in the product and have sufficient knowledge to do their job and engage in meaningful conversations. Had I not actively used and built-in our platform, I would have a much harder time discussing features and functionality with Product, Design, and Engineering, and I’d struggle to design targeted and informed research studies. Fully immersing myself in the platform allowed me to gain technical understanding and master relevant terminology that otherwise would have eluded me or likely taken several months to amass based on piecing together various discussions.

Gaining empathy for users

In contrast to an immersive bootcamp, casually playing around in the platform on my own would not have been very valuable. Since the platform is complex and requires some technical knowledge, going through guided training videos and exercises in bootcamp allowed me to explore more in depth. By building a few different applications, I was able to gain significant empathy for our user. Now I have a better foundation to understand their experience, core pain points, and potential frustrations.

Building an increased sense of camaraderie and shared experience

In addition to gaining valuable knowledge, bootcamp turned out to be a great conversation starter. As I scheduled intro calls with members of each team I’d be working closely with, bootcamp was an easy way to get the conversation rolling as it was a shared experience. Additionally, our bootcamp included a two week individual project and a one-week group project. For the group project, working with other associates, particularly those from groups you might not regularly interact with, is valuable in forging cross-functional relationships and breaking down internal silos.

Considerations When Designing Your Own Product Introduction or Training

Consider the complexity and technicality of your product in order to inform what type of product introduction or training you mandate

Not every company needs an extensive bootcamp to introduce employees to their product. A guided walkthrough, day-long training session, or gradual introduction may be sufficient. Think about your goals and mission as a company, and how you can set up employees for success. Does Sales have a robust understanding of the product? Does Marketing have the access and knowledge they need? Does Engineering have sufficient visibility into the overarching goals and user needs and profiles? If not, how best can you support them in filling these gaps?

Make training relevant and differentiate depth based on role

While bootcamp at my new company was valuable, it was a one-size-fits-all approach, which was frustrating at times. As a researcher who will rarely, if ever, be actively building applications in the platform, I went through the same capstone projects as creators who will be building in the platform full-time. I viewed the purpose of bootcamp as becoming versed in the platform and empathizing with the user, not becoming highly proficient in such a short period of time. Based on this, I wish there would’ve been different tracks for technical vs. non-technical people.

Regularly review, update, and supplement your training program

Building products is an iterative, ongoing process, and training should be too. Collect continuous feedback to learn how you can improve your training or product introduction process. Is a concept explained too in-depth or not in-depth enough? Is something missing? How can it be improved? Additionally, the product is always changing and evolving, so you should provide documentation or training on product updates. Regular “What’s New” demos, video walkthroughs, webinars, and blog posts are all great options.

It is essential for employees to understand the products and services their company provides. While it may take time and effort up front to educate them, it is certainly time well spent. Instead of feigning understanding and piecing together information over their first few months, providing a formalized orientation will help everyone understand the organization’s core offering and enable them to better fulfill their duties and work towards the company’s larger goals.

The UX Collective donates US$1 for each article published in our platform. This story contributed to Bay Area Black Designers: a professional development community for Black people who are digital designers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area. By joining together in community, members share inspiration, connection, peer mentorship, professional development, resources, feedback, support, and resilience. Silence against systemic racism is not an option. Build the design community you believe in.