When Stephen Gwynn-Jones stepped into his role as Group Manager – Products at Russell Mineral Equipment (RME), he faced a familiar challenge: how to evolve a capable product management team from tactical execution to strategic leadership. As the world’s leading OEM and supplier of mill relining technologies and optimization services for hard rock concentrators, RME needed their product function to drive critical business decisions—not just support them.

 

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The challenge

RME’s product management team had been assembled with strong marketing and technical expertise, primarily focused on supporting the sales function. While this approach delivered value, Stephen recognized an opportunity to unlock greater strategic impact.

“The product management team was spending very little of their time doing strategic work and a lot of their time doing sales excellence, sales support, and fire-fighting,” Stephen explains. “We didn’t have a balance, and we didn’t know that we didn’t have a balance at the time.”

The team faced several interconnected challenges:

Limited strategic focus: Most energy was directed toward creating sales collateral and supporting individual opportunities, leaving little time for strategic product decisions that the organization needed.

Decision-making bottlenecks: Key product development decisions that the organization relied on product management to make were being deferred to other stakeholders who were less equipped to make them.

Stephen, an accomplished engineer with an MBA but no formal product management training, knew the team needed to evolve. “I could see where we needed to take the organization with product management. My challenge was how to shift the thinking within this group to see product management as more than operational day-to-day supporting of sales?”

 

The solution

Stephen’s approach was methodical and inclusive. Rather than mandate change from above, he chose to create shared learning experiences that would naturally shift perspectives.

Starting with self-development

Stephen began by attending Product Focus training himself. “Every module gave me ideas,” he recalls. “I was in a bit of a learning frenzy during the session because we were starting at a very low base. We weren’t doing many of the things that this course would espouse you could do.”

The practical nature of the training resonated strongly with his engineering background. “It was more practical than my MBA, and I really appreciated the focus on how to apply the concepts in our own work. I could see how it was a very practical course—theory presented for practical use.”

Building cross-functional alignment

When Stephen brought the training to his team, he made a strategic decision to include cross-functional stakeholders: the head of marketing, head of engineering, a business market analyst, and the product managers themselves.

“I framed it initially as getting the group of people together and getting everyone aligned rather than necessarily upskilling the product managers,” Stephen explains. “I wanted to send the message that the challenge wasn’t about the product manager’s skills, but rather the organizational perspective on the purpose of the product management function.”

The cross-functional approach proved transformative. The head of engineering, now a voice for product thinking in the executive team, gained exposure to product management concepts for the first time. The head of marketing found valuable alignment opportunities with the product team.

Implementing practical tools

The team quickly began applying frameworks from the training:

• Taxonomy development: “The taxonomy was really useful. We needed to structure the way we organize and think about our products differently in our financial reporting, and I was able to apply that idea very specifically to our business situation.”
• Strategic frameworks: “The business case/product strategy framework and the associated modules brought together all the different elements. It gave us a powerful and methodical approach to structure and present our strategic thinking to stakeholders.“
• Market analysis tools: The team implemented surveys, used the Kano model, price sensitivity meters, and value curve analysis. This helped them to address specific business challenges, including market share erosion in key products.

“The main challenge was to help the team to see the opportunities to be more strategic and give themselves permission to make that a priority… The product activities framework was probably the most important thing—it helped them see that there were important aspects of product management that they weren’t prioritising in their workload.”

 

Embedding learning with Product Focus Catalyst

Product Focus Catalyst provided ongoing support to ensure the training translated into sustained behavior changes in product managers. “Catalyst has given me a great opportunity to check in and reflect on our key challenges and outcomes. It also helped me to carve out the time to progress the key things we need to drive business impact.”

The coaching element of Catalyst proved particularly valuable. “When I was faced with challenges in my role, I received coaching while progressing actions from the training. The perspective that our instructor Alan had formed, from immersion in the organization for a few days, was really meaningful.”

 

The results

The transformation at RME demonstrates how strategic product management training can drive measurable business impact when properly implemented and supported.

Enhanced strategic capability

“Product managers are prepared to work more strategically, and they don’t need to be directed on doing strategic work,” Stephen notes. “They see that themselves.” The team now presents product strategies directly to the executive team using frameworks and tools from their training.

Improved stakeholder credibility

The shift in approach improved team credibility. When one product manager presented a new product strategy using newly-learned training concepts, Stephen noted, “The executive team recognized the product manager was already applying business best practice tools and principles from the training… seeing our product managers embrace these changes really enhanced their credibility and led to the executive team approving the business case.”

The engineering and sales stakeholders support the changes too. “They have both recognized that we are changing in a direction that better supports them and their teams, and they appreciate that,” Stephen observes.

Better business decision-making

“We now have market share and margin measures for products and are using them to inform business decision making,” Stephen explains. “We have a strong product direction and clear indicators to measure our progress and success.”

Cultural transformation in a small/medium business context

Perhaps most significantly, the training provided a framework for addressing tricky business issues constructively. “In our organization, it’s given us some license to use the tools. The tools address the complete situation, they’re comprehensive and allow us to highlight what’s working and to address sensitive areas we need to improve.”

“We’ve been able to use the tools to put issues on the table and not be perceived as detractors. Instead, we’re just focusing on collectively addressing some difficult challenges. We use best-practice tools and frameworks and then propose how we’d like to improve things.”

Breakthrough workshop achievement

The training culminated in an unexpected breakthrough during a half-day workshop session. The team tackled a persistent organizational challenge around moving from project-based to product-based thinking—an issue that we had been “talking around in circles for years.”

“We achieved a level of alignment around a business problem that I didn’t think we would get people on the same page about,” Stephen reflects. “Following that, I have had such good success in communicating that concept of moving from project to product. The executive team has never been so supportive of thinking differently about what we’re doing in that space.”

This alignment opened doors to addressing critical growth barriers around their flagship automated products, which require significantly more engineering effort than standardized offerings.

Key success factors

Several elements contributed to RME’s transformation success:

• Leadership commitment: Stephen invested in his own development first, creating credibility for the broader initiative.
• Cross-functional inclusion: Bringing engineering, marketing, and business stakeholders into the training created shared language and understanding across departments.
• Practical application: The team immediately began implementing tools and frameworks, reinforcing learning through action.
• Ongoing support: Product Focus Catalyst sessions provided coaching and accountability to sustain momentum beyond the initial training.
• Safe environment for change: Framing the training as alignment rather than skill remediation allowed team members to engage openly with new concepts.

 

Looking forward

The RME experience demonstrates that with thoughtful implementation and ongoing support, product management training can drive meaningful organizational change—transforming not just individual capabilities, but entire business cultures and strategic approaches.

For Stephen, the training and Catalyst support have been transformational.

His advice for other organizations considering similar initiatives: