At a Glance: Freddie Mac’s "Project to Product" Evolution
In the highly regulated financial services landscape, innovation is a survival requirement. Freddie Mac partnered with Product School for a 4-year strategic engagement to transition its workforce from a legacy project mindset to modern, customer-centric product management.
The Challenge: Overcoming "The Innovator's Dilemma" where rigid timelines and output-focus stifled customer value and innovation.
The Solution: A multi-dimensional, multi-year training roadmap tailored to complex B2B financial use cases, focusing on strategy, psychological safety, and execution mastery.
The Result: A resilient product culture with 80%+ satisfaction across 220+ learners, moving teams from 30-page specs to dynamic, value-driven product roadmaps.
“The training and thought leadership available through Product School has continuously challenged our teams to own our transformational journey and develop a product-mindset in support of our customers’ needs.”
Luis Henriquez — Director, Agile Program Management, Freddie Mac
The Challenge: Breaking the Legacy Cycle
As a massive enterprise operating in a highly regulated environment, Freddie Mac faced "The Innovator’s Dilemma." While their mission was clear, their execution was often hampered by a legacy project mindset; prioritizing timelines and outputs over customer outcomes and long-term value.
The organization identified three critical obstacles to their digital transformation:
The Skill Gap: A lack of unified understanding of modern product discovery and validation techniques among junior and senior team members.
Prioritization Paralysis: Difficulty in executing strategic prioritization within complex B2B finance use cases, leading to roadmap congestion.
Siloed Execution: Disjointed communication between product, engineering, and UX, resulting in solutions in search of problems.
To remain competitive and efficient, Freddie Mac needed a mentor to guide them from a culture of shipping features to one of solving problems.
The Solution: A Multidimensional, Multi-Year Training Roadmap
Product School designed a bespoke Enterprise Product Management Training program tailored specifically to Freddie Mac’s unique B2B financial use cases. This was not a one-off workshop; it was a sustained, four-year commitment to cultural change delivered through consecutive, high-intensity cohorts.
The training was built around Product School’s gold-standard certifications, with customizations for the financial sector:
Product Management Certification: Focused on high-impact strategy, advanced metrics, and first-principles thinking for lead PMs.
Product Leadership Training: Equipping Directors and VPs with the tools to foster psychological safety, manage high-performing squads, and lead through continuous transformation.
Agile & Execution Mastery: Standardizing a common language across Product and Engineering using modern methodologies.
Hands-On Methodology:
Every session utilized Product School’s learn-by-doing approach. Participants didn't just study theory, they applied multiple best-practice frameworks to their real-world Freddie Mac product portfolio. The training utilized immersive activities to solve actual internal friction points in record time.
The Results: A Resilient, Customer-Centric Product Culture
Over four years, the results of this partnership transcended individual learning, fundamentally altering Freddie Mac’s operational DNA.
Sustained Organizational Change: Within 5 months, Freddie Mac had successfully completed six full training cohorts with teams across the globe.
Elite Satisfaction Levels: The program consistently hit satisfaction benchmarks, with cohorts maintaining an 80%+ average from over 220 product managers and leaders rating and high learner engagement scores across geographic business hubs.
Standardized Best Practices: The organization successfully implemented a North Star Metric framework across cross-functional departments, ensuring every initiative laddered up to the company’s core mission.
High-Quality Portfolio Gains: Participants moved from drafting 30-page rigid specs to creating dynamic, living Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) that accelerated development cycles and reduced engineering waste.
“The entire training was very interactive. The case studies were very comprehensive. I enjoyed collaborating with my colleagues on the different exercises and to understand everyone's perspective and that we were able to deliver in a short time period.”
Senior Product Manager, Freddie Mac
Return with the Elixir: The Competitive Edge
By the end of the four-year engagement, Freddie Mac had effectively bridged the gap between ambition and reality. Their teams are no longer just managing projects; they are leading products with the business savvy and customer empathy required to thrive in the modern economy.
Ready to move your team from "Project" to "Product"?
Let’s design a bespoke curriculum to standardize your frameworks and drive innovation at scale.