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Extending Peer Learning Beyond the Classroom
Extending Peer Learning Beyond the Classroom
Harvard Business School has built peer learning into the heart of its Owner/President Management (OPM) program. During each three-week on-campus unit, participants are placed into small Living Groups of around eight people. They live together, work through cases together and spend time discussing what the material means in the context of their own businesses and lives. The groups are designed to encourage leadership development both inside and outside the classroom, with relationships and applications of learning that can continue long after participants leave campus.
The peer element is an important part of the OPM experience because the value of the program does not come only from the cases or faculty. Participants bring decades of experience from different businesses, industries and markets, and much of the learning happens when those experiences are put alongside one another. A difficult question can look quite different when it is considered by eight people rather than one. HBS captures the philosophy with the African proverb, "To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together."
There is another reason the Living Group matters: people forget.
A good three-week program can be intense. Participants absorb new ideas, test their assumptions and have conversations that change the way they think about their businesses. Then they leave campus, get back on a plane and return to running their companies. Meetings fill the calendar. New problems take over. The insight that felt so clear on Friday can be surprisingly difficult to remember on Monday morning.
The challenge for HBS was how to keep the learning, and the peer relationships that helped make that learning useful, alive during the eight to twelve months between campus units.
In 2018, HBS partnered with ForumSpace to extend the Living Group virtually. The resulting Virtual Living Group (VLG) program has now involved more than 2,000 OPM participants over six years.
Harvard Business School has built peer learning into the heart of its Owner/President Management (OPM) program. During each three-week on-campus unit, participants are placed into small Living Groups of around eight people. They live together, work through cases together and spend time discussing what the material means in the context of their own businesses and lives. The groups are designed to encourage leadership development both inside and outside the classroom, with relationships and applications of learning that can continue long after participants leave campus.
The peer element is an important part of the OPM experience because the value of the program does not come only from the cases or faculty. Participants bring decades of experience from different businesses, industries and markets, and much of the learning happens when those experiences are put alongside one another. A difficult question can look quite different when it is considered by eight people rather than one. HBS captures the philosophy with the African proverb, "To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together."
There is another reason the Living Group matters: people forget.
A good three-week program can be intense. Participants absorb new ideas, test their assumptions and have conversations that change the way they think about their businesses. Then they leave campus, get back on a plane and return to running their companies. Meetings fill the calendar. New problems take over. The insight that felt so clear on Friday can be surprisingly difficult to remember on Monday morning.
The challenge for HBS was how to keep the learning, and the peer relationships that helped make that learning useful, alive during the eight to twelve months between campus units.
In 2018, HBS partnered with ForumSpace to extend the Living Group virtually. The resulting Virtual Living Group (VLG) program has now involved more than 2,000 OPM participants over six years.
From Living Group to Virtual Living Group
The virtual, inter-unit experience was built around something OPM already knew worked: a small group of peers, deliberately formed, with enough continuity and structure to make the conversation worthwhile.
HBS carefully forms new Living Groups for each of the three on-campus units, bringing approximately 180 members of each cohort into smaller groups. Once each unit wraps, those groups continue meeting virtually, generally once a month for 90 minutes. Because the OPM community is spread around the world, the program has also adapted group formation to accommodate different time zones.
Importantly, the VLGs didn't have to start from zero. Participants arrived with relationships already established on campus. They had lived together, worked through cases together and spent three weeks getting to know how one another thought. The virtual group inherited that camaraderie, which meant valuable time didn't have to be spent on the kind of introductory relationship-building that can consume a newly formed peer group.
The case method provided another important anchor. On campus, the Living Group is part of a three-part process: participants consider the case individually, discuss it within their Living Group, and then bring that thinking into the classroom. The VLG carried forward the underlying belief behind that structure: a deliberately sized group can improve the quality of your thinking because it gives people enough room to contribute, challenge one another, and see an issue from several different angles.
That matters particularly in a program where participants are accustomed to being surrounded by experienced people. A plenary discussion with a professor can be valuable, but it cannot give eight people the same opportunity to explore an issue in depth or bring their own experience to the question.
The VLG created another place for that thinking to happen.
From Living Group to Virtual Living Group
The virtual, inter-unit experience was built around something OPM already knew worked: a small group of peers, deliberately formed, with enough continuity and structure to make the conversation worthwhile.
HBS carefully forms new Living Groups for each of the three on-campus units, bringing approximately 180 members of each cohort into smaller groups. Once each unit wraps, those groups continue meeting virtually, generally once a month for 90 minutes. Because the OPM community is spread around the world, the program has also adapted group formation to accommodate different time zones.
Importantly, the VLGs didn't have to start from zero. Participants arrived with relationships already established on campus. They had lived together, worked through cases together and spent three weeks getting to know how one another thought. The virtual group inherited that camaraderie, which meant valuable time didn't have to be spent on the kind of introductory relationship-building that can consume a newly formed peer group.
The case method provided another important anchor. On campus, the Living Group is part of a three-part process: participants consider the case individually, discuss it within their Living Group, and then bring that thinking into the classroom. The VLG carried forward the underlying belief behind that structure: a deliberately sized group can improve the quality of your thinking because it gives people enough room to contribute, challenge one another, and see an issue from several different angles.
That matters particularly in a program where participants are accustomed to being surrounded by experienced people. A plenary discussion with a professor can be valuable, but it cannot give eight people the same opportunity to explore an issue in depth or bring their own experience to the question.
The VLG created another place for that thinking to happen.
Keeping the Learning Alive
The conversations themselves are not rigid. In every session, a participant brings a current challenge to the group and the other members help explore it through their own experience. The rest of the sessions often use a "spark" topic from the most recent campus unit, giving participants an opportunity to revisit an idea and consider what it looks like when applied to their own businesses.
That balance helps the VLG stay connected to the wider OPM experience without simply trying to reproduce a classroom online. The cases and formal teaching provide a common foundation, but the monthly conversations create a place to return to those ideas after participants have had a chance to test them in the real world.
That is where the peer group becomes particularly useful. The purpose is not simply to remind someone what they learned. It is to give them a reason to use it.
A concept discussed on campus can be revisited months later when a participant has encountered a situation that makes the idea newly relevant. A decision that seemed theoretical in a case becomes something another member is wrestling with in their own company. Someone can ask, "What happened with that?" and create a level of accountability that is difficult to generate from course material alone.
The group helps stop the bleeding that can happen the moment a learning experience ends.
For an audience of business owners and presidents, that continuity is particularly helpful. Their companies do not pause while they are studying. They return to organisations that need decisions made every day. The VLG gives them a regular point at which they can step back from those demands, reconnect with the ideas they encountered on campus and hear from people who already understand their context.
Keeping the Learning Alive
The conversations themselves are not rigid. In every session, a participant brings a current challenge to the group and the other members help explore it through their own experience. The rest of the sessions often use a "spark" topic from the most recent campus unit, giving participants an opportunity to revisit an idea and consider what it looks like when applied to their own businesses.
That balance helps the VLG stay connected to the wider OPM experience without simply trying to reproduce a classroom online. The cases and formal teaching provide a common foundation, but the monthly conversations create a place to return to those ideas after participants have had a chance to test them in the real world.
That is where the peer group becomes particularly useful. The purpose is not simply to remind someone what they learned. It is to give them a reason to use it.
A concept discussed on campus can be revisited months later when a participant has encountered a situation that makes the idea newly relevant. A decision that seemed theoretical in a case becomes something another member is wrestling with in their own company. Someone can ask, "What happened with that?" and create a level of accountability that is difficult to generate from course material alone.
The group helps stop the bleeding that can happen the moment a learning experience ends.
For an audience of business owners and presidents, that continuity is particularly helpful. Their companies do not pause while they are studying. They return to organisations that need decisions made every day. The VLG gives them a regular point at which they can step back from those demands, reconnect with the ideas they encountered on campus and hear from people who already understand their context.
The Role of Facilitation
VLGs added professional facilitation to the existing Living Group experience, bringing structure to the sessions, helping groups identify challenges worth exploring, and creating accountability around participation. This had a positive impact on both attendance and perceived value.
ForumSpace facilitators’ role is not to become the source of expertise. The expertise is already in the room. Instead, the facilitator creates the conditions for participants to make better use of it.That distinction is important. The VLG works because the participants are experienced leaders with plenty to contribute. The facilitator's job is to help ensure that contribution is shared, that the conversation has somewhere useful to go and that the group does not default to the easiest or most obvious discussion.
There are also opportunities to reconnect before participants return to campus. Around half of OPM participants opt into a pre-unit session with new members, using the time to reconnect with classmates and reflect on what they want to get from the next period of on-campus learning. The Living Group therefore isn't simply waiting for the next campus unit to begin; it remains part of the program throughout the year.
Many OPM participants also came to the program with some familiarity with Forum. They understood the basic premise of a small, confidential peer group and the value of having people around the table who are willing to share experience rather than simply offer advice. That familiarity helped the VLG concept make sense quickly for participants who had already experienced the power of Forum elsewhere.
The Role of Facilitation
VLGs added professional facilitation to the existing Living Group experience, bringing structure to the sessions, helping groups identify challenges worth exploring, and creating accountability around participation. This had a positive impact on both attendance and perceived value.
ForumSpace facilitators’ role is not to become the source of expertise. The expertise is already in the room. Instead, the facilitator creates the conditions for participants to make better use of it.That distinction is important. The VLG works because the participants are experienced leaders with plenty to contribute. The facilitator's job is to help ensure that contribution is shared, that the conversation has somewhere useful to go and that the group does not default to the easiest or most obvious discussion.
There are also opportunities to reconnect before participants return to campus. Around half of OPM participants opt into a pre-unit session with new members, using the time to reconnect with classmates and reflect on what they want to get from the next period of on-campus learning. The Living Group therefore isn't simply waiting for the next campus unit to begin; it remains part of the program throughout the year.
Many OPM participants also came to the program with some familiarity with Forum. They understood the basic premise of a small, confidential peer group and the value of having people around the table who are willing to share experience rather than simply offer advice. That familiarity helped the VLG concept make sense quickly for participants who had already experienced the power of Forum elsewhere.
What Happens When the Group Becomes Part of the Experience
The program now gives HBS a way to monitor attendance and participant value scores across cohorts. Approximately two-thirds of VLGs stay together and continue meeting regularly, while value scores generally remain between 8.5 and 9.5 out of 10. When a group shows a decline, the facilitator or program team can investigate and respond rather than waiting until the end of the program.
The participant feedback gives a better sense of what those numbers represent.
John Ferrara, Founder and President of Capstone Partners and an OPM '25 participant, describes the importance of having a group that already understands the context behind the issue being discussed:
"The key to the VLG is that it not only keeps everything fresh after the three weeks on-campus, but also holds you accountable to share your progress with a peer group that 'gets the joke' – they already understand your context."
That familiarity becomes particularly valuable over the course of a year. Ferrara's group experienced personal struggles, professional successes and significant disruptions, but the group remained a consistent point of connection through all of them.
"A lot of 'life happens' in between OPM sessions and the VLG serves as a binding force between you, your teammates, and even the program. During the year, our group dealt with everything ranging from personal struggles, to victory celebrations, to severe disruptions. Throughout everything, the VLG ensured connectivity with a fresh perspective from people you know and trust. That is invaluable."
For Sezen Saral, an OPM '22 graduate and recognised entrepreneur in Turkey, the peer experience had become one of the defining elements of the program. Her description was simple: "it was the most critical part of my HBS education."
The significance of that comment is perhaps clearer when considered in the context of the program itself. OPM brings together experienced leaders with substantial business knowledge of their own. The value of the peer group is not that it gives them information they could not otherwise find. It gives them access to perspectives that are difficult to generate alone, from people who have enough context to make those perspectives useful.
It also gives the learning somewhere to go after the classroom.
What Happens When the Group Becomes Part of the Experience
The program now gives HBS a way to monitor attendance and participant value scores across cohorts. Approximately two-thirds of VLGs stay together and continue meeting regularly, while value scores generally remain between 8.5 and 9.5 out of 10. When a group shows a decline, the facilitator or program team can investigate and respond rather than waiting until the end of the program.
The participant feedback gives a better sense of what those numbers represent.
John Ferrara, Founder and President of Capstone Partners and an OPM '25 participant, describes the importance of having a group that already understands the context behind the issue being discussed:
"The key to the VLG is that it not only keeps everything fresh after the three weeks on-campus, but also holds you accountable to share your progress with a peer group that 'gets the joke' – they already understand your context."
That familiarity becomes particularly valuable over the course of a year. Ferrara's group experienced personal struggles, professional successes and significant disruptions, but the group remained a consistent point of connection through all of them.
"A lot of 'life happens' in between OPM sessions and the VLG serves as a binding force between you, your teammates, and even the program. During the year, our group dealt with everything ranging from personal struggles, to victory celebrations, to severe disruptions. Throughout everything, the VLG ensured connectivity with a fresh perspective from people you know and trust. That is invaluable."
For Sezen Saral, an OPM '22 graduate and recognised entrepreneur in Turkey, the peer experience had become one of the defining elements of the program. Her description was simple: "it was the most critical part of my HBS education."
The significance of that comment is perhaps clearer when considered in the context of the program itself. OPM brings together experienced leaders with substantial business knowledge of their own. The value of the peer group is not that it gives them information they could not otherwise find. It gives them access to perspectives that are difficult to generate alone, from people who have enough context to make those perspectives useful.
It also gives the learning somewhere to go after the classroom.
Beyond OPM
The approach has also extended into other parts of HBS. The Custom Programs division has adopted a similar model with selected corporate clients, using peer sessions before and after on-campus units to strengthen relationships, reinforce learning and give participants an opportunity to apply ideas in practice.
During the pandemic, when the HBS campus closed, ForumSpace also became part of the virtual delivery of OPM units themselves. The experience highlighted how much of a learning program normally happens outside its formal teaching sessions. Without the usual places where participants would naturally continue conversations after class; namely the bar, dorm or café,there was a risk of losing an important part of the social experience.
Chad Gordon, then OPM Program Lead, described the role of the VLG simply:
"VLGs did the job that the bar, dorm and cafe used to do."
It is a useful description because that is ultimately what the VLG is designed to preserve. It is not another layer of content sitting alongside the OPM curriculum, and it is not an attempt to turn a virtual meeting into another classroom. It provides a place for participants to continue the conversations that begin on campus, test ideas against their own experience and come back to questions they may not have had time to explore fully the first time around.
Six years after the partnership began, more than 2,000 OPM participants have taken part in the Virtual Living Group program, and many groups continue meeting regularly long after their campus unit has ended. The format has been refined through experience, but the underlying idea has remained consistent: learning is more likely to stick when people have a trusted group of peers with whom they can revisit it.
For HBS, the Living Group starts on campus. Through ForumSpace, it doesn’t have to end there. Over six years and with more than 2,000 participants, the VLG has shown that the value of a leadership experience can extend well beyond the program calendar. What ForumSpace offered was not more data, more traditional content, or another layer of teaching. It was a way to take what participants had learned in class and explore what happened when they applied it in the real world, with the support, experience, challenge, and feedback of peers who understood their context.
Just as importantly, the VLG gave participants space to notice what they were learning about themselves in the process: how they make decisions, where their assumptions come from, what they find difficult, and what changes when they hear a different perspective. The result is a learning experience that continues to develop long after participants leave campus, through a trusted group that remembers the last conversation, challenges their thinking, and is there for the next hard question.
Beyond OPM
The approach has also extended into other parts of HBS. The Custom Programs division has adopted a similar model with selected corporate clients, using peer sessions before and after on-campus units to strengthen relationships, reinforce learning and give participants an opportunity to apply ideas in practice.
During the pandemic, when the HBS campus closed, ForumSpace also became part of the virtual delivery of OPM units themselves. The experience highlighted how much of a learning program normally happens outside its formal teaching sessions. Without the usual places where participants would naturally continue conversations after class; namely the bar, dorm or café,there was a risk of losing an important part of the social experience.
Chad Gordon, then OPM Program Lead, described the role of the VLG simply:
"VLGs did the job that the bar, dorm and cafe used to do."
It is a useful description because that is ultimately what the VLG is designed to preserve. It is not another layer of content sitting alongside the OPM curriculum, and it is not an attempt to turn a virtual meeting into another classroom. It provides a place for participants to continue the conversations that begin on campus, test ideas against their own experience and come back to questions they may not have had time to explore fully the first time around.
Six years after the partnership began, more than 2,000 OPM participants have taken part in the Virtual Living Group program, and many groups continue meeting regularly long after their campus unit has ended. The format has been refined through experience, but the underlying idea has remained consistent: learning is more likely to stick when people have a trusted group of peers with whom they can revisit it.
For HBS, the Living Group starts on campus. Through ForumSpace, it doesn’t have to end there. Over six years and with more than 2,000 participants, the VLG has shown that the value of a leadership experience can extend well beyond the program calendar. What ForumSpace offered was not more data, more traditional content, or another layer of teaching. It was a way to take what participants had learned in class and explore what happened when they applied it in the real world, with the support, experience, challenge, and feedback of peers who understood their context.
Just as importantly, the VLG gave participants space to notice what they were learning about themselves in the process: how they make decisions, where their assumptions come from, what they find difficult, and what changes when they hear a different perspective. The result is a learning experience that continues to develop long after participants leave campus, through a trusted group that remembers the last conversation, challenges their thinking, and is there for the next hard question.
