Leading the Product Sydney — October 2017 (PART 1)

Sally O’Donoghue of ABC iView

What an awesome and eye-opening day out!

Not only were the talks fascinating, but more importantly, I got to meet a broad range of Product Managers who were more than willing to show me the ropes for the day. As it turns out, Product Management is a lot larger and less well defined than I originally thought.

Let’s take a look at my key takeaways from the main talks of the day:

The Evolution of Product Management in Silicon Valley — Ken Sandy

Focus: trends that have changed the way Product Managers operate

Key Takeaways:

• It’s almost always better to pursue off-the-shelf options when starting out (don’t feel the need to build everything yourself)
• There is an increased emphasis on customer’s involvement in the product development lifecycle these days
• Use Roadmaps to drive collaboration and alignment of goals and priorities as opposed to data-driven commitments
• Establish effective customer feedback loops as early as possible

Stats & Figures:

• 77% of Product Engineering is waste
• 50–64% of features developed are rarely — or never — used
• Just 5 unique user tests cover 85% of significant issues (not totally convinced by this stat)

Product Management in the B2B Space — Magnus Billgreen

** This was the most interesting and engaging talk of the day for me

Focus: managing products for business

Key Takeaways:

• B2C vs. B2B = mining for gold vs. selling spades
• The Product Soundtrack (listen up — my most important takeaway from the whole day)
• The CORE is often the defining technology
• The EDGE is often the defining technology
• JAM makes it all come together
• The VECTOR is the result of the driving forces in the market

Experimentation and How to Do It Well — Susan Teschner

Focus: experiment design within business and how to execute it with maximum value and minimal cost.

“ Let’s fuck up a little, so we don’t fuck up a lot

The talk was structured as 8 lessons

The Lessons:

1. I don’t have all the ideas
2. DON’T underestimate the importance of experiment design
3. Choose the right tools
4. Don’t spend too much
5. Do spend enough
6. Don’t ignore the results
7. Make decisions and follow through
8. Learn from how you’re learning

SEEK Networking Event

As much as I learnt listening to the speakers throughout the day, I was really interested to chat with Product Manager’s who attended the event.

These are the thoughts shared with me that were the most memorable:

• Product Management is a balancing act — it is your role to balance the wants and the needs of all stakeholders and find the best way forward for the product
• Be aware of your personal biases when making decisions — stay true to the vision, modifying it to match stakeholder needs
• Product Management is a dynamic and new field — nobody has all the answers, and the role has a different and changing definition in each organisation
• “I fell into it” — the common answer I received when asking about their journey into Product Management. They almost all started in different fields and then moved into product management by happy coincidence

Stay tuned for the second part of this blog: Leading the Product Sydney — Lighting Talks Wrap Up