Top 3 learning in LTP Con 2023
It was such a great pleasure to attend the LTP Con 2023 IN PERSON this year!
As always, I summarised my top 3 learnings in this blog.
You can also see previous “Top 3 learning notes” in 2021 conference here
Before Start
There are so many highlights and learnings throughout the conference, the 3 items I wrote down here are the ones I found most reliable and applicable. I am trying to summarise each learning point by using Speaker’s original quote (may have some minor paraphrasing) and add a brief learning note afterward.
Learning 1
“(Product Manager’s) Your success is measured by the value you generated for the business through your products…Hence, making sure you understand the business as much as your customers. They are equally important. Having the ability to grok your costs & impact is the key. ”
— Kristen Manning, “How do I prove the value of product management to executives?”
Kristen’s direct presentation style with some really memorable stories she told makes this presentation one of my favorite ones throughout the conference. It’s a really great reminder from Kristen that the primary goal for any Product Manager is to help your organisation’s success. Hence, it’s really important for any product manager to be able to articulate the Impact and Value generated (leave the nitty-gritty process out). Especially when communicating with the busy executives.
Learning 2
“Speed does matter! The sooner we can deliver a feature, the quicker the customer receives the benefits of that feature and the sooner the organisation can realise the value of that customer. Decide faster; Deliver faster”
— Robin Zaragoza, “ How do I know when I am slowing down the delivery Process?”
While all the Product managers are trying to distinguish themselves from Project managers, it sometime, make Time a low-priority metric.
However, I really love Robin for calling out the importance of Speed in the real world. And one of the most effective ways to improve the speed is to actually accelerate our decision making process.
The decision-making framework Robin introduced is a real game changer — the perfect cheat sheet for any leader, especially product managers like us, on how to grapple with decisions that have different shades of Clarity and Risk. (See the framework in photo below)
Learning 3
“It’s not about ‘ autonomy vs control’ it’s about ‘autonomy vs learning’. That a leader should consider where a person is for this piece of work and then decide where to Assist, Demonstrate, Motivate or Support”
— Rachel Morley, “ How do I make empowered product teams work in the real world?”
Rachel’s “Assist, Demonstrate, Motivate or Support” model is another insightful framework that can be adopted immediately by any leader.
It highlights the fact that “We can have a highly empowered team by applying different levels of empowerment to individuals” and “Leaders really need to stay close to the work” (which are well summarised with 2 additional great quotes from Rachel’s talk.)
Thanks for reading
These are some of my key learning from the Leading the Product LTP 2023 conference. I can’t wait to apply these learnings to my daily product work.
Thanks so much for the amazing organising team and speakers to make this valuable event happen!!!
I do have a more detailed study notes for the conference, for anyone who is interested in, I am happy to share with you. ( Leave a comment or message me on Linkedin)
I also very keen to hear about your experience with the LTP Con 2023 and top learnings. :)
