Inspire Africa Conference
Product Manager Africa had the golden opportunity to be a part organizer in the first-ever SVPG product conference and leadership workshop in Africa. 1000+ product people from 31 countries came to Lagos, Nigeria between September 18–21, 2023 to learn from the global product community. Seeing the PM Africa logo on the banners was an emotional moment for me and I couldn’t be more proud.
Day 1 — key takeaways
This was the “Conference day”. Marty Cagan in his keynote address talked about successful product companies and why they are successful and mentioned Spotify as being one of them (of course) alongside Google, Amazon and Apple because they all follow the same principles taught by Bill Campbell. He also emphasized that there’s no one right way to create products, rather these companies are product-led or product-driven which can also be referred to as the “Product operating model” — “Continuous Delivery”, “Continuous Discovery” and “Product Strategy” One key thing he emphasized was that the best source of innovation comes from engineers!
Chidi Afulezi, a Product coach & Sensei was the MC for the day and had a fireside chat with Victor Asemota. They talked about the product space in Africa, the challenges and opportunities. It was an insightful session!
I was invited to be a panelist alongside other product leaders in Nigeria at the product leadership conference to share our experiences and goals. I was specifically asked about why I started PM Africa and my responses had such an impact that everyone felt inspired which was really humbling. I remember sharing the vision which is “To ensure that the best product people in Africa are coming through the product community (the premier) and the world recognizes this!”
Day 2 — key takeaways
This was the first day of the 3-day workshop with Lea and Marty. It was insightful and I had the opportunity to ask questions especially concerning platform product management and how I could be more effective.
One of my takeaways for this day was a quote by Marty “Behind every great product, you’ll find someone that knows the customers, the data, the business, and the industry, working tirelessly to create value for the customer and for the business”. And that if one lacked any of these skills, then one should up skill. He cited an example about himself, he had an engineering background and wasn’t good with understanding the business/finances, his manager recommended that he take a course on “finance for non-finance people” to up skill which he found to be really helpful. Also as a Platform PM with little or no engineering background, it’s a good idea to take an introductory course in computer science.
Looking at the Product Manager role — He also said that the highest responsibility of a product manager is to build the right product! And that the role of a product manager is not to manage JIRA!
He also talked a lot about the 4 risks we should consider even as platform PMs and they are listed below:
- Value risk — This is a risk a product manager needs to think about. How valuable is the product? Will users pay for it?
- Viability risk — This refers to business viability. Will this be profitable?
- Feasibility risk — This is a risk for the engineering team to also think about. How complex is it to build this product?
- Usability risk — Design team have to consider this risk. Is the product easy to use? What’s the user experience like?
Then Lea talked about the soft skills a product manager should have (I know we know this, but I’ll still share just to remind us)
- Effective Communication — verbal and written
- Natural Collaborator — Listen to ideas people have. We vs I (be a team player)
- Intellectual Curiosity — Wanting to solve problems
- Grit — Natural grit and being able to overcome adversity
One of the questions I had was about the challenges faced with the adoption of tools and technologies when building for developers. Lea Hickman and Marty Cagan both have platform experience and they were able to offer practical examples on how to tackle these challenges. One of the solutions proffered was that companies should train some of the engineers for design so that they can ensure that what engineers build satisfies these two risks; Usability and Value.
Q&A with Marty Cagan— Some of the product managers at the workshop would come in an hour earlier daily just to spend some quality time getting answers to some of the challenges we face in our roles. It was enriching as he had a lot of practical real-life experience which he shared.
Days 3 & 4 — key takeaways
It was a deeper dive. We also talked about the product vision and he shared that it must:
- Be for the customer
- Make the customer’s life better
- Emotional and speak to the product team. Get the team inspired
On the Product Strategy — he mentioned that it must come from the product leaders and that not all product managers should be creating the strategy for their products.
The elements of the strategy are Focus, Insights, Action & Management.
On product discovery, we discussed the following:
- How strong product teams solve problems in ways customers love, yet work for the business.
- Discovery overview and principles
- Framing, planning and ideation techniques
- Important prototyping and testing techniques to help in product discovery work.
Then team topology for an empowered team when designed should enable the following:
- Ownership
- Autonomy
- Alignment
He talked about the empowered product teams and how as PMs we should spend a lot of time with our users (at least 6–8 customers per week) alongside our tech leads. I realized while he was saying this that I was lucky as the tech lead I have the opportunity to work with is exceptionally supportive!
After day 4, I felt supercharged and I managed to take a photo with Marty and Lea!
He shared a number of innovation stories on several companies like Trainline(UK-based), Amazon (introduction of recommendations at checkout), and Almosafer (a leading travel & tourism company in Saudi Arabia). I’m happy to have fika (a Swedish custom)— break from activity during which people drink coffee, eat cakes or other light snacks, and relax with others) with anyone interested in hearing more about these stories.
Trust me, you want to hear them.
See what hundreds of people are saying about the Inspire Africa Conference — https://twitter.com/search?q=%23inspireafricaconference&src=typed_query&f=top
