What we learned at #mtpcon SF 2023 - Mind the Product
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And just like that, we were back for another amazing #mtpcon! This year, hundreds of amazing product people joined both online and in person for this year’s event in San Francisco. Read on to read a quick recap of what we learned, from building products in the age of AI, to leading product teams during the modern age.
Improve your craft to build great products
Kicking off the amazing opening keynote for the day was the one and only Christian Idiodi, Partner, Silicon Valley Product Group. We were inundated with insights from his talk on product innovation.
“The only way to get better at building products is by building products. There is no domain or expertise as a substitute for hard work. If you want to get better at your craft, you have to practice it.”
Christian explained the importance of trying hard to better our craft as product managers. True value as a product manager comes in our role when we come together with other people to solve problems.
Read the full thread of our key takeaways from Christian’s talk below!
.@CIdiodi from @officialsvpg was our first keynote talk today at #mtpcon San Francisco, what a way to kick us off as he shared insights on product innovation. Check this thread for top insights from this inspirational talk
pic.twitter.com/om32tlMeo7
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Focus on high-level metrics to understand your users
Next up was Tomer Sharon, Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer of anywell. Tomer shared a question that all of us have asked ourselves at least once when working in product. “How is our product performing?”
To answer this question better, Tomer explains the importance of crafting high-level metrics to understand our users more. Way to often, teams focus too much on the smaller metrics that while are important, aren’t giving us the best understanding of our users.
Read the full thread of our key takeaways here:
Co-founder and Chief Experience Officer of @anywell_inc, @tsharon shared some amazing insights in his morning keynote about measuring the user experience! Follow this thread for top takeaways
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Throughout the day we also learned from some amazing sessions in between the speaker insightsfrom the main stage. Author Q&As by Tomer Sharon, Janice Fraser, and Jason Fraser, roundtable discussions on tech and uncertainty, and some amazing Spotlight sessions by West Monroe and Pendo kept us busy and provided us with more things to take away from the day.
Management consulting company, West Monroe led a session on adding AI to our product today, while Pendo provided an insightful demo on using qualitative and quantitative feedback to find out more about our users—and in doing so, creating products that they love.
Creating a safe space for teams to learn and grow
As we headed back to the main stage, we welcomed Diana Stepner, Head of Product, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The key lesson from this talk was to build a safe environment for product teams to learn, fail, and grow.
“Having a space where people can embrace who they are can encourage people to be themselves and thrive. Those who feel happy with sharing mistakes learn from them. While those who don’t will never speak up and won’t share the lessons learned.” she said.
To build a culture where psychological safety is at the core of a product team, we learned to dial in on these six steps:
- Communicate role clarity
- Embrace learning
- Take onboard feedback
- Take risks
- Use retrospectives to improve team collaboration
Take a look at this Twitter thread for more of her key insights:
Our wonderful keynote speaker Diana Stepner from @czi shared the importance of building psychological safety in remote teams
Follow this thread for top takeaways
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Modern-day leadership
Just before lunch was served, Janice Fraser, investor and author of Farther, Faster, and Far Less Drama was able to elevate our understanding of modern day leadership in her keynote session.
What are the things that make some teams and leaders so successful? How do you do modern leadership? Janice asked the audience. For her, it’s important to follow four key steps to be a successful leader during times of disruption, however before she went into the four notions, she wanted to set things straight…
“Leadership is a role. It’s the thing you do. It’s not about being at the top of an organisation chart. Leaders lead wherever they go.”
To be successful as a leader, Janice says to:
- Orient honestly. Understand the current moment and figure out what situation you are in. What makes it complicated. Then you can figure out what questions to ask.
- Value outcomes. When you value plans over outcomes, it is easy to mistake effort for achievement. Orient value over anything. It helps the team to prioritise activities that work towards the overall value.
- Leverage the brains. When it comes to making decisions, there are only three types of people you need in the room: someone with the authority to say yes, someone with information expertise, and someone who has to live with the outcome of the decision. Balance speed and strength when making decisions.
- Make durable decisions. When making decisions, ask “Can you live with it?” and “Does it move us forward?”
Catch some more key takeaways from the talk from our Twitter thread:
Wow, we feel super inspired to go farther faster
keynote speaker Janice Fraser at #mtpcon gave us some great tips on #productleadership. Follow this thread for more
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Going from 0 to 1 in product
Straight after lunch, we headed back to the main stage to hear from Merci Grace, Investor and Founder about how to create products from scratch.
Merci explains how the more bad ideas we have and get out of our system, the further ahead we will be. As product managers we have the tools to create something out of nothing. You get accustomed to rejection and awkwardness after a few user interviews. If you get through this and work with it, you have the ability to go from 0 to 1 in product discovery.
Read this thread for our key takeaways from her step-by-step guide on going from 0 to 1:
What a way to kick-off our #mtpcon SF afternoon keynotes!
@merci gave us an amazing talk about making something out of nothing in product. Follow this thread for more
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
AI and people go hand in hand
Next up, we heard from Aniket Deosthali, Head of Product at Reforge. He shared some powerful stuff on the future of AI for product people.
We learned from Aniket that we are in the midst of a technology breakthrough that hasn’t happened before, and is developing faster than ever.
As product managers, we need to find a way to effectively work with AI to create products that people love.
Read the thread below that shows our key takeaways from Aniket, as well as a step-by-step guide to getting started with building AI products:
Head of Product at Reforge, @aniketdeosthali shared some powerful stuff about the future of AI for product people in his #mtpcon keynote today
. Follow this thread for more
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Zoom out!
Closing out the talks for the early afternoon sessions was Navya Rehani Gupta. As Chief Product Officer at Peek, she very much understands the difficulty of zooming out when we’re faced with so many tasks and responsibilities. She offered up some best practices to help us along the way.
Her key points were:
- Make room to zoom
- Have a conversation about conversations
- Know when and how to flex
- Get better every day
Catch up on her full takeaways by reading the thread below:
Chief Product Officer Navya Rehani Gupta really@peek‘d our interest in her perception-changing keynote talk at #mtpcon
Follow this thread for more
. #mtpcon #SF #ProductManagement pic.twitter.com/n19hqTBjyB
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Grow your courage as a product person
“If you are not willing to fail; you can’t innovate.”
Yi-Wei Ang, CPO at talabat taught us a lesson on being courageous as product people in the penultimate talk of the day.
“As a leader, there’s so much power in acknowledging that you don’t have all the answers. Leaders have strong opinions but are actively going out to disprove themselves. It takes courage to be able to do that.” he said.
It takes courage to decide in the face of uncertainty, pull the plug, say what needs to be said, and build products. This is what amazing product organisations are able to do.
Catch the full thread that looks at more key takeaways from the talk below:
CPO, @yiweiang from @Talabat gave us a courageous talk today sharing ways product organisations can create courageous teams
Follow this thread for more
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 14, 2023
Lesson upon lesson
Wrapping up the day of amazing product goodness was Natalia Williams, CPO of Hootsuite. She talked us through the lessons she’s learned over 20 years in her product career.
Despite being the last talk of the day, she gained great engagement from the crowd when asking them to guest certain songs. These songs signified key lessons in her career, including embarrassing change, dealing with feedback, and focusing on the customer to be successful in the product. In addition, we also learned from Natalia how to change the culture as a leader, and found some key insights into how to start igniting change within our teams both as a product manager, and as a leader.
Catch up on all of her lessons learned in her career in the thread below:
What an inspiring final talk of the day at #mtpcon SF
@hootsuite ‘s CPO Natalia Williams shared insights on humility in product. Follow this thread for more
— Mind the Product (@MindtheProduct) June 15, 2023
And….that’s a wrap!
Thank you to all the attendees, speakers, volunteers, and sponsors who made this year’s #mtpcon San Francisco so special! We’ll hopefully see many of you back for our #mtpcon London 2023 in October! More details coming soon
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