Learn & Unlearn - (Un) Conference

Like the Bengaluru weather, The Product Folks - (Un) Conference was cool.

Had the opportunity to meet and discuss with leaders across domains.

The event was packed with many productive discussion panels and hands-on sessions.

I chose to attend the following sessions, and happy to share my learnings for all.

Session 1 : Inside the Mind of a Serial Innovator

• Chaos is good & can spark creativity
• Cultivate relationships with innovative colleagues
• Keep your crazy ideas within you until the team & mindset is ready
• In recent years, Product Management shifted from a role of influence to one of power. Now, the dynamic is gradually returning to its original nature.

Session 2: Steering Growth - Who's in Driver seat

In this session, product leaders shared their process ideas to deliver something right & quick into the market.

Spotify Squad Model: Identify an initiative, basically by the product manager followed by gather one member from design, engineering, marketing & sales, and customer success. Let them own the feature from end-to-end right from discovery through adoption & growth. Plan them in advance and act accordingly.

Tiki-Taka: A lesson from Barcelona football club, which is all about short, quick passes and seamless coordination between players which can be directly applied between the product, engineering, design, and business teams.

Amazon’s Backward Process: Amazon product teams start by writing a fictional press release as if the product or feature they are working on has already been launched. The press release is short, clear, and free of technical jargon, focusing on the value proposition for the customer.

One interesting quote from Meesho’s product head is that, “We are there with all technologies at its peak but unevenly distributed”.

Session 3: Transitioning from Product Builder to Product Leader

The key focus was more on the delivery outcomes than the delivery launches is the central theme. Few points to remember are:

• Don't talk to customers, observe them
• 80/20 isn't enough anymore, need 99/1
• Constraints are your best friends, embrace them
• Think ecosystems, not just the product
• Just launch and become a learning machine
• Make your stakeholders directly hear from customers

Session 4: Decoding Consumer Behavior: Turning Insights into Actionable Product Strategies

• Balancing data insights with customer engagement is crucial for discovering deeper insights that drive product decisions.
• Understanding user behavior and emotional triggers is key to refining product design and marketing strategies.
• Scaling requires personalized approaches for different user segments and regions, with tailored strategies for success.
• Small user insights, such as emotional connections & intuitions, can lead to successful and engaging product features. When supplied with data they can scale to bigger ones.

Session 5: Crafting your product launch story

It's a classical hands on session by Bombay Locale? founder Anupam Sidhant , on “Storytelling that works” focusing on The Three Act Structure and addressing through adjectives & navarasas (emotions). It boils down to the basics, W’s - Who, What, When, Where, Why & How !

Session 6: AI Innovation Room: Shaping Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs w AI

This was an interactive session using flash cards that contains what AI can do for you given the opportunity. Take any card out from the pack and you would be able to come up with AI solution. And obviously compliance factors need to be taken into account, however as PM we tend to overlook and validate after deriving solutions.

Finally, meeting of minds, and remembering the discussions with them was simply awesome.

Calling out them here in the post, to make event more memorable.

Rahul Seshadri Suchitra Ravichander Karthik Vankadari Narendran Baskar Chandra Mouli Aravindan Ganesan Gayathri Subramaniam Susheel Shastry Vipul Sehgal Rajadurai Sam Stephen Karthik Suroju Shreya Kukreja

Happy to connect & discuss with you all :)

Thanks for your outstanding efforts in organising such a splendid event bringing PM’s & Leaders together - Suhas Motwani & Team !