Make better decisions faster

Ever feel overloaded with decisions as a product person? Bogged down in details that are trivial? Rehashing the same decisions over and over again? You’re not alone – but there is a better way! Ensuring you have all the elements of the Decision Stack in place allows you to make better decisions faster – and focus your time and effort only on the most important ones.

About Martin

Martin Eriksson is a product leader, investor, speaker, author, and expert in product practices with over 25 years of experience building products and product teams in multiple markets and industries.

Martin has worked his way through the ins-and-outs of companies of various sizes, including The Financial Times, Monster (building the first SaaS offering there in 2004), Huddle, Covestor, and Cazoo. He literally wrote the book on Product Leadership, and he currently serves as the Product Partner at EQT Ventures, one of Europe’s top five venture capital firms.

As the Founder of ProductTank and Co-Founder of Mind the Product – together, the world’s largest product community that brings people together in 200 cities across the globe – he’s helped define an industry and shaped the practices of a generation of product managers.

The F words of highly successful product organisations

Frick! Great teams can happen anywhere and product organisations need the right F words to build empowered, successful teams. Stop cursing about how things aren’t right and start making better vibes for doing great work. The right environment isn’t a fricking secret, they can be created anywhere. Saielle DaSilva intends to show you how, so strap in, and get ready for some F words.

About Saielle

Saielle DaSilva is a Product and Design Leader passionate about systems thinking, workplace culture and its connection to amazing products. She advocates for diversity in tech organisations and helps companies apply user centred design to both products and internal processes like hiring and recruiting.

Currently Global VP of Design at StepStone, her approach to product culture has been informed by a varied career including clinical psychiatry, community organising and working at companies like AT&T, Amazon, Cazoo and Pivotal on everything from network infrastructure to IoT and machine learning.

From opinion-based to evidence-guided product development

In the past few decades we’ve made major leaps forward in the way we design, develop, and deploy tech products. Product management, however hasn’t evolved as much. We still invest time and effort into building roadmaps and grooming backlogs, often on the basis of opinions, rank, and consensus. Cognitive biases, groupthink, and politics can affect our choices and often send us down the wrong path, hurting both business performance and value creation. In this talk, Itamar will suggest ways to supercharge our judgement with evidence. You’ll look at evidence-guided alternatives to roadmaps, backlogs, and decision-by-committee. He’ll show you the Confidence Meter – a tool to evaluate ideas based on evidence – and how you may use it to improve the quality of discussions and decisions. He’ll discuss what leadership means when the opinions of leaders carry less weight and how teams may gain trust and empowerment by using evidence. Finally he’ll touch on the role of product managers in this brave new world.

About Itamar

Itamar is a coach, writer and speaker specialising in product management and product strategy. For over two decades he held a senior product management and engineering roles at Google, Microsoft and a number of startups. At Google, Itamar led parts of the Gmail product and was the head of Gmail’s growth team (resulting in 1Bn MAUs).

Itamar publishes a popular product management newsletter and is the creator of a number of product management methodologies including GIST Framework and The Confidence Meter.

Building fair and innovative teams: The promise and power of behavioural science

What makes people tick? And how do we interpret the world and make decisions? These are questions you can apply to any challenge, from designing products, to managing people and building programmes. But equally, behavioural science is critical to advancing our understanding of how to build fair, innovative, and empowered teams.

In this talk, Bibi will explore how we can design systems that help us be our better selves through a deeper understanding of human cognition and behaviour. You will learn practical strategies for overriding biases and make better, fairer decisions, so that, together, we can work towards building products and a society that works for everyone, no matter their background.

About Bibi

Bibi is a behavioural scientist, specialising in the intersection of behavioural design, cognition and bias, and evidence-based policy. Bibi is passionate about creating contexts where people flourish, no matter their background. 

She earned her PhD in Behavioural Public Policy at University College London and worked at the behavioural insights team, where she led large-scale field experiments with the UK government. 

Bibi is now a founding team member and Head of Behavioural Science at Fair HQ, the diversity & inclusion SaaS platform that helps companies create structural and behavioural change at scale.

Is your innovation project on track? Making progress beyond experiments

Have you ever been part of an Innovation team that feels like they are spinning their wheels? They are doing all the right things, identifying hypotheses and running experiments. And yet they are unsure whether they are making any progress towards success. You are not alone! This is a common problem with innovation teams. But there is a better way. This talk will provide you with a toolbox for tracking your innovation projects towards finding value propositions that resonate with customers and business models that are profitable and scalable.

About Tendayi

Tendayi is an author and innovation consultant. He holds a PhD in Psychology and an MBA. As Associate Partner at Strategyzer, he helps large organisations innovate for the future while managing their core business. He has given keynotes, run workshops and worked as a consultant for several large organisations including Rabobank, American Express, Standard Bank, Unilever, Airbus, Pearson, Lufthansa-Airplus, The British Museum, Copenhagen Fintech and The Royal Academy of Engineers.

Tendayi co-designed Pearson’s Product Lifecycle which is an innovation framework that won the Best Innovation Program 2015 at the Corporate Entrepreneur Awards in New York. He has been shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award and was named on the Thinkers50 2018 Radar List for emerging management thinkers to watch.

Tendayi has written three books based on his research and consulting experience, Pirates In The Navy, The Corporate Startup and The Lean Product Lifecycle. The Corporate Startup was awarded the 2018 CMI Management Book Of The Year In Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also a regular contributing writer for Forbes.

Tendayi spent over 12 years in academia during which time he taught at the University of Kent where he is now Honorary Senior Lecturer. He has also been a Research Fellow at Stanford University and Research Assistant at Harvard University.

Talk topic coming soon…

The PM Capsule Wardrobe (a growth playbook)

What are the essential items that really help you build great products? Do you have 95% of your impact with 5% of the things you do? If there was a PM Capsule Wardrobe what would be in it?

Sharon will talk through the most important data sources that any product manager needs to be able to leverage the relationships that are most impactful and using those to make excellent product management decisions.

About Sharon

Sharon Anne Kean is a product and technology leader, who’s empathetic, enthusiastic and loves a challenge. She currently heads up International Expansion and Global product teams at Wise, where the mission is money without borders – instant, convenient, transparent and eventually free. She’s based between NYC and London and works with teams spread across UK, New York, Singapore and Tallinn. 

Before Wise, Sharon spent 2 years in Asia, living in Hong Kong and working across the APAC region as Product Director for Asia at SEEK. And prior to that was immersed in the London start-up scene, as part of the leadership team at a flower-delivery business called Bloom & Wild and before that at a fintech called Zopa. She’s worked across product, design, data and technology, having converted from a previous life as a journalist and media advisor for the UK Government.

A gentle introduction to AI

The pace at which Artificial Intelligence has been growing is accelerating, with more applications using it everyday. From voice assistants to music recommendations and now content generation, it seems every domain is now becoming AI driven. In this talk we will go over the basic concepts in AI, look at how it is being used today, and how it can be made safer.

About Rand

Dr. Rand Hindi is a data scientist and entrepreneur. He is the creator and CEO of Snips, a start-up specializing in Artificial Intelligence, the first private voice assistant solution ‘by design’, acquired by Sonos in 2019. He started coding at the age of 10, founded a social network at 14 and a web agency at 15, before embarking on Machine Learning at 18. He started his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at age 21, MIT Technology Review voted him as TR35 (Under 35 Innovator of the Year), Forbes named him one of 30 Under 35 Innovators aged 30 (’30 under 30 ‘) and was selected as a’ Rising Star ‘by the Founders Forum.

He is a former member of the French Council where he led the AI ​​and jobs working group of the government’s AI strategy. Rand Hindi graduated in Computer Science and Bioinformatics (Ph.D.) from UCL (University College London), as well as Singularity University in Silicon Valley and THNK in Amsterdam.

Rand was chosen by the French government to lead the ‘impact of AI on the economy and employment part of France’s global strategy on Artificial Intelligence. He teaches Artificial Intelligence business courses at the Sciences Po Masters.

Rand Hindi has been carrying out many conferences around the world for several years, and today offers us a new Talk on ‘Managing the confidentiality of our data’.

From PO to CPO: How to drive your product career

In this digital keynote session, Namrata will talk about her own career journey from a PO to a CPO that took her less than a decade to navigate. A product person’s career journey is not necessarily linear – there could be lots of pivots! Be it sectors, types of products, or size of the companies. Taking risk is inevitable if you want to move fast, but also creating impact and value that takes your career to the next level. Working in startups, SMEs, and large corporations have helped Namrata to understand that product teams aren’t always structured the same way. Namrata’s multi-sector experience has helped her broaden her knowledge and networks. Leading high performance teams has taught her some valuable lessons in leadership.

About Namrata

Namrata is the Chief Product Officer at INTO University Partnerships – a global Higher Education company that works with top Universities in the UK, US, and Australia. INTO works with international students from all across the world and aims to deliver the best career outcomes. Previously, she was the CPO at iPlato Healthcare (myGP) where she led an expansive portfolio of digital products and worked closely with NHS Primary Care. She has worked in product leadership roles at Paramount, Babylon Health and a number of other exciting global companies.

Namrata is a strong supporter of Diversity & Inclusion in the workplace, and is a popular voice in the Women in Product & tech community.

She sits on the board of The Open University Business School, and is an Advisor at Antler – an early stage VC firm. Namrata is an alumni of Manchester Business School and is trained in global leadership from Harvard Business School.

Keeping product creative, innovative… and fun!

Ever seen those memes of what people think product managers do vs. what they actually do ? Well, it doesn’t have to be that greyscale. Manon explores the various ways in which product folks can express their creativity while delivering innovative features and, of course, real business results. Through his own journey of combining UX approaches more commonly found in music, gaming, and film, Manon explains how combining your interests can lead to unexpected outcomes.

About Manon

Manon is a product leader and creative technologist who is best known for leveraging technology to design consumer-grade product experiences for the entertainment and education industries. His diverse portfolio of work spans more than a decade, with several of his projects being awarded for innovation (CES) and design (iF, Red Dot). As a product manager, Manon has led product development for some of the most innovative startups in the UK including ROLI & Kano – both of whom have featured on Apple keynotes and have seen Manon’s products end up in Apple stores globally.

As a creative consultant focussing on tech-led immersive products and experiences, Manon’s clients have included HBO, Christian Dior, Magic Leap, Native Instruments, and a number of web3 startups. He is represented as a Creative Director by Framestore, the Oscar, BAFTA, and Cannes Lions-winning VFX and creative agency.

Manon also acts as a music and technology advisor to some of the world’s leading musical artists, including will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman, as well as being a published songwriter / producer himself via 7Wallace & Universal Music.

Product, dance, and pockets of brilliance

An honest and relatable take on the struggle many product managers face in applying product theory in the gloriously messy real world, shared through the lens of teaching people to dance. We learn how by tying together values, great relationships, and mastering our product toolkit, we can create pockets of brilliance wherever we work… jazz hands optional.

About Pippa

Pippa Topp is a product leader, consultant, and coach. After 15 years of experiencing the highs and lows of product & tech, Pippa set up the EQ Product Group earlier this year. Bringing together emotionally intelligent leadership with a practical product mindset, EQPG helps build great products by building great teams.

Pippa has worked across a number of different organisations in a range of capacities, both in-house and as a consultant including; Charlotte Tilbury, Ebay Classified Group, British Gas and Hive, as well as smaller start-ups and scale-ups across various industries.

Decision supervision – structured thinking for product people

As product managers, we very rarely operate in isolation, and we’re more effective when we’re able to influence decisions being made around us. Through lessons from her adventures in dog parenthood, Lucy will share various techniques she’s found to help her make decisions in a more structured way.

About Lucy

Lucy has spent two decades making all sorts of mistakes while building customer experiences. She likes to share what she’s learnt from places like Amazon, TUI, LOVEFiLM, M&S, Department of Health, Compare the Market, and now Appvia, so others can make new and more interesting mistakes.

Building a digital product organisation, brick by brick

The LEGO Group has made a conscious decision to heavily invest in upping their game in digital product development, putting new digital innovations into the hands of kids and families, but also LEGO partners and internal colleagues, to inspire physical play and spark new ideas.

In this talk, Nils will share the story of the LEGO Group’s current journey of building a product-led digital organisation, the challenges they faced (and still face), key learnings along the way, and some of the exciting digital and hybrid innovations that emerged in recent months as a result of this effort.

About Nils

Nils is a product and marketing leader with a great passion for organisational development, establishing new teams and organisations, and aligning Commercial with Product and Technology.

During the past 15 years, Nils has held senior roles in both Product Management and Product Marketing at Google, Trustpilot, Bestseller, and a number of tech startups. Since 2021, Nils has been working as a Transformation Partner and Product Management Coach at the LEGO Group, helping the beloved toy brand establish and evolve a digital product organisation comprised of 150+ product teams across Europe, the United States, and China, building products and services for millions of consumers and shoppers, as well as thousands of partners and colleagues around the globe.

Product Ops: What is it & why it matters

Join ‘Product Ops: What is it & why it matters’ to learn about the emerging discipline of Product Operations and the significant role it can play in your ever-evolving organisation. Designed for startup founders, product managers, product operations managers, and customer success teams, this breakout session will help you not only better understand what Product Ops is but why it is the vital piece for scaling your organisation and ensuring customer satisfaction. Stick around to the end and hear our speaker – an experienced Product Operations Manager from both Google and Deliveroo – give her Top 3 Tips to support you and your team’s Product Op’s success.

About Taylor

Taylor is a product operations leader with a passion for solving problems in complex product and organisational spaces while also promoting and scaling flexible, user-first experiences.

Since 2020 Taylor has held a senior leadership role at Deliveroo, where she has defined the role of Product Operations in supporting the success of Deliveroo’s partner products. Presently, her focus is building processes to streamline product support across the business, while finding creative ways that enable Deliveroo to effectively build, launch, and operate the best products for Deliveroo’s three core audiences: consumers, partners, and riders.

Hailing from the US originally where she started her career at Google’s main campus in Mountain View, Taylor has over 10+ years of experience in technical product support and product operations, and has worked in the US, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. In addition to possessing a love for building the products from the ground up, Taylor also prides herself in supporting the people who create those products, and serves as a facilitator for #IamRemarkable–an initiative empowering and celebrating women and other underrepresented groups both in the workplace and beyond.

Why product managers should not be data-informed 

Product managers today have access to detailed data and analytics around how their product is being used. This has led to the rise of the “data-driven product manager” who bases their decisions on data as much as possible. In this talk, Jens will explain why that is a trap, and what to do instead.

About Jens

Jens-Fabian Goetzmann is an experienced product leader with a background in software development and strategy consulting. He regularly writes about building great product teams, practices, and principles.

Jens is currently Head of Product at RevenueCat. Previously, he worked at 8fit, Microsoft, and BCG.

Our Spotlight presenters provide actionable takeaways on some of the hottest topics in product.

Spotlight sessions are presented by a selection of our sponsors and take place via our digital platform, Hopin, on both days of the conference. All Spotlight sessions are recorded and will be available to conference attendees and Mind the Product members after the event.

The journey to experimentation: Graduate from feature flags to build a culture of experimentation

Joint talk with Shannon Cassidy

Learn how to leverage your knowledge of progressive delivery best practices to start measuring impact that will help you make data-informed decisions to drive growth and a stronger user experience. Being able to break down the development and release cycle into smaller flags and incorporating measurement has allowed Split and their customers to scale and grow. Join Sr. Product Manager, Shannon Cassidy and Practice Director, Data and Experimentation, Tu Nguyen of Split Software for a discussion on how they’ve used data to measure the effectiveness of changes, and how their teams have scaled from featuring flagging into building a culture of experimentation.

They will share experiences of engineering and product development at Split and share their stories about:

• Doing the work to get started with experimentation
• Overcoming challenges and how those fuel growth

About Tu

Tu Nguyen is the Practice Director, Data & Experimentation at Split. In her role, she is responsible for providing thought-leadership and guidance on how to evolve the experimentation and measurement practice at Split. With over twelve years of experience working in e-commerce, travel, media, entertainment, and retail digital experience organisations, she enables our customers to build a culture of experimentation and create a Split centre of excellence in their organisations.

The journey to experimentation: Graduate from feature flags to build a culture of experimentation

Joint talk with Tu Nguyen

Learn how to leverage your knowledge of progressive delivery best practices to start measuring impact that will help you make data-informed decisions to drive growth and a stronger user experience. Being able to break down the development and release cycle into smaller flags and incorporating measurement has allowed Split and their customers to scale and grow. Join Sr. Product Manager, Shannon Cassidy and Practice Director, Data and Experimentation, Tu Nguyen of Split Software for a discussion on how they’ve used data to measure the effectiveness of changes, and how their teams have scaled from featuring flagging into building a culture of experimentation.

They will share experiences of engineering and product development at Split and share their stories about:

• Doing the work to get started with experimentation
• Overcoming challenges and how those fuel growth

About Shannon

Shannon Cassidy is a Senior Product Manager at Split where she leads initiatives to integrate their product into the SaaS ecosystem with tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, Datadog, and Slack. Her tech experience began in customer success at a startup which transitioned to a product role, and later led to a senior product role at Autodesk. Throughout her product career she has partnered with design & engineering to build collaboration & productivity tools, APIs, mobile apps, enterprise products, and partner integrations.

Placing bets: How to take risks in your product roadmap

Every product leader should be placing a few “bets” in their roadmap. In an ever-increasing world of uncertainty, placing bets is more important than ever. In this digital Spotlight Session, Esmeralda Martinez will discuss what placing bets mean, why it’s important, and how to do it right.

About Esmeralda

Esmeralda Martinez is the Director of Product for Indicative by mParticle — the only Omnichannel Customer Journey Analytics platform to help teams surface actionable insights to optimise customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. Long before Indicative was acquired by mParticle in December of 2021, Esmeralda was one of Indicative’s first employees. Since the company’s earliest days, she has been instrumental to its growth and evangelising product analytics in the marketplace. Esmeralda is a graduate of New York University’s Stern School of Business where she double majored in International Business and Marketing.

Turning customer success into product success

Joint talk with Hannah Chaplin

Being a product manager can sometimes feel lonely. Whether you’re the first product manager at a startup or part of a mature business, the burden of product responsibility can weigh on us as we try to align the rest of the company around the product offering. The good news is, we’re less lone wolf, and more of a pack. By building a solid relationship with Customer Success, we can create an important extension to the product team, add value to customers, and ensure we are building products that have impact.

In this session, Niamh and Hannah share their experience and practical tips on how to turn customer success into product success.

About Niamh

Niamh is an experienced Product Manager with a passion for building B2B SaaS products that help organisations better understand their customers. Niamh has held various product roles for over 5 years and is the co-organiser of ProductTank Birmingham, one of our monthly product meet-ups run by product people for product people.

Turning customer success into product success

Joint talk with Niamh Jones

Being a product manager can sometimes feel lonely. Whether you’re the first product manager at a startup or part of a mature business, the burden of product responsibility can weigh on us as we try to align the rest of the company around the product offering. The good news is, we’re less lone wolf, and more of a pack. By building a solid relationship with Customer Success, we can create an important extension to the product team, add value to customers, and ensure we are building products that have impact.

In this session, Niamh and Hannah share their experience and practical tips on how to turn customer success into product success.

About Hannah

Hannah is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led several consultancies and startups. She previously served as co-founder and CEO of Receptive, a product demand intelligence platform acquired by Pendo in May 2019. Her passion is helping software teams build winning products by capturing and understanding product feedback at scale.