The global product community weighs in on Product Excellence at Mind the Product
This week, the productboard team gathered at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco for Mind the Product, the largest product conference in the world. It was our first time sponsoring what one Product Manager described as “product management Christmas,” and we were excited to engage with over 1600 product enthusiasts hailing from 34 different countries.
The global product community weighs in on Product Excellence
At the productboard booth, our sales team powered through personalized demos and visitors stopped to spin the Product Excellence question wheel we brought along. If you’ve a regular reader of our blog, you know that Product Excellence is the methodology that our product is built on. It consists of three core pillars of mastery that excellent product teams share, and the questions on the Product Excellence wheel all pertained to these three pillars.
So what thoughts did the global product community have about 1. gathering deep user insight, 2. setting a clear product strategy, and 3. rallying their teams around an inspiring roadmap? Here are some of the answers we collected throughout the day:
How do you align your team?
“We distill customer needs, focus on their emotions, and communicate them to teams across the company.” — Adam Rubin, Business Manager at Capital One
“We have a big leadership team on the product and technology side that is spread out globally. We meet in-person twice a year and get together every 2 ½ months to chat about strategy and major decisions that need to be made. During these meetings, we do a roadmap alignment and go through everything everyone wants to accomplish. We then score, prioritize, and execute from there.” — James Overling, Director of Business Strategy Execution at American Express
What’s more important? Design or functionality.
“Visual design is the cherry on top.” — Ben McMaster, Product Strategist at Philosophie
“Design is functionality. You design for an outcome, and the design should complement functionality.” — Aaron Skinner, Sr. Product Manager, The Home Depot
How do you define product strategy?
“Product strategy is the connection between what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and whom you’re doing it for.”
— Betina Evancha, Director of Product at Peloton Interactive
How do you process user insights?
“We do UX prototyping and user research, then gather the data and validate our assumptions. We pay close attention to feedback and use feedback to iterate.”
— Steven Ho, PM at Jobvite
How do you earn buy-in?
“Our team is highly data-driven. We earn buy-in using support from core metrics.” — Chris Barning, Product Manager MT&T Bank
“We continuously collect insights from end users and stakeholders, then implement that feedback. We give teams a sense of responsibility and ownership over product.”
— Matthew Thanner, Product Manager at Comcast
How do you test feature ideas?
“A/B testing, experimentation, going through concepts directly with customers.”
— Farrukh Zaman, Director of Product Management at Salesforce
A diverse panel of speakers
This year, Mind the Product attendees were thrilled by the event’s diverse 10-speaker panel which included 5 women, 6 minorities, and a variety of backgrounds and expertise.
Martin Eriksson, a Mind the Product founder, presented a quote by Peter Drucker that summarizes why productboard exists as a company…
Come to talk to @productboard so you avoid what Peter Drucker said #mtpcon pic.twitter.com/R5njTlhVe3
— Andrej Danko (@DankoAndrej) July 16, 2019
Brandon Chu, VP of Product, Platform, at Shopify and author of the Black Box of Product Management discussed what the rise of platforms means for your product strategy…
The strategy behind product extension platforms like @Shopify, @salesforce, and more is to let developers fill the gap between the problems your customers need solved and the problems your company can feasibly solve. — @BrandonMChu #prodmgmt #mtpcon pic.twitter.com/L2ncRpBa8C
— Productboard (@productboard) July 16, 2019
User research expert Steve Portigal dove into how Product Managers can better understand user behaviors, needs, usability, and experience…
Nearly ran out of room during @steveportigal’s #mtpcon presentation. So good. #sketchnotes https://t.co/CzCHQc34F7 pic.twitter.com/YKQZVUPHpv
— Ty Hatch (@tyhatch) July 17, 2019
Denise Jacobs offered advice on silencing your inner critic and explained why self-compassion correlates with achieving mastery in your field…
Beware of your negative thoughts. Just because your thinking something, doesn’t mean it’s true and your brain is being programmed by them #byeinnercritic #mtpcon @denisejacobs pic.twitter.com/kSa8VsWTd4
— Gabrielle Bufrem (@gbufremsays) July 16, 2019
Teresa Torres, product discovery coach, preached about the importance of including stakeholders in decision-making…
INVITE ✨ OUR ✨ STAKEHOLDERS ✨ TO ✨ IDEATE ✨ WITH ✨ US @ttorres #mtpcon pic.twitter.com/JS5tllDG9U
— Matt LeMay ➡️ /in/mattlemay LI ➡️ @mttlmy IG/🧵 (@mattlemay) July 17, 2019
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Check out the #mtpcon hashtag on Twitter to see what the Mind the Product community is buzzing about. To learn more about Product Excellence, check out the kickoff post of our Age of Product Excellence series and our interview with Rian van der Merwe, Product Manager at Postmark.
WOW I have concluded that the one word to summarize the theme of #mtpcon is VULNERABILITY @denisejacobs on inner critic @kathytpham on ethics of tech @ttorres on not fixating to be right @mattlemay on psychological safety pic.twitter.com/psG1nGHBVT
— Tricia Wang (@triciawang) July 17, 2019
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productboard is a product management system that enables teams to get the right products to market faster. Built on top of the Product Excellence framework, productboard serves as the dedicated system of record for product managers and aligns everyone on the right features to build next. Access a free trial of productboard today.
