Session 1 – Introduction to Product Management – Calum Tsang

An introductory session about what Product Management is and isn’t, what it’s goals and objectives are and how to introduce it companies that don’t have it formally or don’t understand it

Session 2- Product Pricing – Siobhan McLaughlin
This session will introduce the topic of pricing, discuss different types of pricing models and give advice on how to go about determining product pricing.

Session 3 – Requirements Simplified – Rod Hardman

Creating effective Product Requirements documents takes a lot of effort, often undermining whether they actually get done. Much of what is written is rarely implemented and the details are not always static as they change when the team learns what it really wants. This session would sort through what is really needed in a Requirements document focusing on what actually gets done.

Session 4 – How to structure a product management team – Andrew Schmied
Discussions on ways to create and grow product management teams. There are few standards on how to structure teams of product managers and product marketers. The aim is to get attendees to discuss what they’ve seen in their experience that worked and didn’t work and why.

Session 5  – A little bit of strategy can save your life – Aldwin
Product managers sacrifice their personal lives for their product’s success. But we’d sacrifice less and succeed more if we could get away from the to-do list long enough to devise a decent market strategy. I’d like to have a conversation about how to do this, how to get your company’s support, and how to prove that the strategy is working.

NOTE: There is no presentation for this session as it was an interactive discussion amongst the participants

View more presentations from ProductCamp Toronto.

For those of you who are not familiar with Ignite — this is format for 5 minute talks on topics of interest — where the motto is “Enlighten us, but make it quick“.

You can find out more about Ignite here:  http://ignite.oreilly.com

The Ignite format is somewhat strict. A hard 5 minute time limit, with 20 slides, automatically advancing every 15 seconds.

We decided to be a bit more lenient and just limit things to 5 minutes in length and let the presenters decide how many slides they wanted.

Enjoy.

—-

Session 1 – The role of Product Marketing in the overall scheme of Product Management – Amrita Mathur
The product marketing role is very valued in the overall product management framework. Typically, the product marketing person serves as one of several sources of input to product requirements owned by the product manager; while the product manager will be one of the several sources of input to marketing messages owned by the product marketing person. Would like to discuss this symbiotic relationship further, pros and cons, what functions lie where etc.

Session 2 -The Why-Driven Roadmap – Alan Armstrong
Product Managers frequently struggle to develop, communicate, and stay on strategy as expressed in a product roadmap. Demands from sales and changing tides in executive opinions can side track the best laid plans. The key to staying on track is to avoid feature wars and start with “why”; why your product, why this release, why this strategy, and why this roadmap. This talk will present that argument, drawing on the best-selling leadership book “Start with Why”, and will include practical tools to translate the idea into a product development setting.

Session 3 – Lean Communications – Saeed Khan

A major part of product innovation and success rests on efficient and effective communication across teams in a company. In startups, this happens almost naturally. In medium and large companies, process needs to be put in place. Lean Communication is a model based on Lean principles that can be used to align teams and accelerate time to revenue for high tech products. As key members of the overall communication network, Product Managers and Product Marketers will benefit significantly by adopting this model.

Session 4 – Product Management becomes strategic…Are you ready? – Tom Grant

In response to big industry trends, tech companies need their employees to play an increasingly strategic role. But how do you know what it means to be a “strategic PM”? What should you be doing, or not doing? And what skills, experiences, or tools are required?

Session 5 – Product Design – Richard McCann
Lets compare the design process in different industries and companies. Who leads the design? Who infludences the design? How does the product get shaped? How to get buy in? How to ensure we design the right product.

Thus we’re happy to announce that in addition to our traditional 60 minute (roughly) sessions, we’re going to give those of you who want to share your knowledge, but want a shorter format an opportunity to present.

Enlighten Us, but Make it Quick!

Based on the very popular Ignite series of talks, — where the motto is “Enlighten Us, but Make it Quick! — we’re going to provide 5 minute time slots to people who want to talk about something they are passionate about and can share with attendees.

The format is simple:

• You have 5 minutes to present your topic
• You don’t have to have slides, but if you do,  you get 20 slides maximum that will forward automatically to cover the 5 minute time slot. e.g. 20 slides means 15 seconds per slide, 10 slides means 30 seconds per slide etc.
• The topic should be related to the ProductCamp themes. i.e. related to product development, startups, product management, marketing, etc.

That’s it. I’m sure most of you reading this have something you can share with the audience. Maybe it’s a problem you solved, or something you learned in your job, or an experience you want to share. Don’t get too caught up in the rules, and if you’re not sure about anything, contact us at the email below. We’re here to help.

Don’t be shy. 5 minutes flies by quickly!

It’s only 5 minutes of your time, but you can impact a large audience.  If you want to present a short talk, or want more information, please contact Saeed Khan. You can reach him via the ProductCamp email — productcamptoronto@gmail.com.

And here’s a (5 minute) video describing how to give an Ignite-style talk!

We’re looking forward to your talks!

During the evening, we threw up a big ol’ pad of paper and encouraged everybody to write down some ideas for possible discussion topics at the main event.

I think we successfully proved that apparently, it is possible to think intelligently about product management while under the influence of alcohol.

Here’s the list:

• How to build a team that is passionate about the product they are developing
• How to get your company to drink the product management kool-aid (versus throwing money at marketing)
• Identifying potential pots of gold
• Sell by leveraging cool web 2.0 technologies
• Pricing models and war stories
• How to build a pricing model from scratch: Gathering sales input; Managing rollout
• Sales Techniques: How to sell the vision, roadmap, disruptive change, etc. within your organization
• Converting Naysayers into fans of your product
• Rebranding your product as a new idea
• Effective product roadmap development and innovation within large organizations: Challenges, success stories, opinions
• Product management in non-tech verticals: Financial services, CPG, cleantech, manufacturing
• Making your competition look bad (and making you look better)
• Ye olde school business code
• Demo a product you LOVE — and talk about why you love it
• Reversing bad publicity on your product
• Structure a Framework on How to Commercialize a Product

There was also some talk of arranging a keynote speaker, as was done at ProductCamp NYC, to spark discussions at the event. A couple names appeared on the board (but I think this is where my handwriting-parsing ability falls apart — corrections welcome — Edit: Fixed, thanks Lee):

• Sean Wise (Dragon’s Den)
• Rich Segal
• Catherine Wakelin

Tell us about your experience, and your ideas for ProductCamp!
Would you attend another Pub Night before ProductCamp in October?