What skills and best practices define the few who perform at the top of this profession? For these superstars, we’ll identify what things they do differently and how they do things differently. Our goal is for everyone to leave with a couple of ideas on how they can raise the level of their own performance. The format will be a facilitated group discussion drawing on the collective experience of the audience.

We all know that the definition of a product manager varies from company to company.  Lets review the foundations of a product manager that enables them to be a recognized contributor to their organization - regardless of the job description.

A career in product management is not by design.  It requires that each of us look at ourselves as we would a product - determining our value and the kind of companies that can benefit from our strengths. 

Lets talk about the paths that took us to a career in product management, product ownership, and product marketing so that we can mentor others attending the session can determine what skills they need to demonstrate to be a successful product manager. 

In this session, we'll look at industry best practices for new product development, combining the best of a disciplined, structured product management approach, with the creativity and openness of Agile and spiral development.  The content will be relevant for product managers in technology industries and also non-tech industries.

This session will be a town-hall style format.  I'll share industry best practices, with lots of discussion and interaction.

Session leader: Todd Birzer, Kevolve Product Management

We’ll talk about standing out as the best candidate in a product management interview and how to find the best product managers with great questions. Bring your questions and share with the group: What’s the best question you’ve ever been asked? What question helps you find the best candidates?

How do you get the right stuff built at the right time, and how much rigor do you put into this part of the planning process?

Story Points are for the devs, Business Value is for the Product Owners. Or so the theology goes. If there's truth there, how do you capture BV in the backlog - and how do you actually use it during Sprint Planning? I can start off the discussion by reviewing a quantitative-ish approach I've been using in out planning, and I'd love to hear how others are doing this with less or more rigor.

"We have tried it before and it did not work" Have you heard that before?

In this discussion we will present a simple one page cognitive model of humans and organizations that I find useful to refer to when dealing with broad set of issues. Presentation, I hope, will be highly interactive with all of us sharing our experiences as related to this simple model.

[Note: I will again offer this session which scored highly last year]
They were once living, thriving, growing products. They had a promising future, even gave birth to healthy offspring.  Now, they’re no longer really alive, but they're not really dead either. Worse, they have turned on you and they want to kill you. You're gonna need the right weapons if you want to take them down, and keep them down.  This session will identify the several tell-tale signs of these Zombies, and will provide some practical tips on how to rid your customers and you of them, once and for all.

A core product management function is managing in-market products for growth, but in many companies, current in-market products are left to linger without attention and focus.

I'll share industry best practices, and we'll have a robust discussion on all the ways to generate revenue, profit and share growth for the products and services you have in the market today.

Session lead: Todd Birzer, Kevolve Product Management

Growth Hacker Marketing tactics are commonly used by SaaS companies to seed their market and drive hyper growth.  We'll discuss the concepts and talk about your experiences or ideas of how you might apply to your new product.  How might you change your product design to take advantage?