Meet the speakers

Moving from Project to Product: A Five-Stage Journey

When it comes to increasing productivity, creating value, developing agility, and driving customer-centricity, there’s simply no better approach. Regardless of your starting point, Mik will share insights on just how far organizations have come in realizing the importance of such a paradigm shift.

Scaling Success: From Projects to Super-Sized Products

Products and the value streams that build them deliver an organization's value. Therefore, accelerating product delivery is vital for organizations to survive and thrive in the Digital Age. Instead of focusing on projects and defining success as completing them on time and within budget, leaders must emphasize products that deliver business outcomes. This change requires a new organizational structure, moving from Projects to Products and organizing around value. However, additional challenges arise at scale. Some of the largest SAFe organizations have many value streams developing a single integrated product. For example, how should an automotive company align its 8,000 solution builders to deliver a line of vehicles or a large IT organization managing separate platforms, infrastructure, and services?

In this talk, SAFe Chief Methodologist Andrew Sales will share practical guidance for organizing and supporting super-sized product development. Critical to this approach is identifying, designing, and organizing product portfolios around value. Options include organizing around business units, platforms, regional operations, regulation, or innovation. In reality, a combination is needed to maximize value delivery, and organizations must consider the relevant trade-offs and understand what they are optimizing for. However, successful product development at this scale extends beyond the portfolio and requires robust value stream management practices. In an ideal world, these value streams operate independently, but in practice, organizing successfully at this scale requires understanding how value streams interoperate to create nested and networked value streams.

How World-Class Product Teams Are Winning in the AI Era

Join Carlos González De Villaumbrosia, CEO of Product School as he explores how world-class product teams are navigating the AI era. Gain insights into the challenges of digital transformations, the importance of clear strategy, and the evolving role of product leaders. Discover the critical factors for success and understand how product teams are driving revenue growth and competitive advantage in the age of AI.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Critical factors for success in digital transformations
• Importance of a clear strategy in the AI era
• Leveraging product teams for revenue growth and competitive advantage

Combining the Power of VSM and OKRs to Optimize Flow and Accelerate Speed to Value

Getting to a state of “optimized flow” is journey that starts with gaining visibility into each value stream’s current state through baseline flow metrics. Once there is visibility, data driven insights are used to stabilize the system before making process changes and automations that address bottlenecks and allow a progression from a stable state to a “managed” state of flow. From here, a focus on continuous improvement ultimately achieves an optimized state of flow.

This session will explore how to leverage a Value Stream Management (VSM) platform to rapidly create flow models that generate the key flow metrics and data insights needed to identify opportunity areas and implement flow improvements.

We will also discuss the importance of connecting business outcomes with fast flow using OKRs to deliver an outstanding customer experience.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• How to analyze key flow metrics to find and reduce bottlenecks, wait states, overproduction, and other forms of waste.
• How to create a data driven continuous improvement culture that drives down waste and inefficiency.
• Understand how to leverage OKRs as a strategic alignment framework to address customer needs while driving faster time to value.

Why Your Target Operating Model Needs to Be Flow-centric-insights from Team Topologies

The book Team Topologies points the way to profound changes for the operating model for organizations building and running software-enriched services. At the heart of Team Topologies is the principle of fast flow: multiple ongoing streams of changes to software-enriched services done safely and sustainably. By focusing on fast flow using Team Topologies patterns - especially decoupling and service-centricity - organizations can expect to see significant benefits, including:

• Increased financial efficiency - typically $ millions per year
• Increased end-to-end financial transparency
• Shorter time-to-value
• Better scaling ability without the slowdowns normally found with larger organizations
• Marked improvements in detecting and meeting user needs (or customer needs)
• Increased staff wellbeing and engagement (autonomy, mastery, purpose)
• Greater overall organizational agility

In this talk, Matthew Skelton - CEO at Conflux and co-author of the book Team Topologies - explores some of the reasons why a focus on fast flow helps with much wider organizational and business goals, together with some of the key principles and practices that need to be part of everyday life in an organization that is set p for fast flow.

Ultimately, using "fast flow" as a key organizing principle also results in more generalized business agility, mostly because we are encouraged to think about decoupling between separate "things" and the real value of what the organization provides. So although it is not the end goal, fast flow certainly helps significantly to help the organization to respond in a nimble manner.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Scale at speed needs things to be decoupled
• Architecture for flow is good for scaling
• Architecture for flow is more humane

Why Agile Teams Have Nothing to Do with Business Agility

In this talk, I discuss an agile transition where approximately 600 people were involved. The goal was to shorten the time-to-market for initiatives to be able to respond to customer needs more quickly and, as such, improve business agility. In order to achieve this, a reorganization was carried out. Cross-functional teams were constructed so knowledge needed for development is fully available within the team. In addition, the teams were categorized according to product in order to remove any dependencies. Visualization of the work, Standup meetings and Retrospectives made the agile transition complete—except for the expected improvements. In this session, I share what we did to improve the situation and reach the goal of "more business agility". I also show how you can approach an agile transition of this size, so you can avoid the issue of no improvements being seen. This much I can tell you in advance: do not start at the team level—it will save not only your nerves, but also a lot of money!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Agile teams have nothing to do with business agility
• Agile teams have nothing to do with business agility
• Reorganization is not always necessary

Organising for Outcomes

Every organisation is perfectly optimised to get the results it gets!

In this talk I will be sharing antipatterns (headwinds) and patterns (tailwinds) on the topic of optimising for outcomes, including how we organise ourselves. These are lessons learnt first-hand the hard way and from more than 50 organisations, with a scope across the whole organisation.

There is an emerging new normal across organisations. We are living through the biggest pivot in organised human endeavour at scale since the first industrial revolution in 1771, whether it is Darwinian or by design. What an exciting time to be working!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Value Streams
• How we got here
• How to approach organisational change

Connecting Product Management and Software Engineering

DevOps taught us how to connect our agile development teams with our IT Operations people but it stopped short of reaching out into "the business". When we want to outperform our competitors a key goal is to accelerate the delivery of customer joy and DevOps focuses on measuring lead time from code commit, forgetting about the fuzzy front end that comes first as the product is ideated, designed, and built. Value Stream Management (VSM) sees products as end-to-end value streams that start and end with the customer reaching through both product management and software engineering. In this talk, Helen Beal will provide several real-world examples of how businesses use VSM today to thrive in the digital age.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

1. How VSM delivers customer joy and better business outcomes
2. How to manage products as value streams
3. Who uses VSM and why today

Between Spaces, Scopes and Scales: What the Scaling Frameworks Don't Tell You

In an adaptive organisation, how do the relationships between different organisational scales work? Or the same question, but for the networked organisation? And what does that mean for me? Drawing on systems, complexity, and flow thinking – models such as the viable system model, the Cynefin framework, and Flight Levels – we'll explore how to look beyond process and recognise the deeper organisational imbalances that explain many scale-related challenges. Whether or not you use a branded framework, these are important skills to develop!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Some of your challenges originate not in process, but in structure
• Don't neglect the relationships between different levels of scale in your organisation
• Get those relationships right, and your organisation will become more adaptive

Building Effective Teams

When you move from project to product, things change.

You now form teams to build products and the team owns the product throughout its lifecycle. So then, what makes for an effective team in a product-focused organization? What kind of culture do you need for them to be successful? This talk will cover how to transform your organization into one that is optimized for a fast flow of value.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Culture needs to be open and empowering
• Teams need to be autonomous, long-lived and cross-functional
• Product engineering teams need to be supported by platform and enabling teams that are focused on helping those product-engineering teams by removing cognitive load

From Project to Product – 7 Signs You’re On the Right Path

Organizations place business agility as one of their top strategic priorities, yet we continuously hear of transformations that fail to deliver on their promise. How do you know you’re on the right path? What are some concrete signs that your organization is optimizing for organizational product delivery? In this talk, Jorgen Hesselberg goes beyond the tools, frameworks, and hype to outline 7 concrete signs that show you’re on your way to unlocking agility at the enterprise level.

This talk is based on practical experience working with Fortune 500 companies, leading several successful enterprise transformations and a few valuable failures. The key learnings are captured in my book, Unlocking Agility.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The importance of clear executive commitment and a culture of agility
• Optimizing for the Whole
• Continuous learning and improvement.

Productizing Professional Services: Leveraging Automation and Analytics to Drive Scale and Profits

This presentation delves into the questions and strategies essential for productizing professional services.

A few of the most frequently asked questions covered in this presentation are:

• How is product management different in services companies?
• How can we create a product management culture and organization?
• How can we monetize productized services?
• Who has done this successfully?

Product Managing High-Quality Products

Software quality is on a downswing industry-wide. Many products we use and love are getting worse over time, but this doesn’t have to happen with your product! Even under commercial pressure, it’s important to keep quality levels high to manage risk and keep products viable for the long-term.

You can’t get to quality through just fixing bugs, though. It takes a positive vision for quality to make sustainably great products. This talk will explore quality visions and engaging teams in a culture of quality. We'll also examine factors that lead to product decline and give real-life examples of practices that work to keep quality high throughout the product lifecycle.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• There are common things product people do that lead to declining-quality software
• Quality is not just lack of bugs, it takes a positive vision.
• Quality is about the long-term: sustaining value and avoiding crises over a horizon of years.

Large-Scale Digital Transformations Success and Failure Patterns

Over the years I have led many large-scale digital transformations. There are success and failure patterns that I have learned in helping both business and technology to adopt new ways of working to improve the flow from "idea to in production". In this session I will share from my experience to help other organizations improve their chances of delivering a successful and sustainable change in how the organization delivers value. I will also facilitate a discussion with a few previous clients who can also share from our experience working together.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• 90% of the change is in between the ears
• Don't take a waterfall approach to a Lean Agile transformation
• Start with OKRs and clarity around business value, then harness the power of your own people to make change stick

Align your Organization with your Product Vision; a Verizon Story

Moving from a project-based to a product-centric approach is more than just a shift in terminology – it demands a fundamental transformation of your organizational DNA. Within Verizon's Consumer Group, teams embrace agile methodologies and a product and platform-driven model at scale across the tech stack. This talk, drawing on Verizon’s own experiences, delves into the strategies, challenges and tangible steps for aligning your organization with your product vision.

Align your Organization with your Product Vision; a Verizon Story

Moving from a project-based to a product-centric approach is more than just a shift in terminology – it demands a fundamental transformation of your organizational DNA. Within Verizon's Consumer Group, teams embrace agile methodologies and a product and platform-driven model at scale across the tech stack. This talk, drawing on Verizon’s own experiences, delves into the strategies, challenges and tangible steps for aligning your organization with your product vision.

Align your Organization with your Product Vision; a Verizon Story

Moving from a project-based to a product-centric approach is more than just a shift in terminology – it demands a fundamental transformation of your organizational DNA. Within Verizon's Consumer Group, teams embrace agile methodologies and a product and platform-driven model at scale across the tech stack. This talk, drawing on Verizon’s own experiences, delves into the strategies, challenges and tangible steps for aligning your organization with your product vision.

Unlearn What You Know: Stop Thinking Like a Coach and Start Thinking Like a Player

Are you running into roadblocks driving change? Maybe it’s because you’re still thinking like a coach, and not like a player.

As a change agent for your organization, your mandate is clear: transform your operating model to help your company become more nimble, more efficient, and ready to achieve new strategic goals.

You’ve done the research, learned the techniques, and put your transformation plans in place. So why is it that, for you and many others like you, this is often as far as it gets?

In this session, hear from industry veteran Alan Manuel, Planview Global VP of Product for VSM and AI. Alan has decades of experience both in leading successful software product organizations, as well as driving the change that got them there - at startups, Silicon Valley unicorns, and the largest global technology companies.

You’ll learn the secrets to driving project-to-product change, how to communicate effectively, and what you should avoid.

And you’ll learn how the all-important first transformation probably isn’t what you think.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The 5 most common barriers to change adoption and how to overcome them.
• How thinking like a product manager can drive more successful transformations.
• How to use the right solutions, including AI, to drive more productive stakeholder conversations.

Scaling Success: From Projects to Super-Sized Products

Products and the value streams that build them deliver an organization's value. Therefore, accelerating product delivery is vital for organizations to survive and thrive in the Digital Age. Instead of focusing on projects and defining success as completing them on time and within budget, leaders must emphasize products that deliver business outcomes. This change requires a new organizational structure, moving from Projects to Products and organizing around value. However, additional challenges arise at scale. Some of the largest SAFe organizations have many value streams developing a single integrated product. For example, how should an automotive company align its 8,000 solution builders to deliver a line of vehicles or a large IT organization managing separate platforms, infrastructure, and services?

In this talk, SAFe Chief Methodologist Andrew Sales will share practical guidance for organizing and supporting super-sized product development. Critical to this approach is identifying, designing, and organizing product portfolios around value. Options include organizing around business units, platforms, regional operations, regulation, or innovation. In reality, a combination is needed to maximize value delivery, and organizations must consider the relevant trade-offs and understand what they are optimizing for. However, successful product development at this scale extends beyond the portfolio and requires robust value stream management practices. In an ideal world, these value streams operate independently, but in practice, organizing successfully at this scale requires understanding how value streams interoperate to create nested and networked value streams.

Unlocking Value Across Teams: Identifying and Eliminating Blocking Dependencies

Large organisations struggle with numerous blocking dependencies between Product and Platform Teams, resulting in excessive meetings, waiting times, and frustrations on a daily basis. This wasted time translates into monetary losses and missed opportunities for delivering value quickly and consistently.

Drawing from observed patterns across clients, we will collectively explore strategies for early detection of these blocking dependencies across teams. We'll delve into identifying a "sniff test" to uncover which blocking dependency holds the greatest potential for improvement.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

1. Gain a basic understanding of how to deploy work visualisation in manufacturing and technology contexts where workflows intersect.
2. Learn how to apply fast flow principles to identify opportunities across teams, unlocking value in their work improvement hotspots.
3. Prioritise blocking dependencies that align with leadership's business goals and are within their sphere of influence.
4. Obtain ideas on showcasing quick wins in these improvements, laying the groundwork for scalability across teams.

Align your Organization with your Product Vision; a Verizon Story

Moving from a project-based to a product-centric approach is more than just a shift in terminology – it demands a fundamental transformation of your organizational DNA. Within Verizon's Consumer Group, teams embrace agile methodologies and a product and platform-driven model at scale across the tech stack. This talk, drawing on Verizon’s own experiences, delves into the strategies, challenges and tangible steps for aligning your organization with your product vision.

Intentional Purpose: How Successful Products Align with Vision and Communities

Successful products are more than just solutions to consumer needs—they are embodiments of purpose, aligned with a broader vision and deeply connected to communities. In this presentation, we explore the relationship between purpose-driven products, organizational vision, and the communities they serve. We explore how companies harness their core values and vision to craft products that resonate with consumers on a deeper level, fostering loyalty and advocacy.

Through real-world examples, we will examine how companies have effectively integrated purpose into their product development processes, resulting in business success and positive global impact. We will also explore the role of communities in shaping product evolution, from co-creation and feedback to advocacy and support. Join us as we uncover the strategies and insights behind successful products that not only meet market demands but also inspire and empower communities towards a shared vision of a better future.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Explore strategies for establishing connection points between products and organizational vision and values to drive positive social impact.
2. Gather techniques to cultivate authentic connections with communities throughout the product development journey.
3. Gain insights from real-life experiences showing successful integration of purpose into product strategies.

Making sleeping giants dance: Inculcating Product Culture in enterprises

Traditional organizations in centuries old industries are forced to change due to business model disruptions and digital native competition. In this talk, I will be sharing learnings while working with organizations that are 100+ years old who are changing from within to prepare for the fight. How they are changing their thinking first, structuring themselves to adapt to Product and Platforms ways of working, training and experimenting. There are patterns of org structure change in such organizations moving to digital and how partners can create a “virtual satellite teams” environment to collaborate in that journey. The journey of such organizations include modernization from decades old legacy landscape to digital products, forming new entities from within that can experiment with Product ways of working, “performing while transforming”, building “bright and shiny objects” through experimentation to build momentum and demonstrating results through a data driven product delivery.

Key takeaways for the attendees of this session:

• Challenges of traditional organizations
• Patterns of organization structures
• Ways of working to adapt to Product culture
• How partners collaborate in building Products

Unleashing Potential: How Existing Structures and Processes Hinder Your VSM & P2P Transformation

Many organizations find their efforts thwarted by entrenched structures and outdated processes in the quest for innovation and efficiency. This talk will uncover the obstacles in your current organizational structure, processes, and framework that impede your transformation journey. Drawing from real-world experiences, we'll explore how your P2P with these existing constraints can stifle progress and limit value delivery. You'll learn practical strategies to identify and eliminate these bottlenecks, paving the way for a seamless transition to a product-centric model.

I faced several challenges, including organizational resistance to change, bureaucratic processes, and isolated changes that ignored end-to-end flow. Teams were often overloaded with competing priorities, and existing governance structures further slowed progress. However, these challenges led to valuable learnings: the need for comprehensive education and training, the importance of flow champions, and the critical role of tech product managers and product owners in articulating business value.

I will share my experience in this talk, and I promise it will help you avoid common pitfalls.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Identifying Signals to Avoid Pitfalls: Learn to recognize the early warning signs that your value stream and flow initiatives might be counterproductive, allowing you to course-correct before significant issues arise.
• Avoiding Overambitious Undertakings: Understand the risks of taking on too much too soon and how to set realistic, achievable goals that drive sustainable progress.
• Starting Small and Maintaining Momentum: Gain insights into the importance of starting with small, manageable changes and continuously building on them to foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

How World-Class Product Teams Are Winning in the AI Era

Join Carlos González De Villaumbrosia, CEO of Product School as he explores how world-class product teams are navigating the AI era. Gain insights into the challenges of digital transformations, the importance of clear strategy, and the evolving role of product leaders. Discover the critical factors for success and understand how product teams are driving revenue growth and competitive advantage in the age of AI.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Critical factors for success in digital transformations
• Importance of a clear strategy in the AI era
• Leveraging product teams for revenue growth and competitive advantage

Large-Scale Digital Transformations Success and Failure Patterns

Over the years I have led many large-scale digital transformations. There are success and failure patterns that I have learned in helping both business and technology to adopt new ways of working to improve the flow from "idea to in production". In this session I will share from my experience to help other organizations improve their chances of delivering a successful and sustainable change in how the organization delivers value. I will also facilitate a discussion with a few previous clients who can also share from our experience working together.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• 90% of the change is in between the ears
• Don't take a waterfall approach to a Lean Agile transformation
• Start with OKRs and clarity around business value, then harness the power of your own people to make change stick

Working with Your CFO to Fund Capacity Instead of Scope

Often a project to product shift starts in software engineering and quickly runs into issues with the funding model. In traditional organizations the finance org funds scope, so pivoting quickly to work on new scope can be a significant issue. In this talk we'll help you build a talk track to work with your CFO and establish a funding model more condusive to value realization, we'll also share real world examples of how we've done this with fortune 500 companies. Ultimately we'll leave you with another tool in your toolbox designed to help you unlock the flow of more value to your customers.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Learn to speak to the things that matter to finance
• We'll share real world success stories on how we made this shift
• You'll leave with a talk track for finance to help open the door for this shift

Looking for Flow in All the Wrong Places

In this session we will talk about the corporate world’s efficiency obsession, and how it has caused us to lose track of what really matters when trying to deliver faster value to customers. How many times have you heard managers talk about unproductive people ? How about people who aren’t following the process? What about teams who take on too much WIP? The unfortunate side effect of these sorts of questions, is that individuals feel pressure to create local optimizations in order to make themselves feel productive. The truth is, even if individuals are highly productive and following the process, the majority of waste still occurs between the seams of individuals and teams. Just like Johnny Lee was searching for love in all the wrong places, we've been searching for flow in all the wrong places. Leave this session with a better understanding of how to answer the real question, "Where do we need to invest?"

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Flow isn't what you may think it is
• The way we think is strongly influenced by our past
• Flow gets lost between the seams of people and teams

Strategic Portfolio Management at the World’s Largest Housing Authority

TBD

Working with Your CFO to Fund Capacity Instead of Scope

Often a project to product shift starts in software engineering and quickly runs into issues with the funding model. In traditional organizations the finance org funds scope, so pivoting quickly to work on new scope can be a significant issue. In this talk we'll help you build a talk track to work with your CFO and establish a funding model more condusive to value realization, we'll also share real world examples of how we've done this with fortune 500 companies. Ultimately we'll leave you with another tool in your toolbox designed to help you unlock the flow of more value to your customers.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Learn to speak to the things that matter to finance
• We'll share real world success stories on how we made this shift
• You'll leave with a talk track for finance to help open the door for this shift

The Art of Product Management: Working Backwards from the Voice of the Customer

Debojyoti delves into a customer-centric approach to product development. He illustrates how starting with the end user in mind and working backwards ensures products meet real customer needs and minimises risk of product failure. By prioritising customer feedback and insights, this technique helps shape product vision, features, and improvements keeping the launch effectiveness in check. Debojyoti emphasizes that this method drives innovation, enhances user satisfaction, and leads to successful product outcomes. He will present real life case studies from amazon product launches to demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Customer-Centric Product Development: Debojyoti emphasizes the importance of starting with the end user in mind, illustrating how focusing on real customer needs minimizes the risk of product failure and ensures that products are genuinely valuable to users.
• Utilizing Customer Feedback: By prioritizing customer feedback and insights, the working backwards technique shapes product vision, features, and improvements, enhancing launch effectiveness and overall product success.
• Driving Innovation and Satisfaction: This approach not only drives innovation but also significantly enhances user satisfaction. Debojyoti supports this with real-life case studies from Amazon product launches, showcasing the technique's effectiveness in achieving successful product outcomes.

Leading Change Inside Out: Embracing Organizational Transformation

Change is unavoidable. Teams either run from it or embrace it. When looking to understand why teams are not adopting new ways of working, software, or culture shifts, you might ask yourself, “How can I lead change more effectively? Am I a good leader? How can I be a great leader? Are we ready for change?”

Take a sneak peek into the world of Organizational Change Management (OCM) and learn how Prosci’s ADKAR Model can help you build trust and communicate changes effectively with your teams. Bring your people along for the change journey and hear real-life success stories.

In this presentation, you will be inspired to think about how you lead change and build a culture that is excited for change and continuous improvement. We will introduce Emotional Intelligence (EI) and how to utilize EI to foster a more harmonious and productive workplace. Attendees will leave this session equipped with exercises and examples they can take back to their teams.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Successful change starts inside and requires both the technical and people sides of change to be addressed. Active and visible leadership from Change Champions and Executive Stakeholders engagement are critical to success.
• Use ADKAR to drive change in your organization. Build the DESIRE and know the WHY on a role-based level and don’t forget to add an extra R at the end for “Recognition.”
• Change is a team sport! Coaches (aka YOU!) need to lead by example and provide a safe space where they can be open, honest, and innovative.

Navigating Complexity: Flowing Value Streams in Traditional Organizations

In today's fast-paced business environment, traditional organizations often face significant challenges in streamlining their product delivery processes. This session delves into the intricacies of implementing value stream flow within complex, established organizations. By focusing on practical strategies and real-world examples, this talk aims to provide attendees with actionable insights to enhance efficiency and accelerate time-to-value.

Denys Svoronos, a seasoned expert in digital transformation and Agile methodologies at Deutsche Telekom, will guide you through the essential steps of value stream mapping and management. Drawing from his extensive experience, Denys will share real use cases from Deutsche Telekom and various initiatives he has led to transform traditional workflows.

Learn how to identify and eliminate bottlenecks, optimize resource allocation, and foster cross-functional collaboration. Discover how leveraging data and AI can provide actionable insights to remove delays and improve overall productivity.

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the foundational concepts of value stream flow and its importance in modern product delivery. The session will cover techniques for visualizing end-to-end processes and identifying areas for improvement. Continuous improvement strategies, managing dependencies, and clearly defining roles and responsibilities will also be explored to ensure successful execution of value stream initiatives.

Join this session to navigate the complexities of value stream flow in traditional organizations, leveraging real-world examples from Deutsche Telekom, and drive significant improvements in your product delivery processes.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Value Stream Mapping: Use value stream mapping (VSM) to visualize end-to-end processes, illuminate areas for improvement, and enhance collaboration among cross-functional teams​
• Stakeholder Engagement: Engage all stakeholders, including affected leadership and team members, to gain consensus and reduce resistance to change. Foster a safe environment for honest exchanges​
• Aligning Teams Around Value Delivery: Establish a common understanding and alignment around the concept of value delivery. Ensure that all team members, from executives to practitioners, share the same vision and goals regarding customer value.

Product Managing High-Quality Products

Software quality is on a downswing industry-wide. Many products we use and love are getting worse over time, but this doesn’t have to happen with your product! Even under commercial pressure, it’s important to keep quality levels high to manage risk and keep products viable for the long-term.

You can’t get to quality through just fixing bugs, though. It takes a positive vision for quality to make sustainably great products. This talk will explore quality visions and engaging teams in a culture of quality. We'll also examine factors that lead to product decline and give real-life examples of practices that work to keep quality high throughout the product lifecycle.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• There are common things product people do that lead to declining-quality software
• Quality is not just lack of bugs, it takes a positive vision.
• Quality is about the long-term: sustaining value and avoiding crises over a horizon of years.

Seeing clearly: Mapping a Path from Project to Product Portfolios

The essence of lean is to start where you are and grow from there, and the journey from project to product is necessarily a lean journey.

However, to start where you are you must first know where you are, and knowing where you are requires having the language to understand and discuss where you are and how you are progressing.

The difference between a project portfolio and a product portfolio fundamentally lies in how an organization perceives the relationships between structures, systems, and work, and through those relationships how the portfolio engages in its aspirations and obligations.

We share several common stopovers along this journey of perception and relationship, and how those stopovers can orient and align the portfolio leadership team.

The shared clarity both informs the next steps you can take to grow your portfolio, and helps align leaders so they can embark on the journey together.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• To start where you are you must first know where you are
• You can't make one big jump, and there are several common intermediate steps
• The journey is a series of shifts in how your culture relates work, structure, and systems

Bureaucratic Organizations: Where Products Go To Die

Unless you are clairvoyant, you can’t predict the future of your products and services. Yet, one certainty remains: they will need to evolve and improve over time. So how do you anticipate change? Are your technical and architectural choices flexible? Are your teams able to sense when change is needed, share these insights and leverage tools and practices to uncover new opportunities? And, importantly, are your organizational dynamics equipped to support you in adapting to the evolving needs of your customers and products?

Innovation thrives in an environment in which change can emerge. What does it take for an organization to enable continuous adaptation, ensuring products stay aligned with customer demands?

There is no silver bullet for innovation. Together, we uncover how Team Topologies - in combination with an array of other tools, practices and principles - challenges our conventional understanding of organizations and enables true adaptability. Let’s explore how this holistic approach, this socio-technical revolution, ushers in a new era for products and innovation.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Explore the key components of adaptive organizations and their impact on your products
• Learn how Team Topologies supports an innovative environment in which change can emerge
• Get practical, hands-on tips on how to start triggering the revolution in your own organization

Accelerating Flow with Big Bets on New Products

Your enterprise naturally evolves in response to changing needs… to a point. While effective for existing products, this organic change is insufficient for creating disruptive new products and business models. More intentional structural change is needed, but these changes also significantly disrupt your internal organization.

When establishing these new product value streams, you will face several critical decision windows that will make the ultimate difference between friction and flow. This talk highlights five specific moments where critical decisions and actions are needed when establishing new product value streams.

We conclude by showing how the validated learning later spreads and inspires the rest of the enterprise. Successfully navigating these decision points early in the product lifecycle allows you to introduce feedback-driven innovation, new enabling technologies, and improved ways of working. These in turn spread to improve the flow of value across your entire delivery ecosystem.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Placing bigger bets on new products will not flow within your existing organisational structures due to friction with existing operations
• Isolating new products is a powerful option, but requires intentional decisions at key points to be effective
• Effective new product value streams can generate new capabilities and learning that lift the entire enterprise

Combining the Power of VSM and OKRs to Optimize Flow and Accelerate Speed to Value

Getting to a state of “optimized flow” is journey that starts with gaining visibility into each value stream’s current state through baseline flow metrics. Once there is visibility, data driven insights are used to stabilize the system before making process changes and automations that address bottlenecks and allow a progression from a stable state to a “managed” state of flow. From here, a focus on continuous improvement ultimately achieves an optimized state of flow.

This session will explore how to leverage a Value Stream Management (VSM) platform to rapidly create flow models that generate the key flow metrics and data insights needed to identify opportunity areas and implement flow improvements.

We will also discuss the importance of connecting business outcomes with fast flow using OKRs to deliver an outstanding customer experience.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• How to analyze key flow metrics to find and reduce bottlenecks, wait states, overproduction, and other forms of waste.
• How to create a data driven continuous improvement culture that drives down waste and inefficiency.
• Understand how to leverage OKRs as a strategic alignment framework to address customer needs while driving faster time to value.

Empowering Transformation Through an Inclusive Team Structure Design Workshop

Team performance is a crucial ingredient to achieve business outcomes. Traditional hierarchical team structures are giving way to more agile, collaborative models tailored to defined goals or specific products. This shift calls for intentional and inclusive team design strategies that empower individuals to shape the very structures they operate within.

This presentation tells the story of a untraditional finance team that together, choose to restructure themselves using a modified Team Topologies framework. We'll dive deep on the problems the team was experiencing and the transformative impact on organizational effectiveness and stakeholder collaboration after the change. By creating a culture where every member’s voice is valued, empowered team members redesigned their team structure which improved engagement, commitment, and ultimately, superior performance outcomes. Attendees will gain practical insights and actionable strategies to lead their own intentional team design workshop and tips to empower individuals to actively shape the organizational structure.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Teams of all sizes need to be intentionally designed and periodically adjusted based on changing business conditions. Learn how one team took a bottoms up approach to implementing a new team topology that drives improvement and meaningful performance outcomes.
• Bring people along on the journey of designing the team they will work on through inclusive leadership and individual ownership to achieve buy-in and excitement for change.
• Identify problems that impact employee engagement (i.e. context switching, meeting overload, throughput slowdown) and look at how the roles, responsibilities, and organizational design contribute to the weight of those experiences.

Unlock Value with an Agile Key: Demystifying Value Stream Mapping

Many people call Value Stream Mapping "transformational" and "a game-changer." But what if people aren't ready for a large heavyweight activity with leadership buy in?

Understanding the entire system end-to-end is crucial for effective and efficient product development, and improving your ways of working. By mapping the system, including delays, handoffs, and information passed along, you can measure and optimize the entire path to value.

In this session, Heidi will share what she has learned across years of both doing, and attempting to do, this activity -- both as an employee inside organizations, and as a consultant. We'll demystify the concept and show anyone how to get started, in an agile way, of course. By the end of the session, you'll have a better understanding of the goals of Value Stream Mapping and be ready to start using it for your organization's benefit.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to level up your ways of working and optimize your value delivery!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The importance of mapping the path to value for achieving agile and DevOps benefits
• How to run a lightweight mapping activity
• Practical tips for getting started with Value Stream Mapping in a lightweight way

Connecting Product Management and Software Engineering

DevOps taught us how to connect our agile development teams with our IT Operations people but it stopped short of reaching out into "the business". When we want to outperform our competitors a key goal is to accelerate the delivery of customer joy and DevOps focuses on measuring lead time from code commit, forgetting about the fuzzy front end that comes first as the product is ideated, designed, and built. Value Stream Management (VSM) sees products as end-to-end value streams that start and end with the customer reaching through both product management and software engineering. In this talk, Helen Beal will provide several real-world examples of how businesses use VSM today to thrive in the digital age.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

1. How VSM delivers customer joy and better business outcomes
2. How to manage products as value streams
3. Who uses VSM and why today

Unlocking Value Across Teams: Identifying and Eliminating Blocking Dependencies

Large organisations struggle with numerous blocking dependencies between Product and Platform Teams, resulting in excessive meetings, waiting times, and frustrations on a daily basis. This wasted time translates into monetary losses and missed opportunities for delivering value quickly and consistently.

Drawing from observed patterns across clients, we will collectively explore strategies for early detection of these blocking dependencies across teams. We'll delve into identifying a "sniff test" to uncover which blocking dependency holds the greatest potential for improvement.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

1. Gain a basic understanding of how to deploy work visualisation in manufacturing and technology contexts where workflows intersect.
2. Learn how to apply fast flow principles to identify opportunities across teams, unlocking value in their work improvement hotspots.
3. Prioritise blocking dependencies that align with leadership's business goals and are within their sphere of influence.
4. Obtain ideas on showcasing quick wins in these improvements, laying the groundwork for scalability across teams.

The Hard Thing about OKRs

The desire to align organizational strategy using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) has been around since before the former CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, coined the term and introduced OKRs to Intel in the 1970’s. In the past few years interest in using OKRs to drive organizational performance is resurgencing thanks to thought leaders such as Marty Cagan, Jeff Patton, and Jeff Gotthelf. Confusion remains about using OKRs and what leaders need to achieve alignment to a strategy based them. What's more - implementation in the context of an organizational that wasn’t designed to align to OKRs is hard.

We will explore activities based on real world scenarios and examples from large organizations that have struggled with OKRs. We will introduce a framework of strategic tools that help OKR implementation. We will highlight thoughtful OKR implementation approaches and crowd-source ways to help you avoid common pitfalls and unleash the power of your organization using OKRs and KPIs.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The difference between business and product OKRs and implications
• Product types and organizational implications for determining OKRs
• Tools and methods to creat good Product OKRs

Insights from the 2024 State of the Industry Report

Join Mara Puisite and Jeff Keyes for a compelling discussion on the 2024 State of the Industry Report, where they will reveal the critical findings on what drives better business outcomes at elite organizations - those defined by achieving their business goals more than 90% of the time. In an era defined by disruption, understanding how to adapt is essential for survival. From digital-native disruptors like Venmo and Tesla to established giants like Lego and Disney, successful companies are increasingly shifting their focus from traditional project models to a product-oriented operating approach.

But what does it take to thrive in the Digital Age?

This webinar will explore:

• The key characteristics that set elite organizations apart from their lower-performing counterparts
• Eight common traits found in companies that excel in today’s competitive landscape
• The significant challenges that prevent organizations from fully adopting a product operating model

Drawing from extensive research involving insights from over 8,000 value streams, Mara and Jeff will provide actionable recommendations for leaders looking to enhance visibility, optimize workflows, and prioritize the human element in their organizations.

Blending Product Thinking with Architecture

Systems grow and change over time. You can have intentional design, or accidental design.

In this session we will walk through approaches that leverage product context to keep architecture aligned with the needs of the product. We will look at strategic DDD, C4 modeling, and context mapping.

Leave this session with simple techniques that you can apply immediately to start blending product with architecture. This techniques will help make planning and delivery simpler, reduce overall system complexity, and just make everyone's work a little easier.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• How to leverage product needs to balance architecture
• Context aware team process
• How to grow architecture with your product

Organising for Outcomes

Every organisation is perfectly optimised to get the results it gets!

In this talk I will be sharing antipatterns (headwinds) and patterns (tailwinds) on the topic of optimising for outcomes, including how we organise ourselves. These are lessons learnt first-hand the hard way and from more than 50 organisations, with a scope across the whole organisation.

There is an emerging new normal across organisations. We are living through the biggest pivot in organised human endeavour at scale since the first industrial revolution in 1771, whether it is Darwinian or by design. What an exciting time to be working!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Value Streams
• How we got here
• How to approach organisational change

From Project to Product – 7 Signs You’re On the Right Path

Organizations place business agility as one of their top strategic priorities, yet we continuously hear of transformations that fail to deliver on their promise. How do you know you’re on the right path? What are some concrete signs that your organization is optimizing for organizational product delivery? In this talk, Jorgen Hesselberg goes beyond the tools, frameworks, and hype to outline 7 concrete signs that show you’re on your way to unlocking agility at the enterprise level.

This talk is based on practical experience working with Fortune 500 companies, leading several successful enterprise transformations and a few valuable failures. The key learnings are captured in my book, Unlocking Agility.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The importance of clear executive commitment and a culture of agility
• Optimizing for the Whole
• Continuous learning and improvement.

Products Start with People

KPIs, cycle time, retention rate, conversion rate, SLAs, NPS, MRR CLTV, CLV, CPR and so on. We can have as many metrics as we want. We can be as data-driven as we wish. . . but if we don't understand that each Product starts with People, we won't get far.

• How to become a Product Manager who cares as much about customer satisfaction as about the team's happiness?
• How to use systems thinking and agile coaching in Product Management?
• How to become a full-stack Product Manager?
• How to build a product culture that will make your company profitable?

This talk will be an experience sharing story based on years spent working with startups. The main storyline will evolve around an automotive startup, where in 15 months, as just one Product Manager, I was able to:

• built a strong product team(s)
• launched product to two markets
• built two complementary products
• raised eight million euro

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Pragmatic tools for Product Managers that could be used at zero cost starting from now
• Coaching and facilitation skills that everyone can practice on their own at work every day
• Go-to books and materials that will change your work and life for the better

How Delivery Managers Enable Product Managers to Ship Stellar Software

Mastering collaboration with Delivery Managers isn't always as intuitive as with the other pillars of the Product Trio (Engineering and User Design). However, unlocking the immense value they offer is crucial for Product Managers. By understanding their role and fostering better collaboration, Product Managers can leverage Delivery Managers to streamline processes and free up valuable time for focusing on the core aspects of product management. Let's explore how embracing this partnership can optimize efficiency and drive success in product development endeavors.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The role of Delivery Managers and how they interact with the product trio
• What Delivery Managers can do to make your life as a Product Manager easier
• How to work better with Delivery Managers to ship great product

Business Value Acceleration: A Path to Unlocking Value

Being able to understand Business Value Flow (BVF) is a strategic approach that integrates visualization, optimization, and continuous improvement to enhance business value delivery. It starts with understanding the business outcomes you want to achieve and then visualizing value streams to identify and improve value addition stages. Unlocking business value involves streamlining processes using methodologies like VSM, Lean and Agile. A continuous improvement cycle will ensure adaptability and relevance of your current BVF. Success will be validated with metrics and KPIs within your value stream management practices, reflecting efficiency, speed and customer satisfaction improvements. Embracing these practices allows organizations to consistently deliver value and achieve business success.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Its not just about products and agile
• The path to unlocking flow within your Value Delivery Model
• Ideas to create an Inspect and Adapt model for Continuous Improvement

Why Agile Teams Have Nothing to Do with Business Agility

In this talk, I discuss an agile transition where approximately 600 people were involved. The goal was to shorten the time-to-market for initiatives to be able to respond to customer needs more quickly and, as such, improve business agility. In order to achieve this, a reorganization was carried out. Cross-functional teams were constructed so knowledge needed for development is fully available within the team. In addition, the teams were categorized according to product in order to remove any dependencies. Visualization of the work, Standup meetings and Retrospectives made the agile transition complete—except for the expected improvements. In this session, I share what we did to improve the situation and reach the goal of "more business agility". I also show how you can approach an agile transition of this size, so you can avoid the issue of no improvements being seen. This much I can tell you in advance: do not start at the team level—it will save not only your nerves, but also a lot of money!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Agile teams have nothing to do with business agility
• Agile teams have nothing to do with business agility
• Reorganization is not always necessary

A Holistic Approach to Flow Metrics

In Product to Project, Dr. Mik Kersten positioned the Flow Framework as a cross-functional business-level decision-making framework that operates at the value stream layer: a layer above where frameworks like SAFe and Scrum or practices like DevOps and Kanban focus.

One key role of the Flow Framework and Flow Metrics is identifying opportunities for value stream improvement. Once these opportunities are identified, in principle, the functional frameworks and their associated metrics (like DORA Metrics and Lean/Agile Metrics) come into play, helping to pinpoint how to make improvements within those frameworks.

In practice, it is not always apparent how to do this handoff because these frameworks operate at different layers of abstraction, and semantic differences between how metrics are captured and calculated make it hard to correlate results across these various layers in the Flow Framework.

We have observed that addressing this disconnect becomes easier with an explicit model that complements the existing models of The Flow Framework: the integration, activity, and product models. We call this the measurement model.

The key idea here is explicitly modeling how artifact network metrics like DORA and Lean/Agile metrics roll into value stream metrics for flow items by viewing them uniformly as parameters of queues organized as a network.

This talk will discuss how we use these value stream measurement models to help clients understand value stream flow across layers of abstraction and our early experiences with them.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• How to think about the relationships between value stream flow metrics and Lean/Agile metrics, DORA metrics etc.
• Once you start seeing things as queues, they are everywhere, and it will help make connections that may not be obvious
• Identifying flow improvement targets and making improvements are somewhat different ball games.

The Evolution of the Product Operating Model in the Age of Generative AI

The traditional product operating model has been instrumental in revolutionizing and streamlining software delivery by effectively integrating technical expertise, business acumen, and user experience. However, with the advent of Generative AI, we are witnessing a transformative shift that is redefining these foundational pillars. This session will explore how Generative AI is driving an evolution in the product operating model, necessitating a re-evaluation of our established paradigms.

Generative AI is not just an incremental improvement but a fundamental change agent that impacts the way we approach product development, customer interactions, and strategic decision-making. As practitioners, it is imperative that we understand and harness these advancements to avoid being left behind. Join me to delve into the nuances of this evolution, and gain insights on how to adapt and thrive in this new era of technological innovation.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Adaptation and Thriving in the New Era: To avoid being left behind, it is essential for professionals to grasp the nuances of this technological evolution and adapt their methodologies.
• Re-evaluation of Foundational Pillars: The traditional pillars of the product operating model—technical expertise, business acumen, and user experience—are evolving due to Generative AI.
• Transformative Impact of Generative AI: Generative AI is fundamentally changing the product operating model, influencing product development, customer interactions, and strategic decision-making. Understanding these changes is crucial for staying competitive.

Accelerating Strategy Delivery: The Shift from Projects to Products in PMOs and Business Transformation

This session will guide you through the critical transition from project-based to product-centric approaches within PMOs. This presentation highlights how PMOs can evolve into powerful drivers of strategic outcomes by integrating strategy, execution, and realization into a cohesive process. Attendees will learn practical strategies for aligning their PMO operations with strategic goals, ensuring that every project contributes to sustained business value and successful strategy execution.

Tales from the Trenches: A Survival Guide for Product Management Leaders

Product Management leaders serve as linchpins, forging connections and collaborating across all levels and departments. Charged with the task of influencing without direct authority, they expertly navigate complex, non-linear processes. They have to be technically fluent, generate demand alongside marketing and sales, build relationships with partners and executives, ensure regulatory compliance, and achieve financial and strategic objectives—all while delivering top-tier customer satisfaction.

Maik Hassel has been leading product management and software development teams for over 20 years. Join Maik as he shares real-world stories and lessons learned as a product leader in a changing digital world.

Explore topics such as:

• Prioritizing customer needs while your world is reorganizing around you
• So many customers, so many asks: guidance for making impossible tradeoffs
• Leading through influence rather than authority: rallying teams around the work that matters most

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Every team member must grasp that customers prioritize their own needs over internal organizational structure.
• Data is the only way to facilitate clear communication and align expectations across all stakeholders.
• Delivering value to customers requires a shared understanding and internal alignment around the definition of value and how it’s measured.

Insights from the 2024 State of the Industry Report

Join Mara Puisite and Jeff Keyes for a compelling discussion on the 2024 State of the Industry Report, where they will reveal the critical findings on what drives better business outcomes at elite organizations - those defined by achieving their business goals more than 90% of the time. In an era defined by disruption, understanding how to adapt is essential for survival. From digital-native disruptors like Venmo and Tesla to established giants like Lego and Disney, successful companies are increasingly shifting their focus from traditional project models to a product-oriented operating approach.

But what does it take to thrive in the Digital Age?

This webinar will explore:

• The key characteristics that set elite organizations apart from their lower-performing counterparts
• Eight common traits found in companies that excel in today’s competitive landscape
• The significant challenges that prevent organizations from fully adopting a product operating model

Drawing from extensive research involving insights from over 8,000 value streams, Mara and Jeff will provide actionable recommendations for leaders looking to enhance visibility, optimize workflows, and prioritize the human element in their organizations.

AI beyond the code: Master your organisational AI implementation

In this case study, we will delve into the development and implementation process of an embedded AI tool for the production chain of a leading tire manufacturer.

Our journey will reveal the myriad of challenges that arose during the development phases, as well as effective strategies for overcoming these organisational hurdles.

The session will look beyond the technical make-up of the team, highlighting that high-performing data scientists and machine learning engineers are no guarantee of successful AI integration. Instead, we'll explore the broader organisational challenges that come into play, and I'll share practical solutions to address them. A key focus will be on the need for a strategic, holistic approach to AI adoption.

During this case study I will provide you with actionable insights and strategies that highlight the organisational perspective of realising the full potential of AI in complex environments. This session promises to provide clear, direct guidance that will make the power of AI technology more accessible to organisations looking to harness its transformative capabilities.

Join me to learn how to guide your organization towards AI excellence, turning obstacles into opportunities for innovation and growth.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• What you need to Manage AI Products
• What Impediments can occur in Data Products
• A really funny Failstudy with Cool GIFs

Seeing clearly: Mapping a Path from Project to Product Portfolios

The essence of lean is to start where you are and grow from there, and the journey from project to product is necessarily a lean journey.

However, to start where you are you must first know where you are, and knowing where you are requires having the language to understand and discuss where you are and how you are progressing.

The difference between a project portfolio and a product portfolio fundamentally lies in how an organization perceives the relationships between structures, systems, and work, and through those relationships how the portfolio engages in its aspirations and obligations.

We share several common stopovers along this journey of perception and relationship, and how those stopovers can orient and align the portfolio leadership team.

The shared clarity both informs the next steps you can take to grow your portfolio, and helps align leaders so they can embark on the journey together.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• To start where you are you must first know where you are
• You can't make one big jump, and there are several common intermediate steps
• The journey is a series of shifts in how your culture relates work, structure, and systems

Why Your Target Operating Model Needs to Be Flow-centric-insights from Team Topologies

The book Team Topologies points the way to profound changes for the operating model for organizations building and running software-enriched services. At the heart of Team Topologies is the principle of fast flow: multiple ongoing streams of changes to software-enriched services done safely and sustainably. By focusing on fast flow using Team Topologies patterns - especially decoupling and service-centricity - organizations can expect to see significant benefits, including:

• Increased financial efficiency - typically $ millions per year
• Increased end-to-end financial transparency
• Shorter time-to-value
• Better scaling ability without the slowdowns normally found with larger organizations
• Marked improvements in detecting and meeting user needs (or customer needs)
• Increased staff wellbeing and engagement (autonomy, mastery, purpose)
• Greater overall organizational agility

In this talk, Matthew Skelton - CEO at Conflux and co-author of the book Team Topologies - explores some of the reasons why a focus on fast flow helps with much wider organizational and business goals, together with some of the key principles and practices that need to be part of everyday life in an organization that is set p for fast flow.

Ultimately, using "fast flow" as a key organizing principle also results in more generalized business agility, mostly because we are encouraged to think about decoupling between separate "things" and the real value of what the organization provides. So although it is not the end goal, fast flow certainly helps significantly to help the organization to respond in a nimble manner.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Scale at speed needs things to be decoupled
• Architecture for flow is good for scaling
• Architecture for flow is more humane

The Bottom-line Benefit of the Product Operating Model: What Matters Most to Create Strong Business Performance Outcomes and How GenAI will Evolve That

Research and data shows that Product operating model maturity is directly correlated with strong business performance outcomes. Megha, a partner at McKinsey & Company, will share what elements of the product model has the greatest impact on business performance, and how this model will evolve with Generative AI.

Create Alignment between Business and Product Teams

There are several challenges organizations face when it comes to prioritization/decision-making around products/product development. Some of the challenges are around (1) Complexity of decisions with multiple stakeholders, departments and systems (2) Data Overload and extracting meaningful insights (3) Risk Management with the various assessments, mitigations and (4) Alignment across the organization with competing priorities and interests. Let’s discuss why it is so important to ensure all teams are working on the most valuable items based on the corporate strategies and direction, and what steps to get there.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Mitigations to the challenges when moving to alignment
• Steps to get to alignment
• How to keep the momentum moving

How To Create a Team Structure Based on Innovation and Experimentation

This talk describes the process of transforming a project structure into a Product team building focused on continuous discovery, experimentation, and people first.

By "Continuous Discovery" I mean that we create a structure focused on analyzing audience and market, content generation, training and development, strategic alliances, service design, and innovation.

By "Experimentation" I mean that we create a culture of testing, where we use the information collected and test based on a specific desired outcome.

By "People First" I mean that the only way to grow as a team is to focus on each team member. So by defining a clear structure based on practice leaders, product ops, and mentors, we will create a team focused on continuous growth.

The talk will be about the representation and the actual structure I have for my team. I manage a team of 40 people, between product and design, where I have 2 practice leaders, 1 product ops leader, and 10 mentors.

I will show how did started by becoming a team of 10 to a team of 40, what was my desired outcome, how I implemented and what results I am having right now.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• The purpose of the continuous discovery
• How to transform an idea into an experiment
• Focus on your team as your primary tool to grow

Moving from Project to Product: A Five-Stage Journey

When it comes to increasing productivity, creating value, developing agility, and driving customer-centricity, there’s simply no better approach. Regardless of your starting point, Mik will share insights on just how far organizations have come in realizing the importance of such a paradigm shift.

Between Spaces, Scopes and Scales: What the Scaling Frameworks Don't Tell You

In an adaptive organisation, how do the relationships between different organisational scales work? Or the same question, but for the networked organisation? And what does that mean for me? Drawing on systems, complexity, and flow thinking – models such as the viable system model, the Cynefin framework, and Flight Levels – we'll explore how to look beyond process and recognise the deeper organisational imbalances that explain many scale-related challenges. Whether or not you use a branded framework, these are important skills to develop!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Some of your challenges originate not in process, but in structure
• Don't neglect the relationships between different levels of scale in your organisation
• Get those relationships right, and your organisation will become more adaptive

Productizing Professional Services: Leveraging Automation and Analytics to Drive Scale and Profits

This presentation delves into the questions and strategies essential for productizing professional services.

A few of the most frequently asked questions covered in this presentation are:

• How is product management different in services companies?
• How can we create a product management culture and organization?
• How can we monetize productized services?
• Who has done this successfully?

The Evolution of the Product Operating Model in the Age of Generative AI

The traditional product operating model has been instrumental in revolutionizing and streamlining software delivery by effectively integrating technical expertise, business acumen, and user experience. However, with the advent of Generative AI, we are witnessing a transformative shift that is redefining these foundational pillars. This session will explore how Generative AI is driving an evolution in the product operating model, necessitating a re-evaluation of our established paradigms.

Generative AI is not just an incremental improvement but a fundamental change agent that impacts the way we approach product development, customer interactions, and strategic decision-making. As practitioners, it is imperative that we understand and harness these advancements to avoid being left behind. Join me to delve into the nuances of this evolution, and gain insights on how to adapt and thrive in this new era of technological innovation.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Adaptation and Thriving in the New Era: To avoid being left behind, it is essential for professionals to grasp the nuances of this technological evolution and adapt their methodologies.
• Re-evaluation of Foundational Pillars: The traditional pillars of the product operating model—technical expertise, business acumen, and user experience—are evolving due to Generative AI.
• Transformative Impact of Generative AI: Generative AI is fundamentally changing the product operating model, influencing product development, customer interactions, and strategic decision-making. Understanding these changes is crucial for staying competitive.

Lead your Software Teams like a Dungeon Master

You bet there's an analogy between leading a party of adventurers and a team of experts. It's the key so you won't be a villain in your own story - the prodigal "bad boss" - and they won't become murder hobos.

This talk will help you lead people and become the Legendary Ally. Learn to improvise good enough answers in unpredictable situations, slash the hydra's heads of managerial overhead, maximize the level and output of your teams & skillfully plant their dreamed loot while - most importantly - not burning out into madness.

This way you will transition from one-off projects to full-blown Product Campaign with a team focused on clearing chapters - impatient to see what's next.

All inspired by TTRPG and battle-tested on production in the tech industry and tabletop. It will be lighter and a bit nerdy talk, but under the RPG analogy awaits practices wildly discussed and tested in modern management like North Star, SPACE metrics, Design Thinking, Diversity and Inclusion, Kaizen, Corporate Rebels, Sustainable Management, Difficult Conversations & Psychological Safety.

How Do We Do Product at Spotify?

When was the last time you heard about how we do Product at Spotify? Don't waste your time searching; either it's been more than a decade, and it’s outdated, or never. We end up communicating very little on how we do things - being very busy in connecting billions of music lovers to millions of artists and audio creators.

Get a taste of how Spotify, make awesome products. What’s in the mix that makes our products consistently successful for more than 10 years? What makes us different from other big techs? How do we jam with OKRs & Bets, agile stuff, data and insights, Continuous Discovery, Design Thinking, Lean UX, Service Design, the most advanced technologies and some ABBA tunes to rock the place?

Be ready to be surprised! Stay tuned!

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Understand how the streaming giant build its product
• Learn about tolls and practices for efficient lean agile product management
• Discover how Product and Projects seats within the borader operating model

Navigating Agile and Product Transformation: Impact on Organizational Design and Culture

We will discuss Agile and Product Transformation and its profound effects on organizational design and culture. We will discover how roles, teams, and organizations' overall structure evolve during this transformative journey.

We will visit or revisit some "Conway's Law" - Organizations that design systems ... are constrained to produce designs that are copies of the communication structures of these organizations. It's critical to the success of any transformation; an organization's outcomes are directly related to how we communicate and collaborate internally.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Communication Shapes Design - Agile and Product Transformation, this means that how teams communicate internally will reflect in the design and development of their digital products
• Organizational Structure Reflects Product Structure - Therefore, when restructuring teams for Agile and Product Transformation, it's crucial to consider not only functional roles but also how these teams will collaborate and communicate to deliver value to customers.
• Culture Drives Product Innovation - Agile and Product Transformation, fostering a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and continuous improvement can lead to more innovative and customer-centric products.

Building Effective Teams

When you move from project to product, things change.

You now form teams to build products and the team owns the product throughout its lifecycle. So then, what makes for an effective team in a product-focused organization? What kind of culture do you need for them to be successful? This talk will cover how to transform your organization into one that is optimized for a fast flow of value.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Culture needs to be open and empowering
• Teams need to be autonomous, long-lived and cross-functional
• Product engineering teams need to be supported by platform and enabling teams that are focused on helping those product-engineering teams by removing cognitive load

Project to Product: 7 Challenges All Organizations Face

In this keynote, we explore how companies can successfully transition from a project-based to a product-based organizational structure, focusing on the seven core challenges that must be addressed during this transformation.

Learn about the strategic shift from complexity-driven to standardization-focused sales strategies, the pricing mechanism attached to it, the role of robust product discovery processes, and the importance of strategic prioritization mechanisms.

Discover how to structure your product setup and organization for success, manage the high pressure on development teams, and implement configuration strategies that allow for customization without custom code.

This presentation offers strategic insights and practical solutions derived from the experiences of successful transformations, designed to enhance scalability, streamline operations, and foster a culture of innovation within your organization.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Understanding the 7 Challenges is the first step to transforming your Organization
• It's a complex problem, because it can only be solved through collaboration of all leadership functions
• Proper Segmentation & Pricing unlocks the Transformation

Leading Change Inside Out: Embracing Organizational Transformation

Change is unavoidable. Teams either run from it or embrace it. When looking to understand why teams are not adopting new ways of working, software, or culture shifts, you might ask yourself, “How can I lead change more effectively? Am I a good leader? How can I be a great leader? Are we ready for change?”

Take a sneak peek into the world of Organizational Change Management (OCM) and learn how Prosci’s ADKAR Model can help you build trust and communicate changes effectively with your teams. Bring your people along for the change journey and hear real-life success stories.

In this presentation, you will be inspired to think about how you lead change and build a culture that is excited for change and continuous improvement. We will introduce Emotional Intelligence (EI) and how to utilize EI to foster a more harmonious and productive workplace. Attendees will leave this session equipped with exercises and examples they can take back to their teams.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Successful change starts inside and requires both the technical and people sides of change to be addressed. Active and visible leadership from Change Champions and Executive Stakeholders engagement are critical to success.
• Use ADKAR to drive change in your organization. Build the DESIRE and know the WHY on a role-based level and don’t forget to add an extra R at the end for “Recognition.”
• Change is a team sport! Coaches (aka YOU!) need to lead by example and provide a safe space where they can be open, honest, and innovative.

Introducing Flow at Scale at Vanguard

Flow is a simple concept. As change agents we use lots of metaphors to introduce the flow concept in our corporate environment. But what happens when you actually initiate a wide-scale implementation of flow measurement in an enterprise software development organization? First, we learned at the pilot level with 10 teams. Then, we learned at an expanded level with 25 teams. And then we took the huge leap to introduce flow to 750 teams! At Vanguard, we are in the midst of a journey with flow thus far moving from pilot to program and next to product. This talk will trace the steps we took along the way, the strategies and tactics we applied, and the takeaways from a front-line flow coach. As we know, flow is a simple concept, right?

Analytics Operating Model - Value Realization Best Practices

GMs and VPs want to show RODE (Return on Digitial $ Employed). One of the best short-term returns for Digital Transformation can be gained through building analytics products. In this session, Tommy will show the Analytics Operating Model and where in that model value should be highlighted to ensure eventual realized value for the business.

We will deep-dive into the operating model to understand how to identify analytics opportunities within the organization, triage effectively, frame the idea for more detail, perform pre-product design-thinking for building backlogs, active development, and eventual transition to operations + value realization...all through a real-life use-case.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• What is a good operating model for building analytics products
• Where should value be considered across the product lifecycle
• What are best practices for capturing value

Navigating the Evolution: From Project to Product Management - Unveiling the Dynamics of WoW

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations are increasingly recognizing the limitations of traditional project management methodologies in the face of uncertainty, complexity, and rapidly changing customer demands. As a response, many are transitioning towards agile product management frameworks to stay competitive and deliver value more effectively. This session delves into the evolutionary journey from project to product management, shedding light on the transformative shifts in Ways of Working (WoW) and offering invaluable insights for organizations seeking to thrive in this new paradigm.

The first key takeaway of this session revolves around the fundamental mindset shift required to transition from a project-centric to a product-centric approach. Unlike projects, which are temporary endeavors focused on delivering a specific output within a defined scope, products are ongoing initiatives aimed at continuously delivering value to customers over time. This necessitates a shift in mindset from a project-oriented, deliverables-focused perspective to one that prioritizes outcomes, customer satisfaction, and long-term value creation. By embracing a product mindset, organizations can foster a culture of innovation, adaptability, and customer-centricity, driving sustained success in today's dynamic marketplace.

In summary, the evolution from project to product management represents a paradigm shift in how organizations approach value delivery and innovation. By embracing a product mindset, fostering holistic collaboration, and embracing iterative improvement, organizations can position themselves for success in today's fast-paced and competitive landscape. This session offers actionable insights and strategies for navigating this transformational journey, empowering organizations to thrive in the age of agile product management.

Key takeaways for attendees of this session:

• Mindset Shift: Understand the fundamental mindset shift required to transition from project-centric to product-centric thinking. Explore how embracing a product mindset fosters continuous innovation, customer-centricity, and adaptability in the face of uncertainty.
• Holistic Collaboration: Learn strategies for fostering holistic collaboration across multidisciplinary teams, breaking down silos, and promoting cross-functional alignment. Discover how effective communication, transparency, and shared accountability are essential for optimizing product delivery and value realization.
• Iterative Improvement: Embrace the power of iterative improvement and continuous learning to drive sustainable product success. Explore frameworks and practices for embracing feedback loops, rapid experimentation, and data-driven decision-making to iteratively evolve products and processes for maximum impact.