Product Camp Melbourne 2025

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We’re about 6 weeks away from Saturday, August 16th – Product Camp!!!

We’ll be kicking off at 9am sharp for a full day of activities, learning, food and fun. Plus an after party once we wrap up around 4:30pm. See the Camp website for pix from previous years & additional info.

Product Camp is run as an ‘unconference’ which means the majority of the talks are voted on by the attendees. We have a pitch session in the morning & then everyone gets to vote.

Want to give a talk or lead a discussion? Get your ideas in early so we can promote you on the website & socials! More info here: https://bit.ly/pcamptalks2025

Want to volunteer and help make the day amazing? Jump on the Product Anonymous slack and reach out in the #product-camp channel.

RSVP for Product Camp

Camp is not possible without these amazing sponsors!

Thank you to our host – Seek!
SEEK has been helping Australians live more fulfilling and productive working lives for 27 years. SEEK is a diverse group of companies, comprised of a strong portfolio of online employment, educational, commercial and volunteer businesses. As a market leader in online employment marketplaces that span ten countries across Asia Pacific and Latin America, SEEK makes a positive contribution to people’s lives on a global scale.

Thank you Mixpanel!
Mixpanel is a modern digital analytics platform built to help companies move faster, grow smarter, and deliver better experiences at scale. Designed for product, marketing, and data teams, Mixpanel makes it easy to analyze user behavior in real time, measure the impact of digital experiences, and tie product decisions directly to business outcomes like revenue, retention, and engagement. With intuitive self-serve reporting, strong data governance, and flexible integrations with modern data stacks, Mixpanel empowers enterprises to break down data silos, foster a culture of data-driven decision-making, and scale confidently. Thousands of leading companies—including in fintech, healthcare, media, and SaaS—use Mixpanel to turn data into a competitive advantage. Visit mixpanel.com to learn more.

Welcome Octopus Deploy!
Octopus Deploy makes it easy to deliver software to Kubernetes, multi-cloud, on-prem infrastructure, and anywhere else. Automate the release, deployment, and operations of your software with a tool that can handle CD at scale in ways no other tool can.

Welcome ROLLER!
ROLLER’s vision is to help create experiences that bring joy and happiness to the world. We do this by building modern technology for leisure and attractions businesses, helping them to deliver amazing experiences for their guests.

Thank you Everest!
Everest Engineering helps clients step into the future by designing, building and scaling smarter digital products, delivered by trusted experts in product, design, engineering and AI. Smarter products, powered by AI. Built with people you can trust.

Welcome The Outlook!
The Outlook is a conference and events organisation based in Melbourne, Australia. We produce immersive, curated experiences that bring Australian creatives, innovators, and leaders together to discuss, connect, and learn. We’re optimistic about the future and can’t wait for what’s

The Fast & Furious – Short Talks

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RSVP For Thursday July 10th

Once a year we do a set of short talks ie “lightning talk” style, where you learn a lot in a short time and a bit of variety on the topic from each speaker.

Come along for these great talks and support our 4 wonderful speakers (bios below):

Hello From the Other Side – Ana Rowe – Product Managers often say the C level just doesn’t understand. What does it look like when you reach the level and the tables are turned? What does the C level want to see from product? Ana has moved from Product to COO & is here to give us the low down.

My Product Companion – Zain Franciscus – After experimenting with various ai tools to help simplify his work, Zain will share how he’s using several small Ai assistants via Relevance Ai and demo how they function. Will they ever replace his role? You’ll find out in this talk.

Taste, Trust and Craft – Jithesh Ramesh – Part of raising children is embedding morals and values so they are good humans who add value to society. How are we making the world better with Ai and the tools at our disposal?

Top (Recent) Lessons – Roanna Gunaratnam – PMs have to keep learning!

This is a self-funded event – no sponsor for this one. However, we’re in our own room upstairs at the Imperial Hotel. You’ll be able to buy your own food and drink at the venue & the room has it’s own bar.

Ana Rowe:
Ana has been a leader and passionate advocate in the product management industry for over 20 years. She began her product career at SEEK during its start-up days and has since shaped product strategy at organisations like REA, A Cloud Guru and more, both as an in-house leader and as a Principal Product Consultant at Thoughtworks. Always drawn to complex problems and growth opportunities, Ana stepped into the role of COO 18 months ago, bringing her product mindset and transformational principles to broader operational leadership.

Jithesh Ramesh:
I strive to help businesses understand the most valuable aspects of design based on user expectations. I encourage teams to prioritize the user’s experience with products to boost adoption and adherence.
https://ditonium.studio/about

Zainul Franciscus:
Hey there, I’m Zain. As a Product Manager in Melbourne, I love connecting with local communities. I’m involved with Product Anonymous. You’ll likely spot me at their dumpling meetups or attending one of their fantastic talks. I’m also supporting Melbourne’s startup community, helping founders shaping their visions into products.

Roanna Gunaratnam:
Roanna specialises in SaaS products and brings a pragmatic & tenacious approach with strong commercial skills.

Sensemaking in the Age of Ai: Asking Better Questions and Reading between the Lines

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RSVP for Thursday, May 29th

In a world where technology, social media and data overload continuously reshape how we think and behave, understanding human behaviour has never been more complex – or more critical.

As product teams face increasing pressure to do more with less, many are turning to AI to speed up research, reduce synthesis fatigue and make sense of the chaos.

But can AI truly decode human nuance? When should we lean on it? When should we trust our instincts?

This talk explores the messy middle ground between automation and intuition. We’ll discuss

  • framing sharper research questions
  • recognise where AI can help – and when it can’t
  • practice synthesis techniques that balance speed with depth
  • impact of cognitive bias, interview quality & social complexity
  • why getting closer to real insight today requires both human empathy and machine logic

This conversation will give you practical tools to make your research smarter, more meaningful and won’t lose the humanity behind the data.

RSVP for Thursday, May 29th

Our Speaker:

Kath Rochjadi is a design anthropologist, and forensic behavioural scientist with decades of experience working at the intersection of design, human behaviour and strategic research. She’s known for uncovering deep insights in complex high-stakes environments and her work spans healthcare, financial services, and government sectors.

Kath brings a unique lens grounded in anthropology and behavioural science to help organisations decode human complexity – especially in systems shaped by trauma, technology and social influence. Her approach blends critical thinking with practical research application, focusing on inclusive design, ethical practice and creating solutions that genuinely reflect human needs.

Our host for the evening:

Lyssna is a remote user research platform that allows you to deeply understand your audience and move in the right direction — fast. With Lyssna, you can set up research studies, recruit participants, and gain insights quickly to inform decision-making from strategy and concept through to design and implementation. The result? Experiences that your users will love.

Ideation & Collaboration – March Wrap

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Our March meetup topic was ideation & collaboration – but the real focus was having small groups of attendees get hands on experience by using a specific method – Crazy 8s!

It was a super rainy night in Melbourne! Thank you everyone for attending – including a few folks who were absolutely drenched when they showed up!

The Talk

When we’re looking to innovate or problem solve, it’s easy to get stuck into our existing scenarios. How can we break out of this? How can we, and how can we help our teams, think in new ways?

One exercise that can be used to quickly come up with new ideas is Crazy 8s.

Crazy Eights is a brainstorming technique designed to rapidly generate a wide array of ideas within a constrained timeframe.

Lucy explained it’s a mix of convergent & divergent thinking plus has an element of prioritisation that helps you narrow scope. It’s a very time efficient method and that timeboxing helps you to not overthink ideas and focuses us to think outside the box.

Since Crazy 8s challenges individuals to sketch eight distinct ideas in eight minutes. This fast-paced exercise promotes quick thinking and minimises the tendency to dismiss unconventional ideas, fostering a creative and uninhibited environment. It’s especially useful for teams aiming to push the boundaries of conventional thinking and explore a broad spectrum of possibilities.

When to Use Crazy Eights

Lucy likes to use Crazy 8s when

  • We know what we are doing but wondering how do we design the right thing in the right way
  • When you have a lot of subject matter experts / stakeholders and want to include them
  • When you are creatively blocked or not sure how to solve the problem

Benefits of Crazy Eights

Implementing Crazy Eights in brainstorming sessions offers several advantages:

  • Encourages Creativity: The rapid pace and emphasis on quantity help bypass mental blocks, allowing creative ideas to emerge.
  • Inclusive Participation: By providing a structured yet open framework, all team members can contribute, ensuring a diverse range of perspectives. The individual brainstorming assists with the ‘loudest voice in the room’ problem.
  • Efficient Ideation: The time-boxed nature ensures that sessions are productive and focused, yielding a substantial number of ideas in a short period.

How to Conduct a Crazy Eights Session

  1. Divide into small groups of 3-4
  2. State your challenge: Make sure everyone knows what the problem or challenge you’re working on
  3. Prepare the Template: Surprise! There is no fancy ‘template’. Just take some paper and fold in so you have 8 boxes!
  4. Start the Timer: Allocate 1 minute for participants to sketch their idea. Do this 8 times so everyone has 8 sketches, ensuring a brisk and focused session. Even though people are divided up in groups, this is an individual task. AND sketching is the idea! Not words!
  5. Have each group share & discuss their sketches: Each person in the group explains their 8 sketches
  6. Each group should vote on the group’s ideas. What 1 idea would you like to move forward with?
  7. Time Management: Assign a timekeeper to provide regular updates, helping participants allocate their time effectively across all eight sketches.
  8. Iterate as Needed: Repeat the process to delve deeper into promising ideas or explore new directions.You can take the top 3 and continue to build on them. You can get all the groups to vote. Keep collaborating & iterating.

But wait! Before you start…

Steve and Lucy added a new twist to Crazy 8s as a warm up – first we needed to get out all the BAD ideas for the topics. Since this was a warm up – we did 4 minutes with a bad idea per minute. We needed to exorcise all those bad ideas!

You put down all the crazy stuff in there (we had lots of groups talk about burning things… hilariously). Interestingly, it’s good to put down ideas that have already been done – because that is a bad idea to pursue. People in each group shared their bad ideas with each other.This was good practice for the real session.

With a brand new A4 page (folded thrice) – we had 8 squares. Personally, I found the 6th box the hardest to fill – but that’s where real growth comes. And that includes the art of possible.

The best part is the voting mechanism – because that depends on what each group selects – which changes the outcomes as well. Another important aspect to remember when using this technique!

Resources:

Steve has posted on LI about his experience of using Gamma to create the presentation.

Slides are below

Unleash-Innovation-and-Collaboration-with-Crazy-8s

Our Speakers:

Lucy Serret is a passionate problem solver and inclusive design practitioner with 6 years of experience in agencies and startups. She specialises in end-to-end solutions, including research, design strategy, and accessible product delivery. Her commitment to accessibility, research, and design drives her to ask the big questions and challenge assumptions through creative problem solving


Steve Bauer is the Chief Product Officer at 1Breadcrumb, master of festivities at Product Camp Melbourne and owns many articles of clothing emblazoned with flamingos.

Our wonderful hosts and sponsor:

Zendesk logo

Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations, connecting more than 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels, communities, review sites and help centers. Zendesk products are built with love to be loved. The company was conceived in Copenhagen, Denmark, built and grown in California, now expanded all over the world.

March ProdAnon – Ideation & Collaboration

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Join us Thursday March 20th to have a chat and play about ideation & collaboration.

We’ll be working in groups to do a fast interactive activity you can use to boost team ideation & collaboration. Steve Bauer will be facilitating the session using a method which helps teams make rapid decisions by fostering creative & divergent thinking. Steve did a similar session last year around value props & is back by popular demand!

Bio:
Steve Bauer is the Chief Product Officer at 1Breadcrumb, master of festivities at Product Camp Melbourne and owns many articles of clothing emblazoned with flamingos.

Lucy Serret is a passionate problem solver and inclusive design practitioner with 6 years of experience in agencies and startups. She specialises in end-to-end solutions, including research, design strategy, and accessible product delivery. Her commitment to accessibility, research, and design drives her to ask the big questions and challenge assumptions through creative problem solving

Our wonderful hosts and sponsor: Zendesk!
It’s great to be back at Zendesk! Please note! This is a different location to previous years!

Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations, connecting more than 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels, communities, review sites and help centers. Zendesk products are built with love to be loved. The company was conceived in Copenhagen, Denmark, built and grown in California, now expanded all over the world.

Goodbye Twitter

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One of the first things we did when setting up Product Anonymous was to create a Twitter account – Product_Anon.

I (Jen) have always been a big fan of Twitter. I signed up to the service in the very early days. The ability to connect with people, get real time information, discovery so many things was intriguing. There was the whole ‘why do I want to know what someone is having for lunch’ commentary in the early days but it was so much more and grew to be awesome. Believe it or not, it was friendly.

Things have been changing for a while & we have been using X less and less. Recently Liz & I decided to move over to BlueSky.

You can now find us at @product-anon.bsky.social

We won’t delete the old Twitter (not yet) but won’t be posting anything new – follow us on the new BlueSky account.

Digger Deeper into Digital Sustainability: How to Design & Build Tech Solutions For the Planet

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As digital practitioners we transform code into masterpieces and solve problems with our products. We also have a responsibility to understand our impact on the environment, with the internet projected to contribute 13% of the world’s carbon emissions by 2030.

If you work in product, communications, or computer engineering, this discussion aims to help you align your career in tech with the decarbonised future we can play a role in creating.

As artificial intelligence is baked into products and GPTs become ubiquitous in our work, the impact on the environment should be factored into our decision-making.

This discussion will present some of the frameworks of digital sustainability and help the Product anon Community understand what carbon emissions they can abate through thoughtful design and investment.

RSVP for Feb 20th

Bio:
KB (Katherine) Buzza’s career begun in marketing before embarking on a journey to discover how business can drive positive environmental and social change. Having worked across sectors, she has maintained a passion for sharing knowledge and climate positive solutions.

Now as a product manager for carbon account software company Climate Zero, she wants to keep expanding the conversation about sustainability in tech beyond data centres and decisions outside of our control.

Our wonderful hosts and sponsor: Chargefox!
Chargefox is part of the AMS Group. Every day thousands of drivers charge their vehicle on the Chargefox network – the largest and fastest growing EV charging network in Australia. We’re owned and operated by the NRMA, RACV, RACQ, RAA, RAC and RACT. The same companies supporting drivers for over 100 years https://www.chargefox.com/

Short talks: Felicity Bodger – May Wrap Up

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Our first speaker from within our community for the May event is Felicity Bodger on discussing her playbook on “How to become a Killer Product Manager in 3 Easy Steps.” This talk is for product managers who want to level up to become killer pms, creating a personal professional playbook will enable you to transform your team of mercenaries into missionaries while also fending off the monster chewing on your leg, unlike your run of the mill corporate values that only have the half-life of a power point presentation.

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Short talks: Nick Kardamitsis – May Wrap Up

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Our third speaker from within our community for the May event is Nick Kardamitsis, discussing how to go “Beyond the numbers: Harnessing data for smarter product decisions.” Nickolas is an outcomes-focused, customer-centric problem solver, passionate about hitting organisational goals. With over 10 years in digital product experience, Nickolas navigates the end-to-end product lifecycle and leads both technical and non-technical teams, effortlessly switching between strategy and execution. He loves everything about product—especially the words, “Yes, but…”

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