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.

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.

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.

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/

We’ll be hosting a panel with folk to talk about how to use your data effectively for product analytics decisions. It will be an opportunity for you to ask questions of the panel.

Our facilitator will be the fun and fantastic Ken Sandy. And he will be exploring the topic with the fabulous cast of panellists Jamie Muscatel, Nigel D’Souza & Michael Zarif.

RSVP for Wednesday Nov 27th

Our Sponsor

Mixpanel revolutionizes how companies link product analytics to tangible business outcomes. By understanding the full impact of product and marketing decisions, companies have the necessary information to optimize how they acquire and grow their customers. By providing complete, self-serve, and correct data in an easy-to-use platform, Mixpanel frees teams to move faster, see the whole picture, and measure impact. Visit mixpanel.com to learn more.

In the fast-paced world of product management, we frequently discuss the strategies behind making decisions and the art of influencing stakeholders. However, a crucial aspect of the role that often goes underexplored is the ability to change one’s mind and remain open to being influenced.

In this talk, we’ll delve into the nuanced art of changing your mind—an essential skill for growth and effective leadership. We’ll explore how to think about decisions, how that will likely evolve throughout your career, and how to handle some commonly occurring situations.

RSVP for October 24th

About the speaker: As an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience, Lucy Spence has made more mistakes than most and loves sharing her experiences in the hopes others can learn what she’s learned in less painful ways. In that time, she’s gone from individual contributor to product leader a few times at a range of companies from start-ups to Amazon. As a Senior Product Manager at Octopus Deploy, you can expect to see many Octopus-based metaphors and analogies.

Catapult is our fabulous host.

Catapult exists to unleash the potential of every athlete and team on earth. Operating at the intersection of sports science and analytics, Catapult products are designed to optimise performance, avoid injury, and improve return to play. Catapult has over 400 staff based across 24 locations worldwide, working with more than 3,800 Pro teams in over 40 sports across more than 100 countries globally. To learn more about Catapult and to inquire about accessing performance analytics for a team or athlete, visit us at catapult.com. Follow us at @CatapultSports on social media for daily updates.

RSVP for October 24th