When the folks at Seek decided to explore a potential new market opportunity, they wanted to come up with ideas & test them quickly. To do so, they used a process similar to Google Ventures Design Sprints.

On Thursday Feb 18th, Product Manager Rob Alford & Lead UX Designer Rob Scherer will discuss their goals, lessons learned & what happened after the design sprint. They will also share how they modified the methodology to drive innovation, engagement & collaboration.

Join us for the 1st session of 2016 – RSVP now!

Our wonderful sponsors for the evening are Thoughtworks.

If you’d like to read about the Google Design Sprints Methodology before the session, do so at Google Ventures.

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This June (2016!), Agile Australia is hosting their next conference – ‘Towards an Agile Country’.

They have put out a call for speakers – deadline of March 11th (it is never too early to start thinking!).

AND they are looking for submissions for the ‘Build the Right Product’ topic.

They thought some of us might be interested 🙂

Have a look & get in touch with them if you have any questions.

Agile Australia are especially interested in case studies. Anyone who’s been using the lean/product/biz canvas to plan & communicate and happy to share learnings should have a read of their site. And if can talk about iterating with customer feedback, they’d like to hear from you too.

For our UX folks, check the ‘Design Mindset‘ topic

Would be awesome to have our Product Anonymous folks represent at this conference! Check it out now…

Why does Product Anonymous always have a ‘social’ in November?

• Because November is our birthday – Product Anonymous is turning 5 this year!!!
• Because part of Product Anonymous’s mandate is to get product people meeting other product people & this event gives you much more time to say hi than our usual evening events.
• Because it means one less speaker Jen & Liz need to organise 🙂

Yes, it’s all about saying hi to people you’ve met at other Product Anon events this year or making new friends.

We don’t have a speaker but you can tell us what you’d like to hear about next year & suggest speakers.

And we need to celebrate everyone who’s attended a Product Anonymous event, helped out at an event, re-tweeted us, the companies who sponsored our events, told their friends about Product Anonymous and everything else that has helped get us to our 5th birthday! Thank you!!!

Our sponsors for this event are Versent and Level 3.

Hope to see you there!!

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Our Sponsors

Versent:
We are a young consultancy where we do our best to change the face of enterprise IT. We believe in bringing craftsmanship back to technology, building the best and most solid systems on the largest scales. We are currently hiring and interested in hearing from anyone with passion careers@versent.com.au

Level 3:
Level 3 is a purpose built collaborative space for events, hackathons, industry meetups, product development and desk rental in the heart of the CBD. Please enquire with us if you interested in renting the space enquiry@level3.space

Last month we had startups and this month we’re going to the other end of the spectrum with our topic – Innovating in Large Enterprises.

According to this HBR article, large companies are bad at being innovative because they are designed to be bad at innovation. They measure success by profit, not product/market fit. Efficient operation that leverages existing assets, distribution channels & focuses on their best customers will help profit, repeatable & scalable will help profit – not the risk of innovation.

Our panel will talk about their experiences in innovating at large enterprises & answer your questions. We’ll be discussing:

• How do you make room for failure? Getting resources for the project vs covering your ass. How can we overcome the fear of failure
• Making time for innovation. You need to have time to think strategically but there might be a big problem if you’re not delivering. How do you balance the two?
• How should your KPIs change if you’re trying to be more innovative?
• What steps can you take tomorrow to change things?

Our Facilitator: Daniel Kinal – Daniel has been in product management for over 12 years, chiefly working IT with a focus on B2B products. He’s passionate about helping businesses become more effective in decision-making, more efficient in their processes and more engaging with their customers.

He is at his happiest when waving his arms about in front of a whiteboard with a bunch of smart people, exploring problems and weighing up solutions. He’s passionate about product management as a discipline and is intrigued by how businesses, large and small, grapple with the sometimes elusive concept of innovation. He will guide us through the discussion and bring some challenging questions for our panellists.

Our Panel:

1. Jamie Skella – When we first started talking with Jamie about this event, he was deep in the land of large enterprises but has recently left for a startup 😉

Currently Director of Innovation and UX at a new tech startup, Jamie has dedicated over a decade to strategy and design for the likes of the AFL, Coles, Telstra, Tatts Lottery and TAB. His long held belief is that building the best digital products can only be achieved with an intimate understanding of your customers, the pursuit of simplicity, and the seizing of technological opportunity.

2. Andrew Niere – has led the Technology Innovation Fund at the State Government of Victoria and has managed innovation in government for over five years; he also founded and managed a game development business for a decade so is very familiar with the challenges of product management.

3. Mark Andrew – During a long career in senior IT management roles at Telstra, Mark Andrew delivered  a bunch of different applications including ops support systems and front of house CRM using a variety of then innovative approaches and techniques in the days pre-Agile. Mark also implemented Telstra’s first Usability lab in Telstra, using design-based thinking and usability observation tools to craft effective user experiences.

After leaving Telstra in the early noughties, Mark spent almost 9 years at Lonely Planet in various roles including LP’s IT Delivery Manager, and Digital Ops Director.  Mark played a key role in introducing Agile to LP and growing it’s lean and agile maturity. Mark is now in charge of Sensis’ Websites product.

While Mark would not call himself an innovator, he believes that innovation in even small ways should be an intrinsic part of our work lives, and should be fostered and nurtured at every opportunity.

RSVP now for Thursday June 18th. This month we’re being hosted and sponsored by Nintex.

“We’re fun. We’re hardworking. We’re friendly. We’re passionate about what we do. We’re Ninsters.”

Nintex are continually growing and always on the lookout for talented, passionate people who want to work for a company that encourages, supports and rewards you. Our culture embraces integrity, teamwork and innovation. Our work environment inspires your best work. Fresh thinking is not only encouraged, but expected. Innovative ideas, excited conversation and impactful projects are all in a day’s work here.

Often it seems the product manager role is different depending on where you work, who you work with, what stage the company is in & the current understanding of the value of product management.

Three companies will share how they work and manage product – their structure, how they work with other teams, their challenges and how the team brings value to the business. Each company will give a short presentation on their area and then we will throw to the audience for questions.

Redbubble – will talk about the differences and likenesses between physical and web product development. Nick Cust, Product Director and Vicki Stirling, Physical Product Director will talk about each of their sides of the business to dive into the similarities and the distinction between them.

Envato – Envato boasts a community of over 5 million creatives, but dedicated Product Management is a relatively new concept for the company. While growing a team alongside rapid expansion in engineering, the Product team at Envato continually focus on better ways to meet the needs of their highly talented and passionate global community. Luke Meehan, Product Manager and Stewart Boon, Product Director will talk about how they get things done with a global, two sided community of authors and buyers.

Zendesk – Zendesk has 20 scrum teams on 4 different continents building customer service software. In his short presentation Aaron Cottrell will outline what has worked, what hasn’t and where Zendesk is continuing to improve as a globally distributed product company.

A big thank you to Redbubble for being our hosts for the evening! RSVP here.

Liz & I are very excited about our March session on visual communication (ok, we get really excited about all of our sessions but can you blame us for having such amazing speakers?!).

So much of the product manager job is communicating and since we deal with so many different groups in the business, we need to be able to communicate differently. This month, Rebecca Jackson, will help us communicate more visually…

Thursday March 19th

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Our brains are wired to understand and remember images more than words, so how can we put forward our ideas visually to take advantage of the way our brains work? Rebecca Jackson, sketchnoter and visual communicator, will share how we can use visual note taking in meetings, presentations and life to explain, influence and remember.

Rebecca will cover:

• Why visual communication is awesome
• How to introduce it into your work & life
• Tools, tips & resources
• Real time practice, try sketching for yourself in the session

If you’ve sketched a wireframe, you have effectively used visuals to assist in communicating a shared vision. Take the next step and RSVP now for March 19th.

Rebecca Jackson is a Social Media Manager by day, visual communicator by night. She has a background in Intranets, Marketing and Retail and an interest in change management and user experience design. After recently re-discovering her love of visual communication she spends much of her spare time sketching. She’s also a bit of a sci-fi nerd who is known to jog and practice yoga.

Note: We recommend you bring along your notebook and pen(s) of choice so you can participate in this interactive session. (We will have on hand if you forget).

There was a session at Product Camp this year about breaking into Product Management for those who are new to product management or are looking for their first product management job. If you missed that session or want to hear more, check out a free session from General Assembly this Thursday, January 22nd.

It’s a panel discussion with our very own Liz Blink and if you’ve been to any Product Anonymous sessions or Product Camp, you’ll recognise other faces like Adam Fry from Sportsbet and Laura Cardinal from Xero.

If you are looking for Product Management jobs then follow us on Twitter @product_anon

RSVP now

There are a lot of similarities between Product Managers and UXers in how we think and the work we do but we also see things differently.

So on Feb 19th, we’re hosting:

Product Managers are from Pluto* and UXers are from Uranus – a practical guide for improving communication and getting what you want from your relationships

Hear from a panel of Product & UX folks and their secrets of working collaboratively with each other including:

• How they work together as a team

• What works? What doesn’t?

• Where are the potential conflict points between Product & UX – and how to prevent them!

• How they’ve changed their approach over time

The panel will take questions too – tweet #prodanon if you’re shy 🙂

6pm for 6:30pm start, and pizza & beverages sponsored by our lovely hosts Aconex.

Our Panel:

Aconex –  Mark Smith / Senior Product Manager & David McNamara / UX Designer

MYOB –  Russell Kallman / Senior Product Manager & Scott Turner / UX Design Lead

Seek –  Nicole Brolan / Product Manager & Vedran Arnautovic / Senior User Experience Designer

99designs – Susan Teschner / Product Manager & Catherine Hills / User Experience Designer & Researcher

REA – Chris Kwan / Consumer Product Manager & Ricky Synnot / Senior Experience Designer

*The ‘object’ formerly known as the Planet

RSVP now