ProductTank Manchester: September 2023

We're back after a break for Summer! 😎

There will be the usual food* 🍕, drink 🍻🍷, and opportunity to meet and speak to fellow product people 😃 as well as hear from great speakers.
A big THANK YOU to Zühlke for hosting and sponsoring this event.

Sign up to let us know you're coming, can't wait to see you there!

🌟 We’ve got some fantastic speakers lined-up....drum roll... 🌟

Jason Knight, SaaS Product Consultant & Advisor | Podcaster @ One Knight in Product | Co-founder @ My Mentor Path — "Should product managers be responsible for product delivery?"

Jason Knight is a B2B product leader, consultant, coach, founder and podcaster. By day, he works with B2B startups and scale-ups to help them build great products and build the teams that build great products. By night, he speaks to inspiring thought leaders, practitioners and founders on his podcast One Knight in Product. A passionate advocate for mentorship, he’s the co-founder of My Mentor Path, a platform that aims to make mentorship accessible to all.

Talk description: Product managers are often positioned as delivery managers or emergency scrum masters on their teams, spending the majority of their time writing and chasing tickets and getting status updates from developers. On top of this, they might even get to do some product management work! Is this really the way? In this talk, we'll cover some of the symptoms of "delivery-itis" and some ways we might try to overcome common challenges that affect product management teams.

Dave Baines, Co-founder / Product Lead at Hyperact — "How to get the most out of story mapping"

Dave has worked in a variety of product and delivery roles for 18 years, helping the likes of BBC, cinch, NHS Digital, and DfT create and grow great products, before co-founding product consultancy, Hyperact, last year.

Talk description: Story mapping, or user story mapping, is one of the most versatile and powerful techniques at a product team’s disposal. This talk will explore what a story map is, how to create one, and the situations when they add the most value, and provide a whole host of tips and tricks learned from harnessing the power of story maps at over a dozen organisations.

Lydia Hawthorn is Delivery Director at Cprime a specialist Agile transformation, tech & tooling consultancy.

Lydia has 8+ years of experience as an Agile Transformation Coach, SPC and RTE helping businesses deliver top quality products to their customers. Previously heading up the Delivery team at UK Tote Group Lydia is passionate about helping tech businesses future-proof their digital operations and technical teams by embracing innovation through Agility.

Talk description: Product & Engineering: BFFs or Mortal Enemies? - Are you a product manager who clashes with the lead architect? Are you an engineering manager who finds themselves at odds with the head of UX? The tension between these two departments are familiar to most of us in the tech space. This talk seeks to look at the history behind why this seems to often be the case and the factors that seem to perpetuate the problem. We'll discuss how to handle the divisions and what to do to ensure any clashes don't turn toxic. And finally, we'll examine whether this natural tension isn't exactly what we need to hold each other to account and develop exceptional products

*Please flag any special dietary or accessibility requirements to us via a Meet-up message as soon as possible.