MTP Engage Round-up: The Product Leadership Forum
Since 2017, I have teamed up with Arne Kittler to organize, curate, run, and moderate the MTP Engage event in Hamburg. This is one of my favorite ways to give back to the product community—and it also happens to be a lot of fun!
MTP Engage Hamburg is a three-day event packed full of workshops, panel discussions, keynotes, and networking, so rather than try to cram everything into a single blog post, I’ll be writing a mini-series of MTP Engage Round-up posts. This first post focuses on the Product Leadership Forum portion of the event. This is a smaller gathering of around 60 product leaders (Head of Product, Product Directors, VPs, CPOs, or equivalent) and the content focuses on the unique challenges of product leadership.
Want to learn more about the workshops and conference program? You’ll find that post here. Or, if you’re looking for key learnings, takeaways from attendees, and other resources, you’ll find that post here. (soonish :-))
One quick note: As the event co-organizer, my perspective and takeaways are likely to be quite different from those of an attendee. I will also share some reviews and recaps by attendees in case you’re curious to hear more from them.
Smiling faces everywhere - attendees during our lunch reception
We started our series of events with the Product Leadership Forum. As in the last few years, we planned it to be a half-day event starting with a nice lunch. We consciously placed people at mixed tables so that they could make some new friends and connections.
After our 3-course lunch we and the 60 attendees walked over to our main venue for the day to kick off the program.
First on stage, Thor Mitchell spoke about the competency level system he introduced at Miro, which is a pretty extensive, well-rounded role definition and career-ladder system.
From my work as a product leadership coach, I know that not many companies have such a solid framework and for most, tools like the PMwheel are already a big step ahead.
It was great to see what they have created at Miro and what they’ve learned while doing so.
Here’s the 30-second overview of Thor’s talk:
Performance management is hard but critical
Clearly define expectations
Apply your framework fairly and consistently
Revise and update as needed
And here are some key quotes from Thor’s talk:
“Titles are a recognition of progress.”
“The PMs you lead will expect clear guidance on what is expected of them, both to excel at their current level, and to achieve their next promotion.”
“If your performance review comes as a surprise, your manager has failed you.”
“Impact, visibility, and influence increase over time with a product person’s seniority. As product leaders, we support product people on their journey through coaching, advocacy, and providing opportunities.”
“Highly skilled PMs can move mountains when paired with highly skilled engineers.” (Making the case for an individual contributor track for product people)
Next up was Emily Tate, who spoke about how to provide clarity to your team and drive alignment amongst team members in her talk “From Chaos to Clarity (and Back Again)”. She used her personal story of being the Managing Director of Mind the Product in a time where in-person events had become impossible and how that forced her to re-think everything the company was doing in a super short time.
In her talk, she drew the 2-by-2 below to help all of us navigate the space of alignment. The two main dimensions are:
Team is moving in the same direction vs. different directions
Team knows why they are doing what they’re doing vs. doesn’t know why
The section you should be striving for is the upper-right section of “conscious clarity.” Emily left us with some great advice on how to get your team there from any of the other three quadrants.
Here’s the powerful 2-by-2 Emily was using to explain the spectrum of Alignment.
Here are some key quotes from Emily’s talk:
“Creating clarity is a leader’s job!”
"Driving alignment and clarity across teams is one of the most important tasks of a leader, but it is also one of the hardest—especially in times of change."
“Alignment is a spectrum, it’s possible to move into the same direction without fully understanding why.”
“Clarity is not just a vision. Clarity requires anchors for decision-making. Product principles can help the team understand what leadership values the most.”
“Clarity can be easier in (or right after) hard times. You need to focus. What’s the most important thing right now? You have to make a decision. Pick a direction and go!”
“Clarity is not a destination. If you don’t intentionally maintain clarity, you will lose it. Listen to your team and use the cues to realign.”
After a coffee break, it was time for our last session of the day.
Esther Blázquez Blanco invited the attendees to hack their own leadership style. And this wasn’t a talk! It was an experience, a performance on how one could be more aware of their own leadership style. Esther asked the participants to be part of some group activities (moving around the room in certain ways) and posed a lot of thought-provoking questions that got attendees into a deep state of reflection. Esther was joined by Christophe Stoll for some live music to give the experience another level of depth.
Here are a few key quotes from Esther’s session:
“Only through human connection can we hack what is inherent in the potential of all human beings: leadership."
“When there is a conflict, there is someone suffering. We should ask ourselves, ‘What do I need to leave behind, so that I can move forward?’”
I didn’t know what to expect from the “Hacking Leadership” session, but I definitely didn’t expect THAT! 😅 Thank you so much for this unexpected format, wonderful surprise and such a mindful session! @nitrada & Esther 🙏❤️ #mtpengage pic.twitter.com/Fq7JfrxiF6
— Rosanna Sibora (@RosannaSibora) June 15, 2022
And with that, the programming was done for the day and folks could share their learnings and impressions over a glass of wine.
Check out all the photos from the event here or read what attendee Nils Neubauer had to share in his post What we learned at the 2022 mtpEngage Leadership Forum on the Mind the Product blog and watch our video recap.
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