MTP Engage Leadership Forum—My 5 Takeaways

What usually happens in June happened at the end of September this year. Due to the COVID situation, our MTP Engage Leadership Forum made its first autumn premiere. Arne Kittler and I are the organizers of MTP Engage Hamburg and we had the pleasure of hosting the first Mind the Product in-person event since the pandemic hit.

Here are my key learnings from this half-day event.

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How the “Learning Menu” Concept Can Help Develop Your Product Team

When it comes to offering development opportunities, some companies struggle with doing this in a strategic way. They essentially throw money at the problem, opting to pay a premium for coaching and training. So what’s wrong with this approach? As a coach, shouldn’t I be happy to take money from any potential client who would like to pay me?

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The Future Self Canvas in Action: A Conversation with Tim Lukas Leinert, Product Lead at North Kingdom Design & Communication

What are your product managers hoping to achieve in the future? Sometimes it helps to look at what they’ve done and where they’ve come from before helping them chart a course toward the future. Learn how Tim Lukas Leinert approaches this with his team and how the Future Self canvas guides those conversations.

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How to make the most of your coaching sessions

Committing to working with a coach is a big step. It means you’re investing money (maybe your own, maybe your company’s) and time (definitely your own) in your professional development. This is great, but it’s critically important to be thoughtful about how you approach the experience. Like many things in life, coaching depends so much on the effort you put into it.

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Curious about Product Leader Group Coaching? Hear from Past Participants

As a product leader, you face a number of challenges. You might lack confidence in your coaching abilities, struggle to get stakeholders on board, or simply feel overwhelmed by meetings that creep across your calendar and prevent you from getting any real, strategic work done. So how do you take charge of your own professional development as a product leader?

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A Few Simple Ways to Make the “Working Backwards” Press Release Work for You

One of the not-so-hidden secrets for developing new products or features is called “working backwards.” This practice involves writing a press release before you even start to develop a new product or feature. The idea is that the process of writing a press release will help you to put your customers first and focus on the most essential aspects of your product.

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The Future Self Canvas in Action: Conversation with Annu Augustine, Founder of NedRock

How can you help your product managers meet their goals? It helps to translate big, lofty ideas into specific plans of action. And one tool that can help you achieve that is the Future Self template.

Annu Augustine is the founder of product management training and consulting company NedRock in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. Annu has also found this framework useful in her training and consulting work.

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The Product Leader’s Guide to Balancing Product Discovery and Product Delivery

In every product organization, you as HoP—along with your product managers—must constantly balance product discovery (what to build) and product delivery (build it). Do too much of the former, and you’ll never get anything built. Do too much of the latter, and you’ll fall victim to building the wrong products in a beautiful way.

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The Lack of Gender Parity in the Workplace: A Must-Read Guide

In my time as a product coach, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of great product people, and around half of them have been women. My work with leaders and aspiring leaders in the product world has given me insight into many companies and industries. If I’d been an employee, I might have only had experience with a handful of companies, but as a coach I get to work with dozens.

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