Here’s the slide deck for the keynote talk that Stephen Pollack gave at ProductCamp Toronto.

Session 1 – Introduction to Product Management – Calum Tsang

An introductory session about what Product Management is and isn’t, what it’s goals and objectives are and how to introduce it companies that don’t have it formally or don’t understand it

Session 2- Product Pricing – Siobhan McLaughlin
This session will introduce the topic of pricing, discuss different types of pricing models and give advice on how to go about determining product pricing.

Session 3 – Requirements Simplified – Rod Hardman

Creating effective Product Requirements documents takes a lot of effort, often undermining whether they actually get done. Much of what is written is rarely implemented and the details are not always static as they change when the team learns what it really wants. This session would sort through what is really needed in a Requirements document focusing on what actually gets done.

Session 4 – How to structure a product management team – Andrew Schmied
Discussions on ways to create and grow product management teams. There are few standards on how to structure teams of product managers and product marketers. The aim is to get attendees to discuss what they’ve seen in their experience that worked and didn’t work and why.

Session 5  – A little bit of strategy can save your life – Aldwin
Product managers sacrifice their personal lives for their product’s success. But we’d sacrifice less and succeed more if we could get away from the to-do list long enough to devise a decent market strategy. I’d like to have a conversation about how to do this, how to get your company’s support, and how to prove that the strategy is working.

NOTE: There is no presentation for this session as it was an interactive discussion amongst the participants

View more presentations from ProductCamp Toronto.

Session 1 – How to balance innovation vs. stability with limited resources – Chris Eben
Many PMs have to balance supporting an existing customer base with infrastructure, platform and general enhancements while innovating to increase sales and market share. You can never do it all with the limited resources you have. A facilitated discussion on this topic would be useful

Session 2 – The Customer is Never Right – Stephen Pollack
We’ll review how some PM teams get too caught up in being led by the customer versus their own innovation — this can be detrimental to early stage markets whereas thought leader teams tend to do better.

Session 3 – Button Soup – How to make something from nothing as a product manager at a startup – Al Huzienga
PM’s at a startup can have a hard time reconciling theory with reality when they arrive day one – there often isn’t very much to work with. This session could focus on how a startup PM identifies the resources at hand, then grows them into an idea, an innovation, an opportunity, and finally a business. Real life war stories definitely required.

Session 4 – How to pitch your company to investors – Craig Hayashi
Practical advice on how to best pitch your product/company to investors for the purpose of seeking investment.

For those of you who are not familiar with Ignite — this is format for 5 minute talks on topics of interest — where the motto is “Enlighten us, but make it quick“.

You can find out more about Ignite here:  http://ignite.oreilly.com

The Ignite format is somewhat strict. A hard 5 minute time limit, with 20 slides, automatically advancing every 15 seconds.

We decided to be a bit more lenient and just limit things to 5 minutes in length and let the presenters decide how many slides they wanted.

Enjoy.

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Session 1 – The role of Product Marketing in the overall scheme of Product Management – Amrita Mathur
The product marketing role is very valued in the overall product management framework. Typically, the product marketing person serves as one of several sources of input to product requirements owned by the product manager; while the product manager will be one of the several sources of input to marketing messages owned by the product marketing person. Would like to discuss this symbiotic relationship further, pros and cons, what functions lie where etc.

Session 2 -The Why-Driven Roadmap – Alan Armstrong
Product Managers frequently struggle to develop, communicate, and stay on strategy as expressed in a product roadmap. Demands from sales and changing tides in executive opinions can side track the best laid plans. The key to staying on track is to avoid feature wars and start with “why”; why your product, why this release, why this strategy, and why this roadmap. This talk will present that argument, drawing on the best-selling leadership book “Start with Why”, and will include practical tools to translate the idea into a product development setting.

Session 3 – Lean Communications – Saeed Khan

A major part of product innovation and success rests on efficient and effective communication across teams in a company. In startups, this happens almost naturally. In medium and large companies, process needs to be put in place. Lean Communication is a model based on Lean principles that can be used to align teams and accelerate time to revenue for high tech products. As key members of the overall communication network, Product Managers and Product Marketers will benefit significantly by adopting this model.

Session 4 – Product Management becomes strategic…Are you ready? – Tom Grant

In response to big industry trends, tech companies need their employees to play an increasingly strategic role. But how do you know what it means to be a “strategic PM”? What should you be doing, or not doing? And what skills, experiences, or tools are required?

Session 5 – Product Design – Richard McCann
Lets compare the design process in different industries and companies. Who leads the design? Who infludences the design? How does the product get shaped? How to get buy in? How to ensure we design the right product.

Despite being a beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday, we had a full house on hand and kicked things off with Stephen Pollack’s keynote speech on finding the personal legend of a company.

After the keynote, we had filled the day with 15 sessions over 3 tracks.

We ended the day with a reception and raffle draws for books provided by sponsors and other contributors.

Thanks to everyone who helped plan (Lee, Siobhan, Lea, Chris), our photograper (Calum), the speakers (listed above), the sponsors and all the attendees for helping make the event a success.

We’re will post presentations on this site in the near future so keep an eye out for them. We’ll also provide links to photo’s on Flickr, video on YouTube and any other content that is posted related to the event.

Thus we’re happy to announce that in addition to our traditional 60 minute (roughly) sessions, we’re going to give those of you who want to share your knowledge, but want a shorter format an opportunity to present.

Enlighten Us, but Make it Quick!

Based on the very popular Ignite series of talks, — where the motto is “Enlighten Us, but Make it Quick! — we’re going to provide 5 minute time slots to people who want to talk about something they are passionate about and can share with attendees.

The format is simple:

• You have 5 minutes to present your topic
• You don’t have to have slides, but if you do,  you get 20 slides maximum that will forward automatically to cover the 5 minute time slot. e.g. 20 slides means 15 seconds per slide, 10 slides means 30 seconds per slide etc.
• The topic should be related to the ProductCamp themes. i.e. related to product development, startups, product management, marketing, etc.

That’s it. I’m sure most of you reading this have something you can share with the audience. Maybe it’s a problem you solved, or something you learned in your job, or an experience you want to share. Don’t get too caught up in the rules, and if you’re not sure about anything, contact us at the email below. We’re here to help.

Don’t be shy. 5 minutes flies by quickly!

It’s only 5 minutes of your time, but you can impact a large audience.  If you want to present a short talk, or want more information, please contact Saeed Khan. You can reach him via the ProductCamp email — productcamptoronto@gmail.com.

And here’s a (5 minute) video describing how to give an Ignite-style talk!

We’re looking forward to your talks!

Tom’s focus as an analyst at Forrester covers Product Management, Product Marketing,  Social Media and Agile development.  He blogs regularly as an analyst on the Forrester site – http://blogs.forrester.com/tom_grant – and is a great advocate when it comes to educating the market about the disciplines of Product Management and Product Marketing.

We’re looking forward to having Tom share some of his insights with us at ProductCamp.

Stephen has been involved in the technology and software industry for over 25 years. He is currently founder of InsideSpin, a community and thought leadership website designed to help technology entrepreneurs seeking excellence maximize their chances of success.

Prior to PlateSpin, Stephen worked with globally successful technology companies such as Fulcrum Technologies, FloNetwork and NCR where he held senior leadership roles across a wide variety of operating disciplines including Marketing, Sales, Support, Customer Services, Operations, Product Development and Product Management.

In addition to holding Board and Advisor roles for companies such as Embotics, VM6 Software and Kaviza, Stephen now spends his time growing the community participating in InsideSpin.

We look forward Stephen sharing some of the insights he’s gained over his career with the attendees at the event.

We welcome other sponsors who support our goal of helping educate and connect product management, marketing and development professionals in the Greater Toronto Area.

If you would like to be a sponsor, you can find more details on our sponsor’s page, or you can contact us directly.  (productcamptoronto@gmail.com)