2nd February 2019 saw product professionals from Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Sydney and London take time out to pay it forward and give back to the fellow campers who were eager to learn, share, grow and impact!
With close to 200 Product Professionals taking time out on a Saturday morning to attend Vol3 at Optum Global Solutions, the day kick started with the registrations team ensuring a smooth entry to all the campers. By 9am, the camp saw a steady inflow of people who started gathering into the main arena. By 10:30am and with breakfast completed, all participants were ready to kick start the day full of peer learning.
At 10:30am, the organizers kick started the unconference and spoke about what ProductCamp is all about, where all does it happen across the globe and connected to personal experiences of what drove them to start the camp at Hyderabad. Specific stats about Vol3 were also shared so that the participants could realize the true potential of peer learning opportunities present in the room. Some stats are presented below:
With close to 10,000 years of experience present in the arena, there was no better way to start the proceedings than listening to an industry veteran who has been there, done that. For the next 45 minutes it was over to Tathagat Varma (a.k.a TV) Country Head, NerdWallet to deliver the Keynote Address. TV spoke about the importance of applying data when taking product decisions and touched upon what sources to rely and what sources (HIPPOs – Highest Paid Persons Opinion) to avoid. His talk was well received and resonated well with the product professionals present in the room.
After TVs keynote address, it was then time for the crux of any camp – the breakout pitches.
ProductCamp’s run on the concept of an unconference, meaning the audience gets to decide the speakers and topics they wish to listen on the day of the camp. The participants get to make this decision by listening to the 1-minute pitch of the speakers that sign up.
This vol of the camp saw 23 pre-registered breakout speakers and 6 on spot entries taking the total breakout pitches to 29. Just before the official pitches started, the organizing team ran a mock pitch to ensure participants ruminate on how they should be choosing their top 3 speakers from the 29 breakout pitches. After all the 29 pitches concluded, campers went about voting for their top 3 speakers by leveraging their voting stickers and casting their votes on the voting grid. After voting, the campers proceeded for networking lunch followed by a group picture.
Immediately after lunch, the organizers planned a surprise standup comedy gig of 10 minutes by renowned standup comedian – Rohit Swain. Rohit entertained the campers with jokes tailored for the audience and left everyone in splits. It was then time to get serious and get on the next segment on the agenda – The Panel Discussion.
The Panel of experts comprising of Ankit Jain – Head of Product Management at Atlassian, Gaurav Mathur – VP, UX Design at Myntra, Nitin Ramrakhyani – Group Product Manager at ADP and Sairam Vedam – Chief Marketing Officer at Kore.ai and moderated by Deepak Janu – Director Product Marketing at OpsRamp discussed on the challenges of an Indian Product Executive, what’s getting better, what needs to change and how to build for the future. This topic was very well received and resulted in engaging discussions and counter arguments from the audience as well.
After an engaging and thought-provoking Panel Discussion, it was then time for the moment the audience was waiting for – The breakout sessions! 5 sessions ran in parallel with 2 rounds of the same, which meant 2 hours of interesting conversations, discussions and information exchange revolving around product management, UI/UX, product strategy and product sales.
The shortlisted speakers included Anand Kamat – Head of Products at Phenom People, Meraj Faheem – CEO at The Hacking School, Otto Ruettinger – Head of Products at Atlassian, Mukesh Marodia – Director of Product Managerment at Informatica, Mahuya Ghosh – Principal Product Manager at Dell, Venky Ramachandran – Lead Product Manager at iConcept Software Services, Manoj Muthavarapu – Sr Product Manager at IMIMobile, Kaavya Reddy – Design Thinking Practice Lead at Wavelabs Technologies, Avneesh Bhatnagar – Sr Principal Product Manager at Broadcom and Kris Heinzen – Sr Director Product Management at UHG.
By 5pm all breakout sessions concluded, and the participants were escorted back to the main arena to conclude the day with felicitation and vote of thanks. The organizing team also thanked the sponsors and partners without whom, the event wouldn’t have been possible:
Before closing, the organizing team made an announcement to kick start PCH Salons – a Friday evening meet up which would enable product leaders to meet and engage in conversations over couple of hours so that the learning continues beyond the camp! PCH Salons would be quarterly meet ups, do follow our social handles (Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter | Youtube) to stay abreast about an upcoming Salon.
Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂