How to become a Killer PM
Lightening talk (and article) for the Product Anonymous Meet-up Group in Melbourne on how to create a professional playbook.
Context
Recently I was fortunate enough to be one of the presenters at the Product Anonymous meetup group in Melbourne for their lightening round talks. Product Anonymous meet every month to share product experiences, learn from each other and network. As I have personally benefitted from the sessions so much, it was fantastic to have the opportunity to give something back.
The talks had to be 15 minutes or less and could be on any topic of our choice. In order to make it both entertaining and practical, I decided to pitch How to become a Killer Product Manager in 3 Easy Steps (go hard or go home).
While I initially considered more of a story framework to structure the content of the presentation, I found that the time constraints made this less workable with the content I wanted to cover. This was when I decided to switch to the three part structure instead. One of the fun parts preparing for this talk was using ChatGPT / Dalle to create the images for a lot of a the slides. It was certainly great excuse to refine my prompting skills and added a fun element to the presentation.
Reflection
The evening was fantastic with over 100 people attending and all the talks were very well received.
What went well:
- I had my talking notes on a backup device which turned out to be a great move
- My presentation flowed well and was within the time limits - mission accomplished!
Even better if...
- For a 15 minute time limit next time I would stick with my original plan to make it more story like / personable like the Ted Talks rather than instructional.
- PMF - my talk landed really well with the people in product leadership but on reflection may not have been so relatable for those starting out in product careers. Next time considering the audience, a practical talk should focus on the very concrete skills relating to building products in early stages of a product career.
Future considerations:
The feedback from the talk has provided me with some great questions and thought provoking insights to start working on a much longer talk. One thing I hope to do is to do some further “customer research” at the next few meet-ups to validate if I'm on the right track with the topics to go in-depth on.