It was fun moderating the panel on Product Management, Tech and UX at the Product Leaders Forum, Bangalore last Friday. The organizers mentioned that in a post-conference survey and this panel discussion was rated among one of the ‘most useful sessions’ by the participants
Of all the panels, I have moderated, I did have lots of fun in setting this one up. I had some amazing conversations with the panelists in preparation. What was supposed to be initially 10 min talk almost went on for 25-30 minutes with each one of them. It is always intriguing to learn how fellow professionals approach and address problems in their domain and space.
In the panel, we tried to visualize the topic – “PM Vs Tech Vs UX” from various dimensions like Competency, Collaboration, Conflicts & Compromises. While there are lot of content available on roles, responsibilities and skills require for the above roles, we explored how these roles interface with each other. As a moderator, I also did try to kick up the storm a little bit, but peace seemed to be the flavour 🙂
We articulated how important #Tech was for product managers. Nishant and Prasad made very compelling points on why Tech is a great strength for a PM any day. At the same time, the panel brought out how non-tech PM’s should approach such products. While Tech is definitely a great arrow in the quiver, Santosh, Sumit & Himanshu spoke about how non-tech pm’s can make their way up. Himanshu reasoned how there could be products which are less-tech intensive where non-tech PM’s can manage with ease. It was also pointed out that, in addition to communicating Tech with your engineering team, PM’s must nurture the ability to communicate Tech your tech-averse customers. Case in point being the ease with which Sumit articulates tech to his non-tech audience in his product videos. Sometimes, even a hardcore tech guy find this difficult. This could be a valuable skill for any PMs.
The panel also explored the critical role of UX designers in building awesome products. We also discussed the challenges of why UX remains an afterthought. While everyone agreed the need for UX, we debated the barriers to put it into practice. Nishant shared some best practices they have put in place to ensure UX gets equal attention. Santosh brought up how Enterprises are ensuring UX is a key part of product development. Prasad brought out how API, gateways, and database related products with minimal User Interface also requires a lot of UX attention. In general we discussed, how each of us are approaching a Design Driven Product development in our workplaces.
The panelists also shared some interesting nuggets from their journey and their experiences. We also could get a couple of audience members also rake up some good conversations. Overall it was an engaging panel.