The 10 Product Talks You Should Have Watched in 2020

Whether it’s at one of our conferences or meetups, we host events in over 200 cities around the world and love to invite product people to take the stage, share their insights, and push our craft forward. This year we published 102 videos and you watched a staggering 920 days of video on Mind the Product. If you have 55 hours spare I highly recommend watching them all, but if you don’t – here are the top 10 talks we published this year as voted by your views:

1. How to Write OKRs That Don’t Suck by Adrian Howard

Over the years, consultant, coach and trainer Adrian Howard has seen many organisations attempt to implement Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), generally in response to a sense that “everything is wrong” and with a hopeful attitude of “these seem simple and clear”. In this MTP Engage Manchester talk, he explains how to write OKRS that, in his words, “don’t suck”.

2. Stuck in the Middle: Mastering Stakeholder Management by Emily Tate

In this MTP Engage Manchester talk, our Managing Director Emily Tate describes how, as product people, we often find ourselves stuck in the middle of difficult negotiations, and while making everyone happy isn’t our goal, mastering stakeholder management is key to building successful products.

3. Leveling Up in the Product World by Asha Haji

In her ProductTank London talk, Asha Haji, COO at Founders Academy explains how to treat your product management career like a video game and teaches us how to level up in the product world in the process.

4. Creating Consistency Within the Chaos of Roadmapping by Rohini Pandhi

The process of building products can be challenging and needs to be iterated on as much as the product itself. In this ProductTank San Francisco talk, Rohini Pandhi, Product Manager at Square, shares her thoughts on roadmapping and its role in the product process.

5. How to Train Your Hippo By Ozlem Yuce

In this MTP Engage Manchester talk, Ozlem Yuce, Chief Product Officer at Agile at Heart gives us some insight on how we can better deal with the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (HiPPO) in our organizations. She explains why the HiPPO can be so damaging and what to do about it as a product person.

6. Every Problem is a People Problem by Christian Idiodi

In this #mtpcon Digital 2020 keynote, Christian Idiodi, Partner at SVPG, explains why problems within organisations are people problems, and what leaders can do to tackle them.

7. Product Positioning by April Dunford

In this #mtpcon Digital 2020 keynote, April Dunford, author of Obviously Awesome, answers the key question: “How do we beat our competitors?” emphasising the importance of product positioning and outlining a battleplan-like methodology, showing how to fight fights you can win, turn competitor strengths to weaknesses, and how to justify why your product is the priority.

8. How Successful Product People Develop by Shaun Russell

In this November 2020 #mtpcon Digital talk, Product Coach Shaun Russell uses real-life examples to illustrate how product people learn and reveals why it is that some product managers develop faster than others.

9. Lessons from a Product Champion by Mary Poppendieck

In this November 2020 #mtpcon Digital keynote, Mary Poppendieck, author of Lean Software Development and three other bestsellers, shares the most important lessons she learned as a Product Champion at 3M in the 80s and 90s.

10. All These Worlds Are Yours by Cennydd Bowles

In this November 2020 #mtpcon Digital keynote, Cennydd Bowles, Designer and Author of Future Ethics, highlighted how, as an industry, we will not survive the 21st century with the over-quantified methods of the 20th and must prioritise ethical practice as a fundamental part of the product process.

From #mtpcon to ProductTank and covering everything from OKRs to product positioning and ethics, 2020’s top product talks show just how broad our discipline is – and how much we can all learn from each other.