Are Product Camps Missing the Mark? – ON PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

I’ve never been considered a heretic, so this post may give me that appearance. For product management and product marketing, product camps have provided a sales-free environment to learn and network. It’s also a great place to commiserate and may be the largest therapy sessions held for a profession.

In the past twelve months, I’ve attended several camps located in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Seattle and Silicon Valley. There’s been a lot of energy, enthusiasm and effort put into making the product camps happen. Kudos to the volunteers, sponsors and those bringing ideas to share.
One of the questions I like to ask attendees is, “What was missing at Product Camp?” While the answers vary, I consistently hear from senior product management and product marketing folks, “Where are the discussions, and rich dialogue on strategic and leadership-oriented topics.”

“What were you hoping for” I ask? I’ve heard:

Elements of a good business case
Effective upward communication (with executives)
Techniques for influencing product strategy
Building Product Marketing roadmaps

In a conversation this week with Tom Grant, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research and champion of Product Management he asked me, “What were your impressions of the recent Product Camp?”

My response? While product camps are serving a wide audience from MBA candidates, to new product managers, to senior leaders guiding product marketing, we are not staying true to the spirit of open space or unconference formats. And yes, we aren’t bringing the strategic content.

If you attended the first Silicon Valley product camp (in 2008), it was filled with variety open discussions, dialogue, panel sessions and impromptu gatherings where topics of interest were surfaced. I believe we’ve lost the spontaneity and variety. Take a look at the sessions from 2009, what do you see? Variety and topics that offer almost all personas a day filled with new ideas and learning.

I recall other P-Camps where topics such as Agile, Product Management 101, Strategy and Product Marketing were well represented. What’s happened?

I’m not sure. Have we lost the unconference tenants? Do we need to revisit a conference format works for any type of persona? Do we need leadership oriented product camps?

I have some thoughts, but I’d like to hear yours.

It’s my opinion that we need to get back to the basics and revisit the true unconference format. Perhaps we suspend the advance voting or create categories of areas that meet the needs of a broader audience.

Might I recommend that each product camp organization conduct a retrospective and then offer some ideas to address the issues.

At the end of the day, I will continue to attend product camps when I can, and volunteer my time. However, as a community we’re missing the mark. If we are to continue to build value in our profession and in the organizations we work, we need to address this.

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