Weeknotes: S03 E01 - Product for the People
This week I (finally) attended my first Product for the People event in Bristol. I’ve been trying to attend for the past 3 years, but circumstances always conspired to frustrate this ambition.
This was also my first event in my new role at Unilink as an actual Product Manager, so it felt a bit more legitimate participating when having the appropriate qualifications. Although I was expecting to meet up with my old Placecube stalwart Gavin Beckett it was lovely to start bumping into other GovCamp acquaintances too.
Introductions
Jukesy was quick to admit that the number of attendees outstripped expectations, and it was indeed a pretty full room at 2 Rivergate in Bristol. That man Steve Messer, co-organiser of the event, was AWOL due to only just getting back from Japan, which was a real disappointment for me as he’s been a real guiding light in my journey into product, as well as being a top bloke.
@jukes.ie and Debbie kicking off #ProductForThePeople in Bristol
— Matt Stibbs (@mattstibbs.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 10:43 AM
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A few slides followed with an outline agenda and a quick explanation on unconferencing, and I was really pleased to hear we’d have some speakers too.
Icebreaker
We were all sent off to network by talking to each other and capturing why we were grateful for product management. I must admit that this didn’t really land with me as this was probably more geared to the public sector aspect of product management. Still, the Post Its showed a strong affinity with the community and what it gave attendees
Unfortunately this session became the first test for my new hearing aids, and I quickly found that it was impossible for me to process the overwhelming level of noise created by 60 people. It took me right back to GovCamp 2024
Intro Talk #1 - Beth Brown, Lead Product Manager for GOV.UK Pay
Beth gave us a great overview into how she ended up in her role, and it reinforced for me the diverse journeys we all have in our careers in ending up where we do.
For me, hearing how product management is structured in GDS was really interesting, and how multi-disciplinary teams are the norm. Beth explained they have three teams that include UX through to DevOps folk. Of real interest for me in the kind of products I look after at Unilink was the strong operational requirement of running a 24/7/365 service and needing not only to staff this on shifts, but balance out feature improvements and technical debt stuff.
Some of the key learning points for me were around strategy. Beth outlined how using a ‘bottom up’ approach when there wasn’t sufficient steer from ‘top down’ aspects meant that you arrived at a rounded view of future direction. She used affinity mapping to help devise key themes to form strategy objectives to give a steer. The resulting objectives that form the strategy then inform priorities for the roadmap.
Another aspect of Beth’s approach that I really liked (that emerged in one of the later sessions) is to explicitly outline features that won’t be taken forward, and the reasons for these decisions. Feels like a great way to reduce the noise around feature consideration.
Intro Talk #2 - Andy Dufield, Head of AI for Fullfact
What an absolute treat it was to hear Andy in full flow, talking passionately about the work that Fullfact do and how it is a perfect match for his love of the web and affinity for data.
“AI is terrible at fact-checking - but it’s amazing at boring magic” (paraphrased) by @mrdudders.bsky.social @fullfact.bsky.social #ProductForThePeople
— Matt Stibbs (@mattstibbs.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 11:53 AM
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As well as getting a new respect for the scope of what Fullfact achieves with the tiny resource it has, I could see how a really strong vision can embed itself in the products themselves; Fullfact looks to achieve change, not just corrections. The construction of its data is JSON based to include the necessary metadata to get it into every relevant online location.
A real takeaway for me was Andy stating that their use of AI didn’t extend to using it for fact checking as “AI is really bad at it”. I think any number of organisations would have made that their starting point rather than focus on where its strengths are and play to those, as Fullfact have.
Unconference
After a nice lunch grabbed from the nearby street food market, we were back for the main event. Despite the high attendee list it proved a bit difficult to entice many to pitch for sessions. Even I was driven to pitch one out of guilt!
The three sessions I attended were:
- AI as a tool for PMs: I enjoyed this session as I felt I had something to contribute. I’ve been using a personal GPT as a story writing tool to help me shape initiatives, epics and stories as well as researching source material to develop personas. It became pretty clear that my public sector counterparts were either not party to this sort of resource, or local policies were preventing any use beyond those standard offerings from MS Teams. My observations were that the public sector is at risk of being left behind in this area
- How to keep your product focused: Steph ran a really inclusive session that also included keeping ongoing notes (in classic GovCamp style) as we went. A wide variety of approaches was covered, including how to prevent PMs from appearing like just being people that said no. It did veer off at a tangent in triaging one particular issue of a participant which lost me.
- How can product leaders call out bad direction in the 21st Century?: This felt very public sector-specific around some of the changes creeping in to product decisions in Gov fields, and how this differed from the early days of GDS. I couldn’t really engage with this as an outsider.