Product at Heart 2024: Key Learnings and Takeaways

Sep 19

Exciting news from the product community in Hamburg: We’ve just wrapped the second annual Product at Heart conference, which took place on September 13, 2024. This year we returned to our home at Kampnagel, where over 750 curious product people from around the globe gathered for a day of curated programming and spontaneous conversations.

By the way, if you attended in 2023, you may have noticed we heard your feedback that one of your favorite parts of the conference was the chance to have conversations and make connections with other attendees. This year, we arranged the schedule with longer breaks so you’d have more time for meeting new product friends.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing the videos and detailed blog recaps. You can also watch the video recap here and find all the photos from the event in the Flickr stream.

But for now, we’ll share a few of our high-level insights and takeaways here. Let’s dive in!

1. Be courageous—and curious!

Shaun Russell and Emilie Lindström kicked off the conference by inviting us to reflect on courageous actions. Don’t get caught up in thinking courage has to be a grand gesture—it can show up in small ways like attending an event where you don’t know anyone or starting a conversation with a stranger.

In a powerful moment, Emilie asked us to close our eyes and imagine one courageous act we’d like to take. If we were committed to taking that action, she invited us to stand up. A quick glance around the theater proved just how courageous this crowd was!

As co-organizers Petra and Arne took the stage, they reiterated this message. “Today’s theme is courage,” said Petra. “Not just the courage to build, create, and innovate, but the courage to learn, challenge, and grow. Or in short: Having the courage to be curious.”

Petra invited us to step outside our comfort zones, to learn something new, to challenge our current way of thinking.

“Today is about more than just absorbing information,” added Arne. “It's about taking action, pushing yourself, and engaging with others. And maybe you’ll find new product friends and feel a true connection. Courage is a choice, and we believe every one of us has the opportunity to demonstrate it today.”

2. Embrace product operations (especially if you’re trying to grow)

Have you ever struggled with stakeholders poking around where they’re not really supposed to? When Melissa Perri joined AthenaHealth as a consultant, one of the first things she heard was, “We need to get the CEO out of Jira.” It turned out the CEO was going through Jira tickets in an attempt to better understand the product strategy and how it related to the business’s goals. There was no place for him to go to get his answers because every product manager used their own tools for planning and defining their strategy.

This led Melissa to realize that transformation isn’t just about skills and strategy. Without the infrastructure that product operations provides, work quickly falls into silos, there’s an increased likelihood of duplicated efforts, and people end up wasting a lot of time trying to get the information they need.

In her opening keynote, Melissa shared anecdotes from her own experience as well as mini case studies and quotes from other product operations pros. She outlined how product operations can give structure to business data and insights, customer and market insights, and process and governance so that you can scale your company and product organization more sustainably. This leads to happier stakeholders who are much less inclined to do their detective work in your tools.

3. Give yourself plenty of time

In the second morning keynote, Oliver Reichenstein invited us to take a philosophical approach to product. He offered a crash course in philosophy from Giambattista Vico, who claimed that we only fully understand what we make ourselves. This is sometimes referred to as Maker’s Knowledge or verum factum.

Turned around, verum factum becomes factum verum: a truthful product. Oliver posited that creating a truthful product requires that, as makers, we continue to work on our product until we fully understand what we build. But thinking takes time, and, as product managers, we tend to prioritize efficiency over deep contemplation.

Yet, the more time we spend thoughtfully developing our products, the more efficient, time-saving, and valuable they can become for our customers. Applying Maker’s Knowledge to product development relies on the belief that quality will ultimately pay off for both the customer and the company. Oliver shared how this approach has influenced his own products, iA Writer, iA Presenter, and iA Notebook.

You can explore the script and slides for Oliver’s talk here.

4. Learn to work well with others

As attendees split into two tracks for the morning sessions, the first group explored why product management requires teamwork and discussed ways to improve collaboration.

Bruce McCarthy shared his process for gaining and maintaining alignment within your team, among your stakeholders, and across your organization. This starts by really understanding your stakeholders, which you can do by asking, “What does success look like for you?”

Emmi Meurling examined some common stakeholder patterns—top-down solutions, continuous scope changes, constant questioning of our process and speed—and how to overcome them by understanding the context, being empathetic, and adapting your mindset. She recommends understanding what causes stress for your stakeholder and letting go of your product ego.

Niamh Jones explored how to align customer-facing and internal teams around shared outcomes and metrics and provided practical ways to promote customer-centricity and leverage collective expertise. Remember to focus on the outcome your customer is trying to achieve (they care about hanging up a photo of their loved ones on the wall—not about the hole they need to drill to hang it!).

5. Develop your financial fluency

The second morning track focused on profitability over growth. How do you get—and keep—the attention of executives, especially when you’re not used to speaking in financial terms?

Rich Mironov described the importance of using revenue and outcomes in conversations with your go-to-market partners. The key takeaway: You don’t always have to be precise, you just want to get the order of magnitude correct and make sure you’re always adding currency symbols to the conversation.

Fabrice des Mazery described the challenge many product people have been facing—we’ve attempted to justify our work by “produxplaining” or describing our frameworks and approaches to cross-functional stakeholders. What we should aim for instead is the double impact of generating value for both the user AND the company.

Felix Fichtl brought a CFO’s perspective to the conversation, sharing that gross margin is the single most important metric of product profitability. By gathering some basic data such as the cost of goods sold and your hosting and infrastructure costs, third-party software costs, and customer support costs, you’ll be much better positioned to make the case for why you need budget.

6. Clarify your product operating model

The “How We Work” track in the afternoon sessions covered different interpretations of the product operating model. The key takeaway was that there’s no single framework that works for everyone. It’s more important to understand your own context and adapt your model based on your specific situation.

Tamer El-Hawari outlined a simple framework for coming up with your own strategy: Make sure you understand the status quo as well as your company objectives. Then you can derive product objectives and a coherent set of actions that will help you get from one to the other.

Drawing on her experience as a product leader in a range of different ecosystems, Flavia Neves used the analogy of playing a game. Some environments require you to play more of a strategic and planned out game like chess, while others require more adaptability and quick decision-making, like poker. Once you understand the rules of your game, you increase your chances of winning.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in “black swan” events (those that are low probability but high consequence, like the pandemic). Gopika offered ways that we can prepare for the unexpected and build a layer of resilience and defense into our product development. One key tactic to try: Run a pre-mortem before a major launch so you can evaluate different scenarios in terms of impact, likelihood, and reversibility.

7. Manage your mindset

The other afternoon track, “Skillset to Mindset” focused on how your outlook and attitudes can impact your work as a PM and offered some food for thought about changes you might want to experiment with.

Timoté Geimer challenged us to stop using the excuse of not having enough time and to look for pockets of time that can help us get closer to achieving our goals. “The one hour a week challenge” is exactly what it sounds like—see if you can find one hour a week to focus on learning, whether it’s by watching a keynote talk, reading a few chapters of a book, or attending a lunch and learn session.

Axel Sooriah shared the “human skills” that have opened doors for him personally and professionally. He offered a template for non-violent communication that can come in handy whenever you need to make a request of someone: “When [observation], I feel [emotions] because I need [needs]. Would you be able to [request]?”

In her session, Jennifer Michelmann tapped into a common concern among PMs: How do you make time for everything you need to accomplish? She urged us to separate what’s important from what’s urgent and to accept that sometimes it’s okay to let some “fires” burn and give yourself time to pause and think.

8. Treat your practice like a product

In his closing keynote, Tim Herbig introduced us to the concept of “alibi progress,” where we value correctness over actual outcomes. There’s no point in creating a product strategy, writing OKRs, or doing discovery if we become so obsessed with doing the practice correctly that we forget to pay attention to whether it’s driving the results we want.

The solution is to treat each practice like a product. Set goals, monitor your progress over time, and don’t be afraid to iterate and change things that aren’t working.

9. Remember—it’s all invented!

To close out the day, Kate Leto shared some common stories we often hear (or even tell ourselves). We tend to portray ourselves as victims (who feel trapped and helpless), heroes (who fix any problem), or villains (who only blame others), according to psychologist Stephen Karpman’s drama triangle. And the problem with these roles is that they don’t allow us to flourish. They can lead to burnout, resentment, and a lack of progress.

Luckily, Kate reminded us, all of these stories we tell ourselves are invented. That means that once we begin to identify these patterns, we have the ability to change the story and invent new possibilities, which allows us to behave in more productive and positive ways.

Get access to the slides from Kate’s keynote here.

Bonus: attendees share their stories and highlights!

Something like: Throughout the event, Britta Ullrich created beautiful sketchnotes that captured attendees' key insights and discoveries. These illustrated postcards allowed everyone to visualize and share their breakthrough moments, creating unique and inspiring keepsakes.

It’s not just about what’s happening on stage at Product at Heart—we love to hear what attendees, speakers, vendors, and volunteers have to say about their experience. Here are a few highlights.

“The dynamic energy throughout the events was truly something special—an experience I rarely find at conferences.” – Kate Leto
“Well... this was great fun. Thank you to my coachees for having the courage to share their challenges with a stranger, to my fellow coaches for being awesome and most of all to Petra Wille and Arne Kittler who have created the most wonderful thing: a really lovely, supportive and friendly product community and an inspirational event that always feels warm and welcoming. #ProductAtHeart #Courage #ProductCommunity” – Sarah Reeves
“It put a huge smile in my face to meet lots of people I had only interacted with online in person for the first time. What a joy to share meals, chats, coffee and dances with lots of amazing product people. You're too many to tag individually.” – Simonetta Batteiger
“What an Event Last week, what a Location with Petra Wille, Arne Kittler, Kate Leto and Sohrab Salimi in Hamburg at Product at Heart Leadership Event! Thanks for all the Input and the many discussions around #productmanagement #leadership #growth #productatheart” – Hans-Jörg Roser
“My head is still buzzing from all the talks I listened to at Product at Heart, the wonderful conversations I’ve had with alumni, speakers, old and new friends as well as other trainers and coaches. I will share some of my learnings bit by bit this week.” – Tanja Lau
“I had a wonderful experience at my very first product conference! The energy and passion from everyone around me were inspiring. It was amazing to see founders making connections while others were there simply to learn and mingle.” – Daniele Ronca
“One of my top five experiences from Product at Heart 2024: Being able to high-five Kate before she stepped on stage to deliver a killer closing keynote, just after I had a blast on stage myself connecting with the audience and delivering a message that's close to my heart.” – Tim Herbig
“Looking back to the Product at Heart conference in Hamburg last week. ❤️ First of all, what an event. Petra Wille and Arne Kittler and the whole Product at Heart team showed their experience and love for the small details that make for a great moment in a conference experience. Courage! I felt truly welcome and intrigued from beginning to end.” – Mathias Helmgren
“🚀Reflecting on an Inspiring Week at the Product at Heart Conference in Hamburg! 🚀 I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to join this amazing event last week and to meet so many interesting and open-minded people from around the world. 🌍 The energy, passion, and exchange of ideas were truly inspiring!” – Dr. Felix Riese

“✨There were definitely a lot of insights and learnings shared at Product at Heart last week, but the highlight for me was getting to know and connecting with so many passionate and talented product people! 🎉

A big thank you to King for providing such an amazing opportunity for growth and knowledge sharing within the product community.” – Ali Myftiu

“What an amazing three days in Hamburg at Product at Heart!❤️ Being together with like minded product people from across the world and from our own company, just reinforces my love to Product Management and Product Leadership.🙏🏻

So many reflections and key takeaways, from so many inspiring people, so what to choose.” – Peter Svensson

Of course, this post only scratches the surface of all the inspiring content from Product at Heart 2024. If you’d like to dig into any of these topics in more detail (and we highly encourage you to do so!), we’ll be sharing more detailed recaps of each session along with video recordings on our blog and in the video archive in the coming months. Watch this space or follow us on social media for more updates!

And one last thing before you go—we’re thrilled to announce we’ll be doing it all again, with a Leadership Forum and workshops in Barcelona from April 10–11, 2025 the full event in Hamburg from June 25–27, 2025. We’ll be sharing more updates once tickets go on sale.

Hamburg

Melissa Suzuno