Workshop 1

Commercial Skills for Product Managers

As product managers, we love talking about the value we’re driving for our customers. It’s at the heart of everything we build. But as we continue to operate in an era where profitability is key, building things that our customers love isn’t enough – they have to be valuable to the business as well.

In this workshop, we’ll unpack what it means for a product to be “viable”, and how to sell your vision to your first customer…your stakeholders. You will learn key concepts for navigating the world of investment cases and budget battles, including:

• What matters to our toughest stakeholders, including finance and your CEO

• What the financial jargon you hear actually means, and what it means for your product

• How to put together a business case for your ideas

• Strategies for bridging the gap between a product mindset and an “investment case approval” organisation

You’ll leave the class having identified the areas of your product that need more financial focus, and with a plan to get the numbers you need to have the right conversations with the people that matter.

This workshop is aimed at people who may have entered into product management from a non-business background but suddenly find themselves having to talk about ROI, Capex, EBITDA, and ARPU much more frequently than they used to, or anyone who wants to level up their ability to make a strong case for investment in their product.

Emily Tate - VP of Product, IVC Evidensia

Workshop 2

Success Metrics: A Playbook for Product Managers

This workshop is designed to equip product managers with a flexible playbook for identifying success metrics and leading indicators that truly drive product and business outcomes. We’ll adapt and “mis-use” familiar metric-building techniques in a unique way to better reflect real-world product dynamics and customer behaviour.

Together, we’ll practise:

1. User Journeys as Behaviour Maps

Discover how to map out user journeys as a series of behaviours, translating these into measurable outcomes and micro-conversions.

2. Goals-Signals-Metrics (GSM), with a Twist

Learn how to define proxy metrics and identify leading indicators for hard-to-measure goals in your own product’s unique context by using GSM as a flexible mental model instead of a rigid framework.

3. AARRR Map, not Funnel

Redefine the classic AARRR funnel into a dynamic map, seeing your product as an end-to-end service. Identify the critical metrics that will drive sustainable growth.

4. Metrics Tree

Bring it all together in a custom metrics tree, breaking down primary metrics into actionable leading indicators that align both with product and business goals.

How We’ll Work:

In group exercises, you’ll apply these techniques to a real example provided by a volunteer in your group, translating theory into practice and walking away with the know-how to adapt these models to any product.

Key Takeaways:

• A playbook to define success metrics and leading indicators with direct business impact

• New ways to approach user journeys and build metrics trees based on real product behaviours

• Hands-on experience using flexible frameworks for a clearer, more impactful metrics strategy

Büşra Coşkuner - Founder and Product Coach

Workshop 3

Essential Toolkit for Product Managers

This workshop is designed to give you the key techniques that you need in order to navigate the fast changing, complex environment of product management. We will cover essential tools that product managers need in order to excel in 4 key areas of product management.

1. Framing the problem

No team wants to build a product that no-one wants. Not only is this a waste of time and money, but it is a huge waste of precious human potential. We are prone to fooling ourselves into believing that we really do know what customers want. As a result, we spend most of our time adding new features, iterating on our products and blindly following product roadmaps that actually get us nowhere at all.

How might we avoid building things that no one wants?

2. Managing Demand

To succeed as a Product Manager you have to help your team focus. In an ocean seemingly full of urgent and important options, there will be some very high Cost of Delay opportunities. It’s all too easy to get distracted and confused – and miss the opportunity. You’ll have to handle demanding customers, under-pressure senior executives, impatient sales & marketing people, nervous investors and many others who want it all.

How might we utilise our team’s capacity to work on the most valuable ideas for our organisation? How might we manage conflicting priorities from multiple stakeholders?

3. Breaking Work down

Even when we know which outcomes we’re shooting for, there are hundreds of different paths we could take. And all of those potential journeys start with a first step. Breaking down work to small enough pieces improves flow and visibility and for this, you’re gonna need some sharp tools for slicing problems and solutions.

How might we decide which path to take and where to start so that we can deliver value to the customer early?

4. Forecasting and Roadmaps

Often, before the starting gun has even fired there are a bunch of people asking: “So, how much do you think this is going to cost? And, when do you think it will be done?”

How might we answer these questions and not make promises we can’t keep?

Key take-aways:

Understand at a deeper level what a product needs to do - jobs to be done

Prioritisation for pros using cost of delay

Tools for breaking work down

Basic forecasting techniques that will enable product teams to manage stakeholder expectations

Özlem Yüce - Your Essential Toolkit for Product Managers Instructor