On June 1st, I was able to attend and speak at ProdCon in Brookfield, WI. This was my second time speaking at the conference, which is hosted by NVISIA. This year there were over 500 attendees from the greater Milwaukee area and broader WI areas. I always meet some great people at this conference and get a few important insights as well.
Preparing the Next Generation of Agile Software Engineers
Steve Lueck, SVP at Associated Bank, and I spoke about the Computer Science Capstone class I teach at UW-Madison. I talked about how the class is organized and Steve did an amazing job talking about what it’s like to be a partner for the class. You can check-out our slides in full here.
Other Insights from ProdCon
I was able to catch two others sessions at the conference.
Product Strategy
There was a great panel discussion called “Shaping Product Strategy & Measuring Business Impact”. Andrew Kielbasa moderated for Hebba Mahmoud (TruStage & Former Product Owner of Innovation at CUNA Mutual), Shalini Badhwar (Direct Supply), and Andrew Lichey (IFS). They underscored the need to fail fast and cut through right to your customers to understand what they truly care about. They also discussed the importance of leaning on a good mission and north star when doing annual planning. Lichey is at a PE-owned firm just like I am right now and his answers really resonated with me. There are three questions his team asks when starting their strategy conversations:
- Is the market real?
- Can we compete in that market?
- Is it worth it? Is there enough revenue there?
The panel ended with the reminder that products are only successful once people are successfully using the product.
Products are successful once people are successfully using the product.
Women in Tech
One of the things that the conference organizers did really well was have everyone come together for a session on women in tech. I’m sure the guys in the room were less thrilled than me, but I loved having that conversation with everyone at the conference — not just the other women like me who feel the absence of other women so acutely. Women fill only 19% of C-level assignments. We feel like we need to layer on degrees and certifications before being noticed. No wonder we drop out of the workforce faster than men. It’s literally harder for us to keep up. The panelists, who were Shalini Badhwar (Direct Supply), Lori Videkovich (Generac), Lindsay Winn (Molson Coors), and Damini Dhawal (AIG) all did a great job! Here’s some of the great pieces of advice that I took away from the session.
- Keep encouraging girls in middle and high school to go into math & science
- Remind women that they are smart enough to be in tech (society tells us the opposite)
- Ask for opportunities
- Come to the table prepared
- Know your business (not just the tech side of the business)
- Seek mentors and sponsors
- Authenticity is important — we’ve got enough men leading like men and we need more women leading like women
- There are plenty of people out there looking to sponsor women-led technical companies and organizations helping women
Always a great conference! Thanks to Josh Cherry for getting me involved. I will definitely be attending future sessions.