Product Tank Cologne with Tim Herbig
- 2 minsAfter the previous fun but hectic day taking in the opening of the Cologne Carnival season, I headed to a subdued evening with the folks at ProductTank Cologne. The event, part of the Mind the Product family, brings together those working in Product related roles for talks and conversation. Just what was needed!
The outing was centered around a session from Tim Herbig, a Product Management coach based in Germany. During his time on stage, Tim eschewed slides, opting to set the scene with a few anecdotes from his time helping organisations up their product game. This offered the perfect tee-up for some really interesting questions from the audience. For many of them, Tim hit a hole in one with his answer.
From the discussion, a few snippets of wisdom jumped out:
- Product discovery is about reducing risk
- If what you’re building is at the point of being scalable, you’re not doing product discovery
- Opportunistic discovery, i.e. coming across customer insight by accident, is often more insightful that that from a workshop/interview
- Informed conviction, i.e certainty of direction backed by data, should often be the goal
- Gut feeling has a place in the discovery process. It can inform the direction in the early days, but should quickly be backed up or discarded due to data.
As someone new to this sub-discipline of software engineering world, this was really useful evening. Whilst it didn’t dive deep into any specific area, it did offer a broad look at product management with a leaning towards the discovery phase. The follow-on conversations added texture to the proceeding discussion, with plenty of pointers towards starting points for further learning. Personally, a sure sign that a meetup was worth attending is walking out with a list of books and resources to dive into over the following weeks. On that front, this was the best in quite a while.
Thanks to the local ProductTank organisers for putting on the evening, and to the Rewe Digital team for opening up their doors for the group. It was great to balance out the number of ProductTank events spoken at vs. attended with such a nice bunch of people. The evening was also the perfect excuse to venture over the Rhine, and to experience a new part of the city.
Kölle. . . errrm. . . Product Alaaf!
