The Best Product Ops Events You Need to Attend in 2023
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Our concept of what a product operations specialist does is always changing. But attending product ops events with speakers from various industries and organizations gives you an insider’s look at what this role looks like throughout your space.
So whether you’re looking to scale your career or just want to keep up with the latest news, you’ve got to attend some of 2024’s best product ops events.
Next is your go-to calendar of product operations events you’ve got to consider for 2024.
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ProductWorld - February 21-29, 2024
ProductWorld, which coincides with DeveloperWeek, is a conference for people who are passionate about product management and product ops. It’s also a good fit for software developers, open-source product maintainers, and others who work on developer-oriented products. The conference spans multiple days and covers the latest new, creative solutions and opportunities you need to take advantage of if you’re active in the product space.
ProductWorld regularly showcases over 50 speakers from the biggest companies in the world, including Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft. You’ll get to attend workshops, learn from real case studies, and take part in panel discussions to learn more about this craft and network with other product professionals.
Talks at the conference will cover various topics, including new product management software and technologies, usability and interface design, the product development lifecycle, and more tracks around growing your product career.
ProductCon London [+ 3 more events] - Feb 20, 2024
ProductCon is a free one-day conference that helps product ops professionals build better products. You can attend the first February event in London and join us online in July. If you can’t attend in person, Product School organizes four different ProductCon conferences throughout the year, and you can see all of them online.
Attendees have the chance to network with other product managers and ops professionals from a wide spectrum of industries and discover innovative tools and resources for improving their work.
Notable past talks worth a re-watch are:
- Is The Future of Product Management Automated?
- Inspiring with a Product Vision
- Could You, Would You, PLG?
- Data-Driven Products w/ Human Touch
- The Most Underrated PM Virtue
UX & Product Management Case Study Conference - April 26-28, 2024
This event brings together product managers, product ops specialists, UX professionals, and team leads from around the world. They learn about new ways of working together and get inspiration and tools to grow their careers in UX or product management.
This conference is held across three days and includes roughly 16 core talks, each with an audience-led Q&A. Each talk gives valuable insights into building successful products, generating new ideas, and problems product managers and UX professionals face daily, including practical tips for approaching their work.
You should also consider signing up for some of their workshop series. These give UX specialists, product managers, and product ops practitioners the chance to participate in various networking dinners, meet their peers, and acquire new skills.
Forrester’s B2B Summit North America - May 5-8, 2024
Looking for insights into new strategies and best practices in data-driven product management, collaboration techniques, and more? The Forrester’s B2B Summit, held in North America, unites business executives to discuss new trends in B2B marketing and technology. The conference addresses product ops practitioners who want to set up better tech stacks and scale how they use their current solutions.
Besides meeting other product practitioners, you’ll get to talk to marketers and sales leaders to get their thoughts or cross-collaboration. The schedule usually provides access to:
- Talks from product leaders at today’s largest companies
- A hundred role-based sessions you can join to polish up your skills
- A marketplace to discover new tools for specific product challenges
- Loads of networking opportunities that allow you to connect with others and popularize product ops as a core part of any team!
Product ops events on our radar
The next product conferences are expected to be held in 2023, but their official dates haven’t been confirmed until now. Save this article to get back to it and see the dates when they’re published.
Product Operations Summit
The Product Operations Summit is the first event dedicated strictly to professionals in the product ops space. First held in 2021, the meetup offers a close-up look at the product operations function. It gives attendees a chance to share their voices, find out what’s working for other product professionals, and see what success in this role looks like for different organizations.
You should attend this event regardless of whether you’re just getting started in this role or want to mature your product ops practice. Note: this event is only available to Product-Led Alliance members.
Tip: Don’t miss the Product-Led Summit on March 20 & 21, 2024, if you’re working within a product-first company or plan to make the switch. The summit covers a wide range of topics related to product management, including product strategy, product design, product development, and product marketing.
Atlassian Summit
Atlassian provides a lot of different events you can pick from this year. The Atlassian Summit is the most popular though for professionals from different fields. Attending it will get you face-to-face with leaders and builders from the biggest organizations. It’s also an event anyone working with Agile principles should at least watch.
The summit helps product ops professionals find new ideas and solutions for their challenges, so you’ll improve how you collaborate and build products. The event has a unique theme every year. In 2022, the focus was on tackling modern team requirements, building a better team culture, and using the practices of open work management.
Mind the Product San Francisco [+ some other conferences]
Mind the Product has a series of worthwhile product events, and you’ve got to attend at least one of them every year. Keynotes are paired with interactive expos, breakout sessions, roundtables, speed networking opportunities, and more interactive events to keep you busy.
Guest speakers tackle diverse product topics, and we’ve made a list of the coolest ones to get you excited for 2024:
- Effective Cross-functional Collaboration
- The Good, Bad, and Ugly of OKRs
- Uncovering Problems, Whoever Your Customer Might Be
- Collaborating With Stakeholders to Transform Communication in Health Care
- Data and Tests: The Stars that Guide your Roadmap
Mind the Product members can access the events online even after they’re over. You probably won’t be able to attend all of them in person, but there are loads of local meetups you can find near you to meet up with other product ops practitioners.
ZapConnect
ZapConnect is an event all product ops specialists/managers who want to know more about automation need to attend. This online event promises to help everyone discover the unlimited potential of automation. You’ve got an entire half-day event that lets you connect with other Zapier users and prepare your company for success.
Keep an eye on Zapier’s regular events and webinars if automation and integrations are a big part of your work as a product ops professional.
SaaStr Annual
SaaStr Annual should be on your list of events you need to re-watch a couple of times if you work in the SaaS space. You’ve got three full days to find (or maybe even host) a workshop around product ops. Plus, there are thousands of mentoring sessions you can pick from, including product management. This event allows you to meet other product leaders and scale your role. And, of course, you’ll still get to leave with loads of hands-on tips you can apply in your work.
The SaaStr Annual schedule gives everyone a list of talks to remember. Some of the topics from past years you’ll find interesting as a product ops practitioner or leader are:
- Scaling a Product-Led Growth Model
- The Playbook to Evolving Your Product Genetics
- How to Build a DataInformed Company
- The Metrics that Matter, Whether You Are Raising $1m or $100m
You can also look into their SaaStr Build event to hear real success (and failure) stories from builders in different industries.
The Data Automation Summit
Need an event where you can learn from executives and practitioners from some of the biggest data technology companies? Past guests at The Data Automation Summit talked on:
- How Automation Accelerates Data Workloads for User Consumption
- Navigating Top Challenges to Unlocking Value from Data
- Asking the Right Questions: Supporting Explainable, Question-Driven Profiling for Data
- How to Eliminate Data Downtime and Start Trusting Your Data
You’ll get the opportunity to hear about all the latest practices and strategies you can apply to your own efforts around data analysis, cleansing, visualization, and more. Can’t make it in person? Their YouTube channel reposts some of the talks so you can take notes whenever you have time.
What’s next for you
While there are still very few conferences dedicated strictly to product ops professionals, you’ll find most product keynotes handy for your practice. Beyond attending talks, the most valuable part of attending these events in person is meeting other product ops specialists or leaders like you.
You can also make a change in your industry and start speaking on product ops topics at both large and local product management events. This is an opportunity you can’t miss if you want to build your personal brand in the space, as only a few other product ops pros have taken this step.
Additional Resources
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