[Panel Discussion] Addressing the Elephant in the Room: A Blueprint to Achieve Product & Engineering Harmony

Digital transformation has accelerated. Especially now with AI technologies taking over across a plethora of domains - within and beyond tech.

At the same time the demand for skilled tech talent across the board increases and new digital products are produced at bulk - without necessarily prioritizing customer experience.

And the question remains the same: How can tech leaders prioritize new product development and deliver scalable products without breaking the bank? What is the role of Product Management in the equation?

In this fireside chat we will delve into the collaboration between product and technology teams,and spotlight best practices for seamless department interaction, essential for effective communication and project success. The discussion will cover the importance of a shared understanding of priorities, beyond just aligning schedules, but appreciating strategic direction and critical milestones for cohesive product development.

Alexandros Pappas

Chief Experience Officer, Novibet

Christos Pateritsas

Head of Software Development, XM

Iasonas Antonopoulos

Head of Vodafone Business Products & CEO, Vodafone Innovus

Date

Thursday, May 30, 2024

12:10 -

12:50 EEST

Track

Team Management

Speaker

Alexandros Pappas

Chief Experience Officer, Novibet

Alexandros Pappas is the Chief Experience Officer at Novibet, where he oversees product vision and strategy, enhancing user experience through innovative solutions. With over twenty years of leadership in high-tech sectors including GameTech, FinTech, and e-commerce, Alexandros has a significant track record of spearheading ambitious product strategies and driving significant product advancements.

As an executive on the intersection of product management and technology, Alexandros brings a wealth of knowledge into achieving harmony between product and engineering teams, along with best practices for fostering effective communication and seamless collaboration. Holding a PhD and MSc in Artificial Intelligence, and having extensive professional experience in delivering AI solutions, Alexandros has valuable insights for navigating the challenges of digital transformation in the AI-driven landscape.

Connect with Alexandros Pappas on:

Speaker

Christos Pateritsas

Head of Software Development, XM

Experienced IT professional with over 20 years of diverse industry experience, skilled at navigating various sectors and roles. Known for fostering transparency, honesty, and agility in all interactions, while maintaining a balance between delivery and engineering excellence. Proficient in leading multidisciplinary teams, from technical decision-making to high-level architectural design. Currently, I serve as Head of Software Development, overseeing multiple teams and driving initiatives for standardization, technology modernization, and process optimization.

Connect with Christos Pateritsas on:

Speaker

Iasonas Antonopoulos

Head of Vodafone Business Products & CEO, Vodafone Innovus

With 25 years of experience in IT and telecommunications, Iasonas Antonopoulos has worked in technology companies to create software products and value adding services. Overseeing the entire technology production cycle, he has helped the technological development of various sized and large organizations by restructuring structures and processes, inspiring and training people in the context of product management and creating top notch digital experiences and services. Currently he holds the position of Vodafone Business Products and CEO of Vodafone Innovus, an IoT product development subsidiary of Vodafone Group.

Connect with Iasonas Antonopoulos on:

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We'll go beyond theory, offering tangible tips for leaders to drive customer satisfaction—a key indicator of success in tech. We’ll also look at how to encourage team growth and learning, creating a culture where every member, from new recruits to executives, contributes to continuous improvement.

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Product-led companies break down data silos and use product insights to inform strategy up to the executive level. Data is the common language across the organization, and each department monitors usage and behavioral insights to ensure the product delivers maximum value to the customer.

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May, 30, 2024

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Artificial Intelligence

Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Talking with your Private Data Using LLM

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Tech Lead & Principal Software Engineer, Elastic

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May, 30, 2024

14:00 -

14:30 EEST

Artificial Intelligence

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In this session, we'll talk about how to change our thinking to follow the successful approach, not the unsuccessful one. And we'll look at how to use AI the right way, thinking about ethics too. These will be our key lessons.

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May, 30, 2024

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S/W Development

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13:45 -

14:05 EEST

Personal Development

Charting Your Course: Thriving in the PM Career Journey as a Company' State Evolves

The evolution of a company can be roughly drafted into four stages: Discovery, Growth, Maturity, Decline. Each stage requires different product management skills and activities. Therefore, being aware of the company’s stage can help make better decisions and, especially, set our own expectations about our product leadership role.

Having worked in booming start-ups in the Growth phase, product led organizations in companies in the Maturity and in the Decline phases and mentored early-stage entrepreneurs in the Discovery Luca will reflect his own learnings and provide recommendations on how product leaders can better shape their own role and their team in each phase.

Luca Criscuolo

Ex-Head of Regional Product Europe, Ebay

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May, 30, 2024

13:25 -

13:45 EEST

PM Leadership

Act Like an Owner, Challenge Like a VC

Product management is teeming with methods like Lean Canvas, RICE, and OKRs, crucial for planning and running tech projects. Yet, a shift towards valuing profitability over unchecked growth is changing the game.

Startups and tech firms are adjusting their strategies to focus on revenue and sustainable growth in response to economic shifts. This means we need to rethink our roles within companies and the broader market.

In this session, Fabrice des Mazery, Chief Product Officer at Tripadvisor, will share insights on transforming tech solutions from cost centers into profit generators. He will provide strategies and real-life examples to help products become key sources of profit along with a guide to product managers and tech experts in a business world that now requires judicious investment and expenditure.

Fabrice des Mazery

Ex-CPO, Tripadvisor

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May, 30, 2024

13:00 -

13:45 EEST

Roadmapping

Your Guide to Roadmapping: How to Unleash Customer-Facing Skills & Craft an Irresistible Product Roadmap

This workshop will instruct participants on creating a customer-centric roadmap, essential for business prosperity. Participants will acquire skills to comprehend customer needs, prioritize satisfaction, and foster robust relationships. Through interactive exercises, attendees will learn to tailor presentations to address customer challenges and enhance credibility.

The session offers methods to simplify technical information for clients, encompassing lucid communication strategies, case analyses, and practical activities. Attendees will also master addressing customer concerns and expectations, thereby improving transparency and fostering relationships via role-playing and discourse. Strategies for engaging with customer inquiries and resistance will be covered, with an emphasis on active listening and empathetic interaction, as well as managing question-and-answer sessions efficiently.

Conclusively, attendees will develop practical skills to promote a customer-focused strategy, refine presentations, elucidate technical matters, address concerns, and navigate objections.

Despina Kitsou

AI Product Manager (AIOps) Nokia

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May, 30, 2024

13:00 -

14:00 EEST

S/W Architecture

Patterns of Legacy Displacement

Every organization, from six-month-old startups to 30-year industry giants, has legacy systems. These systems hold your company's history but can also block the shift to a modern digital business. We've spent the last two decades helping companies revamp these old systems. We've learned what works and seen many attempts that don't.

In our talk, we'll share several successful strategies for updating legacy systems and some common mistakes to avoid. We'll go over specific methods, when they work best, and how you might use or steer clear of them, with real-life examples. The session includes insights from collaborative work with experts like Martin Fowler, James Lewis, and Ian Cartwright.

Rob Horn

Technical Principal Consultant, Thoughtworks

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May, 30, 2024

12:50 -

13:25 EEST

Personal Development

Decision Making - The First 5000 Years

In a time when everything is important, a good decision making process is the one key tool in your box to stay sane. You need to decide, with confidence, where you spend your time, where your team is spending theirs, and what priorities to sacrifice for others.

Join Matthias on a journey of a young founder, making decisions on a whim and without any kind of structure, always reacting rather than responding, to becoming an executive that’s much more confident in his decision making. We’ll look at how you can pull yourself out of a reactive decision making mode that causes utter stress constantly, to both you and your team, and make decisions with a high level of confidence and transparency. We’ll talk about what ingredients you need in place for your decision making to flow without you really having to do anything, with just a dash of laziness and looking towards what the future might behold, both good and bad (and neutral).

Mathias Meyer

Founding Partner & Executive Coach, The Intentional Organization

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May, 30, 2024

12:15 -

13:00 EEST

User Experience

Evaluating User Experience in Observability: Metrics & Methodologies

During this session, we'll investigate strategies for assessing the user experience of observability tools. We will be exploring essential UX metrics, various research methodologies and key instruments employed to establish a baseline and benchmark the iterative implementation of new functionalities over time. The focus will be on a user-centered approach, covering aspects from early incident detection to mitigation, to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of user experience quality in observability platforms.

Sotiris Sotiropoulos

Principal UX Consultant & Co-Founder, Zanshin Labs

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May, 30, 2024

12:00 -

14:00 EEST

Artificial Intelligence

Demystifying AI for Software Engineering

Software engineers are increasingly integrating machine learning (ML) into application development to create innovative solutions. Our in-depth workshop is designed for those eager to enhance their technical skills, covering machine learning and deep learning theories and practical applications. Attendees will learn through interactive lectures and hands-on activities, tackling topics like data preprocessing, feature selection, model building, and algorithm optimization. They'll also explore deep learning architectures such as neural networks.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be equipped to build ML models for their applications, making data-driven decisions and crafting intelligent software. This experience provides a foundation for anyone aiming to specialize in ML or improve their current applications' features. The workshop is an opportunity for both experienced engineers and novices to stay current with AI and ML technological advancements.

Marion Nikoloudaki

Head of Data, Analytics, AI/ML ITT Inc.

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May, 30, 2024

12:00 -

13:00 EEST

Artificial Intelligence

Debugging Chronicles: Navigating S/W Challenges and the AI Revolution

Every software engineer has stories of bug hunting or spending hours unraveling the root cause of a system failure. In this journey, we delve into a selection of these tales, aiming to extract key ideas, concepts, and hints for improvement. Additionally, we'll explore the impact of debugging and issue resolution on products, and take a glimpse into the future by discussing potential offerings from advancements in AI.

Stavros Kontopoulos

Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat

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May, 30, 2024

11:30 -

12:15 EEST

Product Metrics

How to Measure your Product Success with KPI Trees

Measuring the success of a product is crucial for any business strategy. This workshop will focus on utilizing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and KPI trees to effectively measure product success.

A KPI tree is a structured visualization tool that breaks down overall business or product objectives into specific, measurable metrics. It resembles a tree, with a main objective as the trunk, key results as limbs, and individual KPIs as branches.

The benefits of using KPI trees include clarity, focus, alignment, and easier issue identification. By breaking down objectives, teams gain a clear understanding of what needs to be achieved and can concentrate efforts on improving metrics that directly impact higher-level goals. KPI trees also ensure alignment among employees and facilitate the diagnosis of issues at a granular level.

Sofia Michili

Group Product Manager, Hotjar

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May, 30, 2024

11:15 -

12:00 EEST

Product Strategy

Scaling with Purpose: Crafting a Resilient Product Strategy

In the whirlwind of growth, how do we ensure our products scale with intention and clarity? This illuminating session delves into the art of scaling products without losing sight of their foundational essence. We’ll explore the paramount importance of anchoring product strategies firmly in the company’s overarching vision. By understanding and internalizing this vision, we can craft holistic product strategies that serve as robust blueprints for the journey ahead.

These strategies then evolve into clear, actionable product goals, ensuring that every milestone achieved aligns seamlessly with the larger purpose. And finally, we’ll discuss how to design and implement solutions that echo these goals, offering tangible value to users. Join us for an insightful discourse on creating resilient product strategies that resonate with purpose, ensuring meaningful growth and impact.

Ilias Pappas

Head of Product, Agroknow

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May, 30, 2024

11:05 -

11:40 EEST

Team Management

Managing in a Post-Agile World

The success rate of software projects has more than doubled since the introduction of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development 23 years ago. Despite this, developers and their managers are increasingly turning their backs on so-called "Agile" just when we need it most. And the sad thing is that they are right; Agile is no longer agile. Let's look at what went wrong, and let's start a discussion about reapplying the core values of the Manifesto and reclaiming the benefits of agility for individuals, teams, and organizations.

David Thomas

Author of The Pragmatic Programmer

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May, 30, 2024

10:45 -

11:05 EEST

Team Management

Do your Teams Deliver Software or Value?

In the dynamic environment of SaaS companies, addressing software complexity is paramount for engineering leaders. Subsequently, the emphasis shifts from simple software delivery to generating genuine value. This session by George Nikolaropoulos, SVP of Engineering at GWI will highlight user-centric development, agile methodologies, and data-driven decision-making as essential for delivering not only software but also substantial, enduring value to users.

George Nikolaropoulos

CTO, Natech Banking Solutions

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May, 30, 2024

10:10 -

10:45 EEST

Product & Engineering Alignment

Engineering & Product Strategy: A Common Roadmap to Enhanced ROI and User Experience

Engineering and product strategy, when seamlessly integrated, forge a roadmap that significantly enhances Return on Investment (ROI) and user experience. This synergy begins with a deep understanding of the user's needs, which informs the development of products that not only meet but exceed expectations.

In this session we will dive into how engineering excellence ensures that these products are not only innovative but also reliable and scalable, thus maximizing their market potential. Moreover, we will examine how a cohesive strategy aligns technological advancements with business objectives, facilitating efficient resource allocation and streamlined development processes.

Attendees will see how this results in accelerated time-to-market and reduced costs, directly impacting ROI positively. The convergence of engineering prowess and strategic product vision creates a virtuous cycle, where enhanced ROI and user satisfaction drive each other in a continuous loop of improvement and success.

Vangelis Kalloudis

Sr. Product Manager, Kaizen Gaming

George Pagomenos

Technology Manager, Kaizen Gaming

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May, 30, 2024

09:50 -

10:10 EEST

Product Strategy

Scaling Globally: Striking the Ideal Balance Between Expansion and Local Customization

Join Amber Clifford as she explores the product strategy fundamental to a critical business decision: international expansion. In this session, Amber will outline her methodology for initiating new markets from a product perspective. She will concentrate on the strategies she utilizes to decide between hyper-localization and a scaled approach. Acquire invaluable knowledge from her broad expertise as an expert in international expansion, with work experience spanning more than 120 countries and territories with organizations such as Uber Eats and Disney+.

Amber Clifford

Founder, Murai International Consulting (Ex-Disney+, Ex-Uber)

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May, 30, 2024

09:30 -

09:50 EEST

Product Leadership

The Path To CPO

A comprehensive guide exploring various career trajectories for Product Managers, delving into the essential skills and experience necessary to ascend to a leadership role within the realm of product management. This session will provide insights on how to develop strategic thinking, effective communication, stakeholder management, and decision-making abilities to excel in the dynamic field of product management. Additionally, it will cover the importance of continuous learning, adaptability, and staying updated with industry trends to stay competitive and advance in your career as a Product Manager.

Mihalis Rikakis

CEO, Dikaio.ai

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April, 21, 2023

12:40 -

13:00 EEST

S/W Engineering

Product & Engineering Alignment and Other Babel Tower Stories

Product and engineering alignment is often one of the biggest challenges in a company's growth journey, and it can sometimes feel like everyone is speaking a different language. In this talk, we will explore the many stories of the babel tower that can occur when product and engineering teams don't communicate effectively, and we will discuss strategies for bridging the gap. From both the product and engineering sides, we will dive into how empathy is the key to effective collaboration. We will explore how product-oriented engineers can better understand the business and user needs, and how tech-oriented product managers can better understand the constraints and possibilities of the technology. We will discuss where to draw the lines between responsibilities, and how to work together to create solutions that meet everyone's needs.

Antonis Kalipetis

Software Engineer, Platform.sh - Co-Founder, LOGIC

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April, 21, 2023

11:20 -

11:40 EEST

S/W Engineering

5 Rules for Tackling Software Complexity: An antidote to chaos

Growing a tech business can be hard, really hard. But many companies have successfully tackled all these technical (and not) challenges that appear when you start to grow beyond what you were prepared for. This talk will focus on the technical challenges of building complex software solutions and how we can finally tame the beast of complexity using old and new research regarding running software development teams.

George Nikolaropoulos

CTO, Natech Banking Solutions

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