Kent McDonald
Product Manager and Writer
Winterset, Iowa, United States
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I write about and practice software product management in a variety of industries including retail, fintech, agriculture, financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive. I practice my craft with a variety of product teams and provide just-in-time resources for product people at insideproduct.co.
When not writing or product managing, I’m #ubersherpa for my family, listen to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collect national parks.
Area of Expertise
Topics
How to survive and thrive in a digital transformation
Many organizations use digital transformation as a strategy to succeed in today’s complex environment. Individual contributors can and should play a key role in applying digital technologies to create and improve business processes.
To ignite your potential, you can use your skills to help any digital transformation succeed.
Attend this session to learn how individual contributors can contribute to successful digital transformations. You’ll also find out how to tell if you’re in a digital transformation in name only and find out how you can make the best of that situation.
You’ll also learn about techniques that are helpful in both circumstances.
- Discover the problem you’re trying to solve with story-based interviews
- Make informed decisions guided by decision filters and a well-formed problem statement
- Understand context to properly select and adjust your approach
Join this session to learn these techniques and gain access to helpful resources. The knowledge you gain will make you a crucial part of your organization’s digital transformation.
Filters not buckets: prioritization for product teams
Prioritization, or more specifically deciding what you will and will not build, is a key decision teams make on a regular basis.
Yet many teams use ineffective approaches to prioritization that add more confusion than clarity, and leave teams focusing on who screams loudest.
In this lightning talk, Kent McDonald shares some key prioritization tips that help your team ensure you're working on the right thing.
Backlog Refinement: “Writing stories” isn’t the whole story
If your team is (or claims to be) using an agile approach you’ve probably been asked to lead, or at least play a key role in, backlog refinement.
That’s great.. What does that mean?
(C’mon, you know the question has crossed your mind. It’s ok.)
Backlog refinement is the often misunderstood activity in agile approaches that falls to product people to perform.
It's also an activity that can help your team succeed, as long as you understand what it’s intended to accomplish.
Hint: “writing stories” isn’t it.
Join Kent McDonald, freelance product manager and recovering agile coach, to find out how to up your backlog refinement game and be the product person everyone wants on their team.
In this session you’ll learn how to
- Maintain a manageable backlog
- Keep your team focused on the right things to build
- Make sure your team has the information they need to build that right thing.
As an attendee of this session, you’ll learn that this format isn’t necessary so that you can focus on the things that are truly helpful.
Kent McDonald
Product Manager and Writer
Winterset, Iowa, United States
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