Productized = Leaders with João Moita - Productized 24 TalkInTen

We’re excited to bring you more exclusive content from Productized 2024, our third conference of the year! This series continues our TalkInTen format, where we deliver concise, impactful conversations with industry leaders driving innovation in product and business agility. Each episode is packed with fresh insights, actionable strategies, and real-world examples to help teams and organisations succeed.

In this episode, we’re joined by João Moita, co-founder of Product Weekend and a key figure behind the scenes at Productized 2024. João offers a unique perspective on what it takes to build a successful product community, the importance of leadership in product management, and how intimate, peer-to-peer learning environments can accelerate career growth and development.

João on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaomoita/ 

Here is a synopsis of João’s Talk:
In his workshop, João and his co-facilitator Sergiu Lazar delve into the critical role of psychological safety in product development. They explain how fostering a safe environment enables teams to align better, influence without authority, and work towards shared goals. The session highlights how psychological safety can drive efficiency and fulfillment, making product teams more collaborative and resilient.

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Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to a very special series of episodes of the Product Agility Podcast, broadcasting for two days, direct from Lisbon Portugal and product ties 2024. This year, we're bringing you more exclusive bite-sized wisdom with our Talks in 10 format, where we're going to be diving into actionable insights from some of the best and brightest minds in product leadership. And attendees this year are being spoiled with talks and workshops from the likes of Radakadot, creator of radical product thinking and Rich Morinov, author of the art of product management, helping us all find some joy in what we do. But it would be a pretty shitty conference if it was just two people. There are so many more people here, and we're going to be getting as many of them as possible on here to share their talks in 10. Now before we begin, a huge thank you to our sponsor, Sheev Limited. Sheev is the company which has bankrupted this podcast pretty much since day one. I want to take an opportunity just to share with you and make you aware we do some awesome stuff. Whether it's training your product teams or coaching your product teams with clarity and alignment, or you know just a simple thing of actually making OKRs work in organisations, these are all things that we are very good at. So do head over to www.sheev.co.uk, see what we do and get in contact with us. Also check out the show notes for a tasty little discount code over any of our courses. Grab a notebook because the next 10 minutes are going to be packed with action tips from the best in the business. And here begins a talk in 10. It strikes me that in all the conversations that we've had at product 24, we haven't actually had a nice overview of the overall conference experience. And it isn't like other conferences. There is a slight difference here. And I think not only is it the attendees and the programme, but there's a lot of extra stuff that happens. And we're joined by Moita. Moita, exactly. Which I don't know is your surname. It's real kind of strange. If you want to try Zwong on the record, just... Like Zwong. Yeah, not Zwong. Moita? Not that. That's right. A very good repeating of those names. Very bad, but when you're asking 30 seconds, we're going to say it again. I've got it in there. So it's in the can. And you've been this year, particularly quite integral in the setup and the running of the conference. And say before it listens, before we stop listening, this isn't going to be a boring chat about coming and talking about the conference. Because actually there's some really unique and interesting things that have been happening this week. And we'll continue to happen over the weekend, which I think is phenomenal. So Moita, welcome onto the podcast. Thank you. A fellow broadcaster. Exactly. co-founder of Product Weekend. So really awesome to have you. Awesome. Great to be here. Great to be chatting. Yeah, we can talk a lot about the conference. So please stop me if I talk too much. Yeah. Let's break it down. Let's break it down. So we've got the main conference programme, which is really the workshops and the standard kind of conference agenda, which is the first day on Friday. Before that, there were some activities. What happened before that the workshops and the talks? Yeah, so there was this leadership day. So this was an addition compared to last year that Andrea introduced, Andrea Market, the founder of Productized. So essentially it challenged me to deliver or design the day because of our partnership between Product Weekend and Productized. And his idea was to involve the community. So from that idea, we came up with this concept. Essentially, we had a lot of speakers, a lot of leaders from many companies, not only from Portugal, but from all around the world, joining us to discuss the future of product management and not just learning from someone, but learning together with the group. So we had these three parallel sessions, each group, each session led by a community leader. And we discussed topics of psychological safety in product, AI in product, and the balance between strategic and technical initiatives in each of these sessions at facilitator from the community and the speaker joining. So it was a very interesting and intimate environment to have these deep discussions where people learn together. So I think it was a very one bet, at least that's also what Andrea told me, that we managed to bring the intimacy that we created product weekend to a bigger conference, to a bigger setting. So I think it went really well. And the speakers that you had, these are not novices, right? These are people who are born in the industry. And so who was it that you had there? Yeah. So in this, in the leadership day, there was Rich Mironov, Radikadot, Becky Flint in the three parallel sessions. And we also had Ninesh Nider as the moderator of the panel discussion. And we also had the Nines tiles in the panel discussion and then doing the wrap up with everyone, because after each session, we came back together, the whole group to share the learnings, to add some more points. So it was a very interactive session where leaders were learning together with each other and not just from a presentation. So I think it was a really nice experience. It sounds like a brilliant opportunity for dare I say, like, sounds terrible. I just can't think of the word. I love my words, normal people. To hang out with some people that are really well known. It must have been quite nice to kind of get in this kind of nice intimate one on one time with the likes of Rich and Radikadot. Yeah, that actually connects to what product weekend is and how it's different from other events that we always create this kind of environment. Like, let's say the more our flagship event that we organize, it's usually just 25 to 30 participants and eight speakers that are joining. So it's a really classroom-sized environment where everyone is friends, like it's like spending a weekend with friends and, well, discussing topics that you like. And we managed to bring that energy and that intimate vibe to this event. So I think it was really nice to prove that it can happen also in a bigger setting. So it was a really cool one. And the other thing that's happening at the same time is the leaders retreat, which is product weekend leaders retreat that we started. Last year we did it also here in Lisbon right after productized. And it went really well, like still a MVP version of it. But it worked really well, like so well that we had people coming back for the second time. So it proves that the MVP was good enough at least. But now we together with André and with productized, we did a bigger program. So the participants of the retreat got a full ticket for productized. So they joined before the conference, then they had the three days of conference. And on Saturday and Sunday, we still have one and a half days of more in-depth sessions, basically to anchor the learnings from the conference and the people that they met here and to take a clear action plan that will apply after the conference, also with two coaching calls after the event finishes for them to follow through. And they also had like a pre-event assessment where they did some reflection on what their goals were. They set what they came to the conference for and to the retreat for. So that was also the feedback that I was really happy to hear participants give that it really made a difference on the way they approached the conference and the value that they took, even from the workshops and the sessions that they're like, okay, I know that my goal is to grow from senior PM to group PM within one year. So let me discuss in the workshops or try to get those insights to take that leap. And it was very, people could take more from the sessions that were happening. And I was thinking that this is a great career development opportunity. I think a lot of the time, particularly my corporate life, you were always trying to angle conferences as these learning opportunities. But I think actually, for people to come along to the whole kind of experience, as it were, actually, it could really accelerate people's careers. And it's great that you've got that follow through. I think the follow through is really important because it's what makes it real. It's about like being intentional about what you want to get from the experience. I think that makes a big difference. And then I'm biased, but I'm very passionate and advocate of learning through sharing and through discussing with people and learning from examples. Like, to be honest, the product management theory, well, it's not simple, but it's not that complicated either. Then the problem is that there are so many edge cases, so many different contexts in every company, every team that you need to adapt. And I don't believe there's any ready-made solution or any course that will fix all your problems. The best way to learn and to become a better product person is by connecting with others, hearing their stories, hearing their specific examples, and also asking the questions of like, for a junior person, maybe it can be something that seems stupid, let's say, for someone more experienced, like, what's a user story? How do I write a user story? Like, in our events, people have the space to ask that, well, if they were in a conference, they would not raise their hand to ask that, you know? So here, there's a really intimate vibe to for people to grow and to learn their their crafts better by sharing with others. I think that's one of the interesting things is that when you consider that, you know, a knowledge gap is something you can teach, and then the person is proficient afterwards. And that if it's a fair assumption that simply by giving someone the information, the knowledge, that they actually then require practice to be proficient in it, then it's a skills gap as well. And I think that your training is great, and the talks are great for filling those knowledge gaps, and maybe filling a motivation gap as well to get people off and off, trying it. Yeah, the motivation is a big part as well. They only get together in that lovely kind of social learning environment, and people get to then practice some of the skills and try things out, at least hypothetically speaking, within their context. I think that's a really, really important and powerful thing, right? So the knowledge gap is one thing, and the training is great for knowledge gaps, but this is what we're doing. What you're doing here, particularly with Procterase overall, is actually giving people some of those motivation and beginning to help people find ways to fill those skills really, really important. Yeah, I think... That's the most different school was careers, right? It isn't knowing the framework or knowing the approach or the theoretical aspect, it's being able to find ways to apply that consistently and efficiently in different contexts. And getting the details of the implementation and the nuances of different... What I usually say is the best way to learn, or the second best way to learn is to learn with your mistakes. The best way to learn is to learn with other people's mistakes. And in these kind of environments, you can really learn with the journeys of other people, and that's what we try to build. Awesome. But it sounds like a nice opportunity to end it then, and it's just very good to have you on the podcast. I mean, we spoke last year, and I think it's been a crazy year, and it's so much to be back here with you, and to hear more about the overall Procterase experience. If people want to find out more about what you're doing with Procterase weekend, I guess LinkedIn is a good place for them to go? Yeah, LinkedIn is a great place, or you can also check the productweekend.com. We have all our events, all our coming things, you can also understand better these nuances of different types of events that we have. We also have a career accelerator, we also have a fast coming up, that's like a bigger setting, still splitting these intimate groups. And yeah, we have now events pretty much all around Europe, and hopefully next year also in Brazil and the US. Amazing. It's going to be a fun journey, and we'll be right next to you at your doorstep. So join us. If you listen to this and you think it's interesting, then do check out productweekend.com. It's a fantastic initiative, and a great opportunity to really accelerate your career, I think. We even just make new connections, because maybe you don't want to accelerate your career, maybe you just want to change in some way. So I really urge people to do check out product weekend, do check out your podcast as well, product week podcast. That's focused more on the topic of psychological safety now this season. Also a lot of the speakers here and some of the attendees have been speakers at our podcast. So it's also great to connect with these people in person as for you, I guess. It's also a nice one. Yeah, that's lovely for me. This isn't about me, but you, thank you so much for coming on. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode and do go into LinkedIn, particularly LinkedIn, and just share your thoughts. Find Moiter, find myself, tag us, let us know what you think, ask us your questions. We're here to make sure that you get what you need. So thank you very much for coming on Moiter. Thank you for listening. It's a pleasure, man. And we'll be back again soon. Thank you. Thank you.