BUILDING PRODUCT MINDSET THROUGH IDEATION & PITCHING

INTRODUCTION The iPhone improved the way we communicate, and today apps like Uber are changing how we travel but the question remains, how do great products come into being? Building an innovative product involves multiple challenges ranging from defining the problem youre trying to solve, identifying the people you are solving it for and coming up with a solution that not only meets but also exceeds their expectations. If you were building a new product from scratch, how would you go about doing it? This workshop starts with groups of participants picking a shared design problem, followed by an ideation session to define the product, and a pitching contest where winners with the best solutions will be chosen. The goal is to gain an understanding of how products are ideated and develop a framework for evaluating products.

AUDIENCE Our target audience will be students and recent graduates, or those looking to make a career transition into tech product development. We want people who are passionate about products, but perhaps need some guidance on ideation and product strategy.

PLAN OF ACTION

10 minutes: Introduction In the first section of the session, facilitators will introduce themselves and lay out clear objectives for the hour. The workshop aims to expose participants to the product design process and challenges them to evaluate a set of ideas. Everyone in the workshop will serve dual roles; they will act as original design thinkers who will come up with solutions to real-world user experience challenges, and in the second portion of the workshop, they will serve the investor role responsible for voting on the best overall proposal. Each participants will receive $100,000 in play cash (denominations of $10,000). At the end of the exercise, everyone can individually fund any of the ideas presented during the hour. To kick off the design challenge, facilitators will ask the participants for the type of industry categories they are most interested in. Facilitators will come up with a single question around that space structured as How might we improve X? questions. For example, How might we improve the grocery checkout experience? or How might we make boarding a plane a more enjoyable experience?. The objective of the introduction section is to get the participants familiar with the moderators and excited about a shared design problem. We will then split the group into even teams (groups of 5-10) around whiteboards spread throughout the room. 20 minutes: Ideating During the 20 minute workshop session, teams should come up with a list of ideas for how they might solve the user experience challenge. They will then come up with a product to address the problem. Teams should identify who their product is targeting, the single value proposition the product will deliver, and sketch out initial specifications for what the

product might look like. Finally, they will cap their exercise with a short plan for how they might deliver their product to their intended customer segment. At the end of 20 minutes, teams will have a chance to come up with a short 2-minute pitch explaining what they are building, how it will address the design challenge, and why people should invest in them. 20 minutes: Pitching In this section, moderators will lead the teams to pitch their ideas in front of the other participants. In a rapid-fire pitching round, each team will have 2 minutes to present their elevator pitch to the rest of the participants. The presenting team will discuss their product idea, explain their rationale for building it in the current market, elaborate on their implementation strategy, and convince others to invest. Meanwhile, the participants who are not presenting will act as the investors, listening and take notes on their questions and concerns. The investors will be encouraged to find holes in the product strategy and point out major roadblocks or obstacles. 10 minutes: Voting & Wrap Up Each participant will be given $100,000 in play money (10 bills, each $10,000). Or, depending on the scale of the session, a mobile voting system. Participants decide how they would like to invest - they can choose to distribute it across multiple products or go all in on what they believe to be the best idea. After votes are in, moderators will tally and announce the winning product idea. Moderators will then lead a discussion to discuss the winning product - investors can explain why the product resonated with them and ask tough questions. Winning team members will be given a grand prize, and all investors of that product will be given a smaller token prize.

OUTCOMES & CONCLUSION

Attendees should walk out of the session having experienced rapid product ideation and strategy. Teams will have to collaborate cross-functionally, communicate effectively amongst themselves and ultimately prioritize, make tradeoffs to agree on a final product idea. This will be an immersive exercise that helps participants experience the product development process from ideation to shipping.

PARTICIPATION STATEMENT

All participants have made a commitment to attend the conference if accepted. All the facilitators of this workshop are Associate Product Managers at LinkedIn. Three of us (Heidi, Thogori, Charu) have been to Grace Hopper as students before and really enjoyed the experience, but felt a strong need for a space to discuss product ideation and frameworks on what makes tech products truly great. We have all had very different paths which led us to product management ranging from entrepreneurship, art, design, engineering, and social work, which will bring fresh perspectives to the workshop. Being young product leaders at LinkedIn in very different teams also means that our collective experience spans many different types of products. Finally, the group is a mixed gender group which brings both genders into an important conversation around product development.

Here are the bios: Heidi Wang works on the Relationships team at LinkedIn, focusing on building products that help you build your network and keep in touch with people that matter. Her interests lie at the intersection of Computer Science, Art/Design, Social Behavior, and Education. Heidi previously worked at Box and MIT Media Lab. She holds a masters in Computer Science from Stanford University. Ryan Sandler works on the Careers team at LinkedIn. He is passionate about using data to help people get jobs and make career decisions. Ryan was previously co-founder and CEO at DareDvl. He holds a bachelors in Computer Science from Harvard University. Thogori Karago works on the Premium team at LinkedIn, where she works on building jobs products that create global economic empowerment at massive scale. She loves being able to build tech innovations that positively impact people's lives. Having grown up in Nairobi, Kenya, she is particularly passionate about doing so in developing countries. Thogori previously worked at Credit Suisse. She holds a masters in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. Wes Leung works on Search at LinkedIn. He is passionate about solving everyday inefficiencies (like finding things!) through the intersection of code, data, and design. He is interested in bringing these areas together to deliver great consumer products. Wes previously worked at IDEO, Groupon and Intuit. He holds a bachelors and masters in Computer Science from Stanford University. Charu Jangid works on the Identity team at LinkedIn, building products which enable individuals to tell their story and track and engage with their professional identity. She is passionate about building human-centered products which provide great value but are also delightful to use. Charu previously worked at Microsoft and Gencore Systems. She holds a bachelors and masters in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.