ProductCamp Conversations: Making Room for the Parts of Product That Don't Fit on a Roadmap

Some of the best product conversations never appear on a roadmap.

They happen over coffee, in the hallway after a conference session, or when a group of practitioners stops presenting polished answers and starts comparing notes about what the work is actually like.

That is the idea behind ProductCamp Conversations, a new weekly podcast I am co-hosting with Allison Herbert.

Allison and I met at a ProductCamp in 2022. We were two product people who enjoyed not only attending ProductCamps, but participating in the communities that form around them. We kept talking after the event ended.

The more we talked, the clearer something became: product work has a formal version and a lived version.

The formal version fits neatly into roadmaps, frameworks, job descriptions, and conference presentations. The lived version includes the relationships, judgment calls, uncomfortable questions, unexpected lessons, and casual conversations that help people become better at the work.

Our podcast is about that second version.

A podcast for curious product people

ProductCamp Conversations is Allison and me thinking out loud—sometimes with a guest—about the parts of product that do not always get enough attention.

We will talk about community, the human element of product work, and what happens when practitioners share what they are seeing, trying, learning, and occasionally getting wrong.

This is not intended to be two people delivering perfectly packaged answers from opposite sides of a microphone. The name matters. These are conversations: curious, practical explorations shaped by two friends who care about product work and the people doing it.

That is also what makes ProductCamp special. The best ProductCamp sessions are not one-way performances. They are shaped by the people in the room. Someone brings a question or an experience, others contribute their own perspectives, and everyone leaves with a slightly better understanding of the problem.

We want to carry some of that spirit into the podcast.

Why another product podcast?

There is no shortage of product advice.

What feels scarcer are places where product people can be honest about the gaps between the advice and the work: the organizational realities, human dynamics, ambiguous decisions, and informal communities that shape what actually happens.

Frameworks can give us useful starting points. They cannot make every judgment call for us. Sometimes the thing that helps most is hearing how another practitioner sees the situation—and realizing that the challenge we thought was ours alone is something many of us are trying to navigate.

That is the kind of conversation Allison and I want to create.

Come join the conversation

If you work in product, alongside product teams, or are simply curious about how products and product communities take shape, we hope you will listen.

New episodes of ProductCamp Conversations will be released weekly. You can find the show on RSS.com or search for “ProductCamp Conversations” in your favorite podcast application.

Subscribe, listen, and let us know what you think. If there is a conversation you believe product people should be having—or someone Allison and I should invite into one—we would love to hear from you.

Product work gets better when practitioners talk honestly with one another. Consider this an invitation to pull up a chair.

Dave Mathias co-hosts ProductCamp Conversations with Allison Herbert. Listen and subscribe.