Session Topics

The 13th annual ProductCamp St. Louis is coming on Saturday, March 28, 2026. Register now (for free!) on the ProductCamp St. Louis 2026 page on Eventbrite.

Unlike traditional conferences, anyone interested in leading a session at ProductCamp St. Louis can submit a topic. Then, everyone in attendance gets to vote on which sessions they would like to see, and the most popular choices get on the schedule.

You are welcome to submit up to 5 sessions for ProductCamp.
Make sure all of your information is correct, and ensure that the session title and description accurately reflect the content. Once submitted, we will not allow any changes to any of the sessions. (With typically 60+ sessions submitted in total, it’s too much work for us to worry about tracking edits.)
You should be prepared to lead all sessions that you submit—even though you don’t know if yours will be picked.
Do NOT promote a specific product or service during your session —that’s not at all what ProductCamp is about, and attendees have reacted negatively to sessions that they felt like the presenter was giving a “pitch.” It’s okay to mention that you have a product/service, but the main focus should not be on your product/service, and attendees should get value out of the content without having to buy anything from you.
You must plan to be at ProductCamp by 8:20 AM that morning. It is your responsibility to find the Presenter check-in table when you arrive and let the volunteers there know you are present. If you haven’t checked in, your session(s) will not be included on the agenda even if there were enough votes.
You are welcome to publicize your sessions in advance, but only those in attendance at ProductCamp are able to vote.
The deadline to submit session topics is Friday, March 20, 2026 at 11:59 PM. No additional sessions can be submitted after that time.

→ Here is the form you must use to submit a session for ProductCamp St. Louis 2026.

Ideas for Sessions

You are welcome to submit any topic you desire. However, we often get questions about what topics might be more likely to get selected. When people registered for ProductCamp St. Louis 2026, we asked them what topics they would be interested in — here’s a summary of some of the most popular responses (so far):

AI for PM Productivity: Using GenAI, agentic AI, and “vibe coding” to expedite workflows, PRDs, prototyping, and daily tasks.
Integrating AI into Products: Strategy for shipping AI features, managing AI expectations, and transitioning into AI Product Manager roles.
Prioritization & Decision-Making: Frameworks for prioritizing under uncertainty, limited data, and “digging to the right level of detail.”
Stakeholder Management & Influence: Communicating process to external stakeholders, advocating for minority viewpoints, and storytelling to secure leadership investment.
Metrics & Data Analytics: Identifying metrics that matter, capturing data in “messy” environments, and translating qualitative research into measurable impact.
Product Strategy & Vision: Building a product foundation, value proposition design, and long-term strategic planning.
Customer Research & Discovery: Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), design thinking, and leveraging AI for market research.
Go-to-Market (GTM) & Product Marketing: Positioning, repositioning, customer conversion, and beta testing.
Career Development: Climbing the corporate ladder, certifications, and navigating the jump into the PM industry.
B2B Product Management: Specific strategies for business-to-business environments and complex enterprise systems.
UX & Product Design: UX heuristics, 3D printing, robotics, and educating the business on the value of design.
Collaboration & Soft Skills: Identifying the best collaborators (e.g., innovative vs. people-focused) and explaining technical ideas to non-technical people.
Budgeting & Resource Management: Financial planning, startup funding, and build vs. buy/partner assessments.
Non-Standard Product Management: Managing systems, privacy operations, and service-based products without a traditional digital/physical output.
Product Operations & Tooling: IT tools for organizing work and how team structures will evolve with improved tooling.
Shipping Physical Products: Best practices specifically for hardware and physical goods.
Responsible & Ethical AI: Addressing bias, privacy, and the responsible implementation of automation.
Startup & Solopreneurship: Resources for founders and those using AI to run a one-person product shop.
Growth Analysis: Strategies for scaling products and analyzing growth levers.
Industry Trends & Local Insights: High-level news and perspectives from local product leaders.
Delivery Frameworks: Optimization of the actual shipping and delivery process.
Future of Interfaces: Exploring voice-only interactions and the changing landscape of UI.
Professional Training: How companies are training employees on AI adoption.

You’re welcome (encouraged!) to propose a session that addresses a topic above, or choose something else that you think people would be interested in!

Proposed Sessions

Here are a few of the sessions that have been proposed for ProductCamp St. Louis 2026. You can look through the sessions that have been submitted (and made it on the schedule) at Past ProductCamps for ideas about what topics to submit, or to give you an idea of the types of topics that generally make it on the schedule.

An Overview of Product Psychology: Designing for Engagement, Ethics, and the Human Mind
10 Common Pricing Errors and Tips For Avoiding Them
Converting Confidence Into Influence And Opportunity
AI: Your New Product Team Member (or Frenemy)?
SILO is a Four-Letter Word – How Leadership Language Affects Group Collaboration
Your Customer Is Not Who You Think: How Smart Product Teams (Still) Get It Wrong
Customers Told Us to Build It…So Why Didn’t They Use It?
You Have Customer Data. So Why Are Your Big Decisions Still Guesses?
Micro-Contract Development — How to Reliably Build Production-Grade Software with AI
Hidden Risks in Hardware-Enabled Products: A Documentation Workshop
Who Gets Left Out? Identifying Equity Risks in Hardware Product Design
Documentation That De-Risks Hardware Development
Design for Behavior Change: A Know–Feel–Do Workshop for GTM Leaders
The Execution Gap: Aligning to Unlock Growth
The Product Career Playbook: Strategies for Growth & Leadership
PRD to Prototype: Ship an App without Coding
Creating successful data science products
What to Expect After Becoming an AI-Enabled 10x Product Manager
What Your Focus Groups Aren’t Telling You

Session Categories

While it is not required that a session topic falls into one of the categories listed below, it’s a helpful guide for some of the topics that may be covered.

Strategic Product Leadership (Prioritization, Stakeholder Management, Product Visioning, Product Mindset Leadership, Product Management Frameworks, Finding Product-Market Fit)
Product Development Execution (Agile Processes, Requirements Gathering, Product Delivery and Operations, Automation, Reinventing Legacy Products, Total Cost of Ownership)
Data and Analytics (Data Product Management, Product Analytics, Journey and Empathy Mapping, Market Research and Intelligence)
Customer and Market Focus (Customer Centricity, Product Adoption, Product Research, Transforming Creativity into Commercialism: Aligning innovation with market demands.
Design and Collaboration (Product and UX Optimization, Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design, Product Design, Ecosystems)
Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy (Sales Enablement, Positioning and Messaging, Lean Canvas, Business Cases)
Team Management and Operations (Team Dynamics, Idea Intake, Organizational Focus)
Startup Ecosystem (Funding, Investors, New Ventures)
Specialized Areas (Manufacturing, Patenting, Non-Consumer-Facing Products)
Other

Session Formats

In general, the most enjoyed and talked about sessions are those that have been very interactive. That said, you can structure a session however you wish. To help align expectations of the session leader and participants, we offer a list of format descriptions. This list is intended to be a guide but not intended to be limiting, so feel free to be creative.

Presentation – The speaker presents on a specific topic, followed by opening the floor for expansion, comment, questions and general discussion.
Roundtable Breakout – Similar to a presentation, except that audience breaks out into small groups and typically shares findings, comments, or team responses with the room at the end of the session.
Workshop – In this format, the audience is actively involved, collectively or in groups, in an exercise or application of a technique or process which has been presented by the session leader. The description should mention the portion of the session spent in the exercise and what the attendees will produce. Proposers are encouraged to have knowledgeable assistants to help answer questions and support the exercise.
Panel Discussion – Popularly seen, this format has several people qualified to talk about the subject of the session, preferably from diverse or even counterpoint perspectives or roles. A moderator facilitates questions from the audience or a series of prepared questions for the panelists, but a significant part of the session is still interactive Q&A with the audience.
Ask the Expert – This format is most successful with a recognized authority on a subject of wide interest, or a direct participant in some particularly interesting event or phenomenon. The expert or a moderator introduces the topic and frames some appropriate discussion and then opens the floor for questions, including those that might be somewhat specific as long as they are applicable to more people than the individual questioner.
Demonstration – Formal presentation on how to use or apply a tool or concept. This may can also include providing hands-on experience.

For Session Leaders: Logistics

If you are proposing a session, and it gets chosen, then you should be prepared to lead the session. Here are some details to help you make sure you’re prepared. There will be computers and projectors in each room. You can either…

Bring your laptop or other device to present off of, along with any connectors you may need to hook up to a projector (especially for those with Mac laptops or tablets). Most rooms should have an HDMI connection and VGA connector.
Or, store your slides online using a service like DropBox or Google Drive and then use the computer in the room to your presentation from there.
Or, bring your slides on a USB drive and load them onto one of the computers in the room.
Or, more than one of the above. (Things do go wrong, after all.)

We will have volunteers on hand to help with A/V as needed, and we have tested all of the equipment out in advance. That said, it’s always a good idea to have a backup plan in case you can’t get your slides to present. We’ll do the best we can to help, but no guarantees. If you need something specific, bring it with you; for example, if you want to play a video and want people to be able to hear it, we suggest bringing your own speakers.

The rooms will be set up “classroom style” with tables and chairs facing the front of the room, most likely in rows. For simplicity and logistics purposes, we won’t be able to accommodate other setups (e.g. arranging chairs into a circle). If you want to do something interactive, for example, you can ask people to pair up or get in small groups — that will be possible without moving furniture around, but we ask that you don’t move equipment or furniture otherwise.

If you have specific logistics questions, contact Sarah Ramrup.