Session handouts and event photos are available. We hope to see you at our next event.
Session Abstract
Note: on this page, the conference code comes from the abstract, not the event, so that menus align with the event.
Get panelists from the Presenters database. Match panelist multi-ref (Participant) on this session.
Code is used on this page to hide unused buttons
Session #
Industry Trends
Customer Discovery: how to incorporate discovery in every aspect of your product
It's time to discover—or re-discover—customer interviews, market problems, jobs to be done, and how to incorporate discovery in every aspect of your product.
Join moderator Scott Burleson from The AIM Institute with panelists Kenya Odour, John Mansour, Jason Brett, and Jay Gerhart to discuss discovery and more.
Scott Burleson
Senior Vice President
The AIM Institute
Scott Burleson has a diverse professional background in manufacturing engineering, product management, voice-of-the-customer training, and leadership for SaaS development.
As product manager for John Deere’s premium compact tractors, he led strategic marketing for the 1023E and 1025R tractors. With the foresight that only a JTBD framework can provide, these would become two of Deere’s most successful products in its long history. As Director of the Strategyn Institute, he worked alongside the world's best JTBD practitioners. Strategyn, founded by pioneer Tony Ulwick, is ground zero for Jobs-to-be-Done philosophy.
Today, as Senior Vice President for The AIM Institute, Burleson leads product development for Blueprinter® software, teaches workshops on innovation using the New Product Blueprinting process, and advises corporate leaders and practitioners on growth via JTBD principles.
Scott has an MS in Management and a BS in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University.
Scott is the author of The Statue in the Stone: Decoding Customer Motivation with the 48 Laws of Jobs-to-be-Done Philosophy, available from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085F37CDQ
Jason Brett
Founder & Chief Product Officer
Product Coffee
Jason Brett is a seasoned product strategist with a career that spans from launching startups like SiteTamer, an early SaaS CMS, to scaling global enterprises at IBM. His work at IBM followed its acquisition of Silverpop, where he spearheaded innovative personalized marketing solutions. Through consulting roles at Method, he crafted custom product strategies for diverse clients, in industries ranging from Healthcare, IT, HCM, Financial Services and Energy Distribution.
Now at Product Coffee, Jason focuses on nurturing the next generation of product leaders by offering educational programs, networking events, and personalized consulting. He is a regular speaker at industry events worldwide, sharing invaluable insights and strategies. Outside the office, he champions community initiatives like ProductCamp Atlanta and Play Me Again Pianos, a philanthropic project enriching Atlanta’s public spaces with art and music.. To get in touch with Jason, visit https://short.coffee/jason
Jay Gerhart
Vice President, Innovation Engine
Atrium Health
Jay is a Vice President with the Innovation Engine at Atrium Health, which is part of Advocate Health, one of the country’s largest not-for-profit healthcare systems with over 140,000 teammates. He leads and advises business model innovation projects, teaches innovation to teammates, and is striving to advance the Jobs to Be Done mindset, language, and methods across the organization as the foundation of customer discovery. He has partnered with business and clinical leaders on innovation projects such as stroke care, diabetes care, dialysis, primary care, and concussion care. He has been with Atrium Health nearly 25 years, the first 18 of which was as a strategy and planning leader, helping lead historic initiatives such as Levine Children’s Hospital and Levine Cancer Institute.
Jay also has a passion for bringing the principles and method sof improv into the workplace, having trained at Second City in Chicago, as well as trained and performed at Charlotte Comedy Theatre. He produces and co-hosts A Sherpa’s Guide to Innovation podcast (114 episodes) and writes sporadically on Medium.
John Mansour
President
Product Management University
John Mansour founded Product Management University in 2001 after a 15-year career as a sales engineer, product marketing manager and product manager. John held titles of manager, director and vice president in startups, mid-market and tier-1 global organizations.
Since 2001, John has trained several thousand organizations spanning all industries and sizes. John served as the chairman for the Technology Association of Georgia's Product Management Society from 2006 – 2010 and is a regular speaker at product management conferences and events.
Kenya Oduor
Founder and CEO
Lean Geeks
Dr. Kenya Oduor is founder and CEO of Lean Geeks. Lean Geeks is a firm focused on creating effective outcomes that enhance clients’ products and services. Dr. Kenya works to understand people to create solutions that are purposeful and effective. She defines, creates, and optimizes products and services.
She has held several in-house requirements definition and design roles and consulting partnerships focused on strategy and user experience. Dr. Oduor is Pragmatic Marketing® Certified. She partners with product managers and product owners to identify and define market problems to solve. She facilitates the translation of these opportunities into wireframes and workflows that communicate the user experience using a Human Factors expert approach. Her Agile ScrumMaster ® and Product Owner ® training are a solid foundation for her ability to help teams understand how to incorporate product management and user experience activities and deliverables into the overall software development lifecycle. She employs a “fail fast” approach to solution development by engaging users and stakeholders for feedback early and often.
Her skills include leading strategy and brainstorming discussions, defining, and executing mixed-method human subject research, creating human-centered software and service solutions, and facilitating cross-functional collaboration and decision-making activities. Her specialties include the application of mixed-method research for customer discovery, requirements definition, and formative and summative evaluation. She defines and employs creative recruitment strategies to ensure participants are diverse and representative of consumers.
Dr. Kenya holds a doctorate in Human Factors. Her training includes coursework in applied experimental psychology and industrial engineering. Her interests include data-driven decision making, ethical & trustworthy AI, and leading user-centered teams.
This presentation contents copyright information determined by the presenter.