The top product management & research conferences to attend in 2020

Technology is rapidly changing the way we live and product leaders are at the forefront of this revolution. As the competition increases, products must be developed in record time and meet consumer needs. In order for product leaders to stay relevant and deliver world-class products, they must keep up with the latest trends.

Product-focused conferences are a great way to gain insights, strategize new ideas, and network with other professionals in your industry. The experience can be invaluable to your organization as you understand what drives your customers. You can also connect with vendors that can make capturing data easier for you, like Qualtrics, who will be at some of these events showcasing our market research software.

Below are 10 product experience conferences that you should check out for 2020.

1. The Product Experience Track at X4 Experience Management Summit

Date: March 10-13, 2020

Location: Salt Lake City, UT

Who should go: Everyone in the experience management industry, regardless of position or rank.

Description: X4 is an unforgettable conference experience and is wholly dedicated to helping you and your organization achieve breakthroughs.

Here’s what to look forward to: A bucket-list-worthy lineup of main stage speakers will break down their pivotal moments. Leading brands will share the experience management programs they’ve built to delight customers and employees. And you’ll network with and learn from some of the brightest minds in your field.

Specifically for product experience professionals:

• Develop habit-forming products that people love
• Design a data-driven product roadmap
• Shorten time-to-market with faster and easier product research
• Gather and measure feedback at every stage of development

Other notable speakers:

• Chris Burke - Global Marketing Director, Olympics, Nike
• Chloe Gottlieb - Director, Product Design, Google Apps
• Timo Ebert - Head of Brand Strategy & Customer Experience, Hugo Boss
• Vincent Karachira - Chief Product Officer, Rakuten
• Ona Anicello - UX Research Manager, Alaska Airlines
• Vicki Haberman PhD. - Director of UX, Alaska Airlines

2. Mind the Product San Francisco

Date: July 13-14, 2020

Location: San Francisco, CA

Who should go: The conference is for anyone in product and there’s an additional leadership forum for leaders with Director, VP, or CPO titles.

Description: Mind the Product is broken into two days.

Day one consists of deep-dive workshops and an invite-only leaders forum for product leaders Director, VP, CPO or higher.

The second day is filled with keynote speakers and networking. Tickets for the two days must be purchased separately.

2020 speakers haven’t been announced but 2019 speakers included:

• Tricia Wang - Co-founder of Sudden Compass
• Kathy Pham - Fellow at Mozilla, Harvard, and MIT
• David J Bland - founder of Precoil
• Michael Sippey - VP of Product at Medium

Other dates:

Manchester - Feb 6-7, 2020

Singapore - March 30-31, 2020

Hamburg - June 24-26, 2020

London - Oct 1-2, 2020

3. ConveyUX

Date: March 3-5, 2020

Location: Seattle, WA

Who should go: UX designers of all levels.

Description: With more than 40 educational sessions and 8 free workshops, this is a great conference for UX designers to learn and network. Workshops topics include Conducting Competitive Research and Analysis for Devising Innovative Products, What Really Happens When Agile Meets User Experience, and Product Design for How People Think (and more).

Featured speakers:

• Kathryn Parkes - Cisco
• Stacey Higginbotham - StaceyonIoT.com
• Moneta Ho Kushner - Facebook
• Mark Webster - Adobe

4. Atlassian Summit 2020

Date: March 31 - April 2, 2020

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Who should go: Teams who use Atlassian for product development.

Description: The Atlassian Summit teaches teams how to use Atlassian tools and touts their latest technology. The goal is to unleash the potential in every team so they can produce innovative products. They also have training and certification for an additional charge.

Keynote speaker:

Malcolm Gladwell - New York Times best-selling author of Outliers, Blink, The Tipping Point

5. ProductCon Seattle

Date: June 30 2020

Location: Seattle, WA

Who should go: Product Managers

Description: ProductCon is specifically for product managers and put on by Product School. Attendees will learn best practices in product management and new trends in AI, VR, IoT, and Blockchain. Sponsor companies will also be there recruiting new product managers. If you can't attend in person, it’s free to watch the sessions online if you register in advance.

Featured speakers:

• Pooja Ghera - Amazon
• Leslie Grandy - Discovery
• Tony Pagliocco - Boeing
• Gibson Biddle - Netflix

Other dates:

London - February 11, 2020

San Francisco - April 16, 2020

New York - September 8 2020

Los Angeles - November 3 2020

6. The Product Event Chicago

Date: Feb 6-7, 2020

Location: San Francisco

Who should go: Product managers, designers, innovators, and marketers.

Description: As the product management role evolves, PM’s must stay up-to-date with the latest technology and thought leadership. This year’s conference focuses on product management, development and innovation from two distinct angles - AI & Advanced Technology, and CX/UX Design - as well as focusing on product management leadership and fundamentals.

Featured speakers:

• Parag Vaish - Head of Digital Product, Tesla
• Howard Shen - Director, Product Management, Ebay
• Neel Lee Chauhan - Chief Product Owner, EDP
• Heidi Williams - Head of Product, Enova International

7. Enterprise Experience 2020

Date: June 10-12, 2020

Location: San Francisco, CA

Who should go: UX team leaders and mid- and senior-level UX practitioners for large companies.

Description: Enterprise product leaders are challenged with creating transformational products at scale. This conference teaches product leaders how to expand their skill-sets to become “enterprise-ready,” and effectively partner with their peers in product management, CX and other parts of the enterprise that share responsibility for delivering great experiences.

2020 speakers haven’t been announced but 2019 keynote speakers included:

• Tatyana Mamut - Head of Product, Nextdoor
• Iram Shah - CEO Advisor for Growth and Transformation
• Amy Jiménez Márquez - UX Designer Manager of the Alexa Personality, Amazon

8. Front UX & Product Management Case Study Conference

Date: May 28-29, 2020

Location: Salt Lake City, UT

Who should go: 82% of the attendees in 2018 were designers and product managers.

Description: Front was built on the premise of sharing ideas, so this conference is ideal for those who like to network and learn from others. The goal is personal development through sharing the experiences that have helped attendees build better products. There are 14 talks, 2 interactive Q&A sessions, and more than 1,000 attendees.

2020 speakers haven’t been announced but 2019 keynote speakers included:

• Frank Yoo - Director of Design, Cloud Apps Google
• Matt Ström - Product Design Lead, Bitly
• Lauren Treasure - VP of Product, Chatbooks

9. An Event Apart Seattle

Date: May 11-13, 2020

Location: Seattle, WA

Who should go: UX professionals, developers, and designers

Description: An Event Apart bills itself as “three days of design, code, and content.” There are 17 main sessions that offer deep insights into the state of the industry now and where it’s going in the future. Sessions include Designing for Slow Experiences, The Customer-Obsessed Professional, How to Think Like a Front-End Developer, and more.

The line-up is still being finalized but speakers so far include:

• Rachel Andrew - Advanced CSS
• Sarah Drasner - Animation in Design Systems
• Aaron Gustafson - Experience mapping
• Cyd Harrell - User research

Additional dates:

Washington D.C. - April 13-15, 2020

Boston- June 29 - July 1 2020

Minneapolis (new) - August 17-19 2020

Orlando (new) - October 5-7 2020

San Francisco - December 14-16, 2020

10. INDUSTRY: The Product Conference

Date: Sep 21-23 2020

Location: Cleveland, Ohio

Who should go: Product professionals who want to build, launch and scale world-class software products

Description: If you want to gain confidence and learn about the latest methods, tools, and frameworks used to build, launch and scale world-class software products then INDUSTRY is the conference for you.

Featured speakers:

• Jules Walter - Product lead, Slack
• Claire Vo - Chief Product Officer, Optimizely
• Todd Olson - CEO at Pendo

If you’re ready to refine your market research strategy and skills, register for the Qualtrics X4 Summit and take the “Product Experience” track. With more than 15 specific product breakout sessions to choose from, you’ll learn how to develop habit-forming products that people love, design a data-driven product roadmap, shorten time-to-market with faster and easier product research, and gather and measure feedback at every stage of development.