I promised earlier that I would talk a bit about my own plans when I take part in October’s Practical Product Lines conference.

Being a co-organiser of the event I can’t be too biased but putting that aside for a moment here are the sessions I plan to take part in:

Mapping Product Line Value Streams – Marc Evers and Willem van den Ende. My reasoning – I’ve read about value streams but never applied them in a product line setting. I like getting my hands dirty in sessions and this promises to have lots of groupwork.

The challenges of implementing lifecycle management for Product Lines - Danilo Beuche. My reasoning – whole life cycle management for product lines is an emerging area. (We are also UK & Ireland distributors for pure::variants and a certain amount of loyalty must be shown…)

Productivity as a Management Tool - Peter Mazereeuw – My reasoning – I’ve never heard Peter speak and in my role as a product line consultant questions about measuring the success of the product line are key for senior management. I’m also keen to hear how other participants measure their product lines – and what sort of figures they’re seeing.

There are many other great sessions at the conference but having parallel streams always means I miss out on some good stuff. No doubt I’ll be kicking myself after I find out that people have got even more from the sessions I didn’t attend…