Open Source in Finance Forum New York 2024

Open-source software has transformed technology, but many projects struggle with sustainability and user satisfaction due to the absence of structured product management. Despite their technical excellence, projects often fail to achieve broad adoption because they do not adequately understand or address users' needs. Product managers can fill this gap by developing user personas, creating journey maps, improving onboarding, evangelizing the project, and managing development processes. This talk highlights how product management can play an critical role in open source, by addressing issues like resource constraints, adoption, governance, and volunteer reliance with strong product management principles. Attendees walk out with a good understanding of how product professionals fill a crucial gap in open source through real life examples and actionable strategies of integrating product management into open source, which will help in fostering community engagement, ensuring sustainability, and driving project success. Embracing product practice can unlock an untapped stream of contributors of product professionals resulting in thriving, user + goal focused open source projects.