PDMA Connections - August 2025

Act fast! PDMA’s Ignite Innovation Summit Flash Sale is live for only two weeks! Save $100 on registration and secure your spot at the premier event for product and innovation leaders.

This September in Chicago, you’ll gain fresh strategies, frameworks, and connections from world-class innovators at organizations including Eureka! Ranch, Deming Institute, Narratize, and CCC Intelligent Solutions. Every session is designed to spark creativity and deliver actionable takeaways you can use immediately.

Don’t miss out on this key opportunity to advance your career in product development innovation and product management by gaining a critical micro-certification in either Strategy or Market Research. These two micro-certification classes are based on the PDMA Body of Knowledge and are designed to develop your skills and expose you to critical tools that can be immediately applied in your job. In addition, you will receive a micro-certification certificate and digital badge that will allow you to promote your capabilities in these areas through social media and your résumé. You may choose one or both sessions and summit attendance is not required to register for the micro-certification courses. Learn more

We invite you to become a key sponsor of the PDMA 2025 Ignite Innovation Summit, taking place September 13–16, 2025, at the Marriott Marquis Chicago. As a sponsor, your organization will connect with top product leaders, executives, and innovators from diverse industries, positioning your brand at the forefront of cutting-edge product development and management.

Our sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities are designed to maximize attendee engagement with your company, ensuring your brand is prominently featured throughout the event. Secure your sponsorship today and be part of an event that shapes the future of product development and management!

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing new product development (NPD) by enabling smarter decision-making, predictive analytics, and automation. This webcast will explore how AI-driven strategies optimize product development cycles, improve execution efficiency, and introduce new success metrics. This session is tailored for product managers, business leaders, and AI enthusiasts seeking actionable insights on leveraging AI to drive innovation, improve efficiency, and stay competitive.

Recent kHUB Postings:

- AI is rapidly transforming product management, offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and data-driven decision-making. As we look toward 2025 and beyond, several key trends are emerging that will shape the future of AI-driven product strategy. Understand how AI can be leveraged to create more innovative, user-centric products while optimizing the product development process. Watch AI-Driven Product Strategy: Transforming the Future of Product Management, a recent PDMA Webcast by Keyuri Anand, to learn more and see practical ways of incorporating AI might help you and your organization.

- Scenario planning is a strategic tool that helps product managers navigate uncertainty by envisioning multiple possible futures—such as optimistic, neutral, and pessimistic scenarios—and preparing flexible responses. Instead of relying on a single forecast, product teams assess key uncertainties (like market shifts, regulatory changes, or emerging technologies), assign probabilities, and estimate impacts on revenue, costs, and operations. This enables more informed decisions, stronger risk management, and greater agility when unexpected changes occur. In her recent article Navigating Strategic Uncertainty with Scenario Planning: A Guide for Product Managers, kHUB curator Rose Klimovich defines scenario planning, explains why it’s important for organizations and product managers to include in their business strategy, and provides examples and a step-by-step process.

- A reminder that kHUB links to JPIM’s Academic articles! This allows you to access the abstracts and practitioner points on kHUB before delving into the full article in JPIM—PDMA’s peer-reviewed Journal of Product Innovation Management. Check out these recent article abstracts posted on kHUB’s Market Research in Product Innovation:

- We’re continuing to update the highlighted content on kHUB’s landing page. We’ve added a feature to highlight new, relevant, interesting content. This week, we’ve added the recording and slides from Maggie Nichols’ and Gregg Lemmon’s presentation at PDMA’s 2023 Inspire Innovation Conference, How to Generate Awesome Ideas. For the past 40 years, Eureka! Ranch has been doing research and experimentation with over 2,000 companies to identify the most effective way to generate ideas that are meaningful and unique. In this session, they highlighted 5 reproducible and reliable techniques that create top-box scoring ideas using collaboration, stimulus and AI. Maggie is co-presenting two breakout sessions during PDMA’s 2025 Ignite Innovation Summit. Learn more about the schedule and the rest of the Summit here.

- What’s coming to PDMA’s Ignite Innovation Summit Sept 13-16 in Chicago? Check out these Innovation Lab Snapshots:

Essential AI Tools for Product Management Success. Presented by Mike Hyzy of CGI. Product managers no longer need to wait for development resources to bring their ideas to life. This virtual mini-session demonstrates how four AI tools can transform you into a one-person product powerhouse. You'll learn to build functional prototypes without coding, create compelling product videos for market testing, and maximize the potential of large language models for product strategy. Join us for hands-on demonstrations of Claude, Gemini, Notion, and Bolt in action. Discover how to rapidly prototype your concepts, test market viability through AI-generated content, organize and prioritize your product ideas, and establish thought leadership—all without traditional technical barriers. This session sets the stage for deeper exploration with Mike at the PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit, September 16 in Chicago, IL.
Sharpen Your Launch Before the Competition Does. Presented by Jay Nakagawa of Dell. You only get one shot at a successful product launch. What if you could pressure-test your release like a competitor would—without the costly consequences of finding out too late? Discover a proven, low-risk way to challenge your product release and strategy before the market does. This virtual mini-session introduces why War Gaming and Pre-Mortems are critical to a successful launch—and offers a sneak peek at how to sharpen your strategy before your competitors do. This session sets the stage for Jay’s full workshop at the PDMA Ignite Innovation Summit, September 16 in Chicago, IL.

kHUB Most Popular Content:

See what your competitors and peers have viewed in kHUB recently. The following content is among the most accessed last month:

Along with these still-popular classics: