Maryland Product Symposium
Join us online for the Maryland Product Symposium—a concentrated day of real stories, proven playbooks, and tools you can use next week. We open with Steady’s Daniel Forrester and Henry Poydar on high-performing teams in the age of AI, grounding in enduring principles—trust, psychological safety, deep listening, T-shaped leadership, alignment vs. agreement, shared vision, long-term thinking—then exploring what AI truly unlocks for modern teams.
Across the day, you’ll learn how AI reshapes product work, how to run discovery that sticks, and how to drive outcomes with clearer decision rhythms. Sessions include Agentic AI for Every Product Manager (workshop with John Johnson, UMD), a focused AI in Product Management keynote by Damien Peters (CEO, WNCP AI), Sanjiv Augustine’s “3 Steps to AI-Powered Product Discovery,” and a closing dual keynote from The Sparklit Group on building and sustaining an innovation culture.
All talks are live-streamed with captions and recorded for registrants.
Hosted by the University of Maryland. Sponsored by WNCP AI and Steady.
See all the details here at the event website: Maryland Product Symposium Website
Schedule at a glance (ET)
9:15 AM — High-Performing Teams in the Age of AI
Daniel Forrester & Henry Poydar, Steady — Timeless team principles (trust, psych safety, deep listening, T-shaped leaders, alignment vs. agreement, shared vision, long-term thinking) + what AI actually unlocks as a force multiplier.10:30 AM — Agentic AI for Every Product Manager (Workshop)
John Johnson, Lead Product Faculty, UMD — Build an end-to-end agent workflows that offloads rote work as a PM while improving teamwork and customer feedback.12:00 PM — AI in Product Management
Damien Peters, CEO, WNCP AI — How AI shifts the PM toolkit: model uncertainty, trust & reliability, product taste, UX evaluation, and outcome-centric roadmaps.1:30 PM — 3 Steps to AI-Powered Product Discovery (Workshop)
Sanjiv Augustine, LitheSpeed & Agile Leadership Academy — An approachable three-step loop: accelerate research with GenAI, surface patterns in feedback, and prototype rapidly—while keeping the human touch.3:00 PM — Building & Sustaining an Innovation Culture
The Sparklit Group: Lynne Cuppernull & Dan Ward — Practical skills for culture, communication, collaboration, rapid innovation, strategic foresight, and learning from failure.