I hate "It depends"! Organisations are complex but I believe that if you resort to it depends it means that you haven't explained it properly or you don't understand it. Having run UXDX for over 6 years I am using the knowledge from hundreds of case studies to create the UXDX model - an opinionated, principle-driven model that will help organisations change their ways of working without "It depends".
Upcoming Talks
28 May 2026
An overview of UXDX, the purpose of the conference and what to expect over the coming days.
28 May 2026
AI isn’t coming. It’s already reshaping how products are built.
It writes code, generates designs, synthesises research, and compresses workflows that used to span teams and weeks into minutes. It removes friction—and with it, many of the traditional boundaries between roles.
But it doesn’t just accelerate output. It exposes it.
When execution becomes abundant, the bottleneck shifts.
From building → to deciding what’s worth building.
From producing artefacts → to exercising judgment.
From process → to understanding.
This is not the end of product, design, or engineering.
But it is the end of operating at the surface.
In this session, we’ll examine what actually changes when AI becomes embedded in the way we work—not from a hype perspective, but from the realities teams are already facing.
We’ll explore how roles evolve when tools can do the work, where depth still matters, and what differentiates teams that get better with AI from those that simply move faster.
- Why AI exposes every discipline in product development
- Why both shallow generalists and narrow specialists are increasingly vulnerable
- How team structures shift when handoffs disappear and individuals can execute across domains
- What “depth” really means when output is cheap and instant
- How to rethink generalist vs specialist when AI fills capability gaps but not judgment
- Which skills, mental models, and fundamentals compound, and which decay
28 May 2026
Past Talks
12 May 2026
For years, we built product teams around a simple assumption: building software was expensive, slow, and required deep specialisation.
We decomposed the work across functions; product managers to define value, designers to shape experiences, engineers to deliver solutions, QA to catch issues, and project managers to hold it all together.
That model made sense when execution was the bottleneck. But AI has fundamentally changed the cost of building.
Today, AI can design interfaces, generate code, write tests, support deployment, and even help shape architecture. Shipping something has never been faster. The challenge is that it’s also never been easier to ship something confidently wrong.
The bottleneck is no longer just building the product right. It’s building the right product.
In this talk, Rory Madden explores what AI can, and can’t, do across the software delivery lifecycle, where human judgment still creates the most value, and how product teams must evolve as roles begin to merge and coordination becomes the new constraint.
19 May 2025
As product leaders transition into executive roles, the shift isn’t just about strategy—it’s about redefining influence, decision-making, and impact at scale.
Join Rhiannon White, CEO of Clue and former CPO, as she shares her journey from leading product to running the entire organization.
In this fireside chat, Rhiannon will explore how her perspective on product, leadership, and business outcomes has evolved, the unexpected challenges of stepping into the CEO role, and how product thinking shapes her approach to company-wide decision-making.
Whether you're a senior product leader eyeing the next step or curious about how product experience translates to broader leadership, this session will provide candid insights into navigating this career transition successfully.
19 May 2025
Have you spent week's pulling together the data to make a compelling case for changing your processes or adopting a new way of working. Your manager congratulates you on doing a great job and everyone is on board.
But then nothing happens.
It's clear that we will make more money or save more costs if we go for it but there are always competing priorities and deadlines that seem to trump your change.
We'll talk through why this is happening, and what you can do about it.