AMA: AlphaSense SVP, Product and Design, Margaret (MJ) Jastrebski on Product Roadmap & Prioritization

Our product cycle is as follows: Quarterly roadmapping showing a rolling 3 quarters (now/next/later) with what is to be started, what is in discovery, and what is to be launched Monthly CEO strategy sessions, where we debate and discuss key initiatives and make adjustments to our plan and priorities Weekly "Exec Pulse" meetings, where key conflicts/challenges/clarifications are presented for discussion. These meetings typically include business stakeholders and product + design leaders, and happ ...Read More

This is the secret sauce you have to learn in your product career. I've never seen, nor been in, a product role that isn't stretched in multiple directions. You'll always have too many things to do and not enough time. As you get more senior, it gets harder, not easier, because there are more demands on you. :) For me, I break it down in a few ways: For urgent needs, what are the 2-3 ways to move the ball forward in a meaningful way in less than 1-2 weeks? I hate boiling the ocean, because you'r ...Read More

Product vision is one of those amorphous concepts that everyone asks for, but never seems defined well enough for the team at large. In a high growth company, especially one that's forging new ground, the vision will always feel squishy and not pinned down. That's the nature of innovation - you're at the forefront of change and you're building something that's never been done before. By nature, it will be hard to define exactly. Product vision at these stages is critical because that's all you h ...Read More

It's Product's job to identify and articulate: where you're going, where you are today, and what you do next. Product vision answers the first, and roadmaps answer the second and third. I use multiple levels of roadmaps, depending on the audience and purpose. I also tend to try to have minimal complexity in the roadmap and prefer to use it primarily as a communications mechanism, rather than where we do much fine tuning. Roadmaps get out of date quickly, so I prefer to put in just enough work to ...Read More

If I could reframe the question slightly, I’d say this: our roadmap is a living, evolving artifact. We’re operating in a high-growth environment with an AI-first product suite, and we pride ourselves on being highly responsive to both the market and our customers. While we conduct quarterly planning and true-ups, we frequently make intra-quarter adjustments as needed. Our teams are organized into “missions,” which are composed of multiple squads. In terms of input and influence, most of our miss ...Read More

For each of our product missions with customer-facing initiatives, we have a dedicated PMM. The PMM works with the PM to capture the messaging and positioning of the product capability. They play a secondary role in our Alphas + Betas, hearing and collecting feedback from customers on how they value the product feature. PMM then is the primary lead when we get to GA + full market launches. Their focus is more on what we say to the market and in what channels and tend to operate more downstream f ...Read More

Find a way to ship new things quickly. Don't get too distracted by trying to address or fix everything at once - product processes, heavyweight discovery or roadmapping approaches, career ladders, everything from SVPG, etc. Where I went wrong early on was trying to create the "perfect" product approach, rather than focusing on the work itself. No one external to product cares about that. They just care that Product ships. Focus on doing that consistently, and worry less about everything around i ...Read More