AMA: Atlassian Head of Product, DevOps , Suzie Prince on Enterprise Product Management

Fundamentally, the core skills of product management remain the same whether you are focused on enterprise, SMB, or mid-market. You still need to understand the requirements, identify a business opportunity and deliver value. The mandate is always the same: know your customer, understand their needs and deliver. However, the nature of those needs and the methods you use to discover them differ significantly. 1. The complexity of the needs In the SMB or mid-market space, needs are often relativel ...Read More

While the fundamentals of a beta program remain the same for all customers, Enterprise pilots carry higher stakes and more complex operational hurdles. Here is how to navigate them effectively. 1. Define your "why" Before recruitment, be clear on your learning objectives. Are you validating Feature Fit (does it solve the problem?) or Enterprise Readiness (does it satisfy security, compliance requirements etc..?) Mixing these up can lead to muddy feedback. 2. Select your cohort Don't just take th ...Read More

In the enterprise world, the pressure to build one-offs is relentless. Without a strict framework, you quickly find yourself maintaining hundreds of fragmented versions of your product, which kills your velocity. To prevent this, I live by these four simple rules. 1. Define your who You cannot scale if you are building for every individual request. You must decide on a clear threshold for when a customisation becomes a candidate for the roadmap. Be explicit about why you are making an exception: ...Read More

To align Product, Sales, Customer Success and Professional Services, you must remove the ambiguity that leads to friction and customer frustration. My primary strategy is to avoid doing custom work in-house whenever possible and instead give clear ownership to a third party. This creates a natural boundary: the core product team focuses on the scalable roadmap and endpoints, while the third party handles bespoke requirements. This approach ensures your margins are protected from long-term techni ...Read More

Consistency and predictability are the foundations of enterprise trust. If a customer builds a critical integration, they need to know it will not break without warning. I treat versioning the same for all customers to ensure a reliable partnership, following these core principles: 1. Use a strict versioning logic Follow a clear major and minor approach so the impact of any update is immediately obvious to a customer’s engineering team. Major change: This is a new version. It indicates breaking ...Read More

In enterprise organisations, you must find a way to serve both buyer and end-user needs. It is a fundamental tension, if the buyer is not happy, you will not get the sale, but if the end user is not happy, you will suffer from low adoption and eventual churn. Here is how I navigate these competing interests: 1. Meet the gatekeeper requirements first If the buyer is not happy, the sale simply will not happen. IT, procurement and security are usually the main gatekeepers. Their needs for security, ...Read More

Selecting the right model for enterprise customers is a balance between meeting their requirements, protecting your own operational efficiency and delivering the best product experience. As a product manager, your role is to quantify the market size for each segment and ensure the ROI works for both your business and the customer. 1. Evaluate demand and market size Before committing to a specific model, you must quantify the actual opportunity. Do not build a complex architecture based on the re ...Read More