AMA: Barracuda VP, Product Management, Mike Flouton on Influencing the C-Suite

My first principle when it comes to roadmaps is “transparency.” Being transparent about priorities, what’s being prioritized, what’s not being prioritized and WHY makes a massive difference. There are plenty of SaaS solutions that are great for this, but in the old days we used a simple Excel spreadsheet and that’s still good enough today. Define a prioritization framework – pick some high level business objectives you want to achieve – and align clear, objective criteria around them. Score ever ...Read More

Unfortunately, this is one of the sad truths that comes with management. Sooner or later you will have to let someone go. It's never easy. I'm not sure it's ever broken me emotionally, but it's a really crappy experience for everyone involved.  I really don't have any words of wisdom on this one, apart from not letting a bad situation drag on. If there's someone who is affecting morale (either by performing lower than others or by being toxic), think of the good of the team. Don't let one bad ap ...Read More

Here’s where you need to shift into an executive mindset. Good executives think in terms of costs and benefits and business outcomes they want to drive. And I’m not just talking about people in finance, sales and marketing – at the C-level EVERYONE thinks business outcomes -aka dollars and cents. If you want more resources for something, presumably it because it’s something that’s going to provide benefit to the business. Perhaps it’s a new product, or commonly requested feature, a new module, a ...Read More

The biggest trap new managers consistently fall into is relying on what got them where they are. As a new manager, you probably got promoted because you were a rockstar PM. One of my favorite parts of the (American) “The Office” is the 2-3 times they show Michael Scott go out on a sales call. Until you see that, your image of Michael is that of a completely incompetent, offensive and completely unqualified manager. But as a salesperson in the field he’s incredible. Clearly he got promoted due to ...Read More

This is a really interesting question. I guess I’ve never really thought about being stuck in between two stakeholders before. Whether they agree with each other or not is actually mostly irrelevant – the real issue is that there isn’t agreement on the path forward yet and you need to build alignment. And that’s totally fine. Lack of alignment is a normal part of the process and arguably a good thing – diversity of thought and opinion makes for better decisions. So let’s talk more broadly about ...Read More

Quite simply - get involved and that in things that affect the outcomes that matter to executives. First make sure you clearly understand what you’re executive teams focused on. Your organization should have some high level priorities are OK are as defined no limit what really matters to them. Most of the time that’s going to be top line revenue growth, but depending on the business cycle it may also be profitability. If your executive team hasn’t clearly articulated their top priorities, ask. Y ...Read More

Lots of people say they are data driven, not everyone actually is. I find people are either swayed by data or by stories. Both are valid - it's easy for anecdotal evidence to mislead, but it's also easy to cherry pick or manipulate statistics. So as a PM you need to be conversant in both.  Emotional intelligence comes into play determining how to speak with someone successfully. Listen to them for clues - how do they make arguments? Are they citing statisticis or referencing stories? Speak to th ...Read More