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

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 evidenc...

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 foc...

Overwhelmingly, speaking the wrong language. Get out of the weeds, execs want to hear dollars and cents - business outcomes. Don't talk about user satisfaction in a vacuu...

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 ...

This comes down to transparency. See my later response on this topic. Make sure everyone on the exec team clearly understands the priorities, and more importantly, the no...

I sought out executive visibility from almost day one. I got to know VPs and even CEOs at the companies I worked for. I worked with a wide variety of leaders, including o...

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 i...

This is a daily occurrence for me. I believe almost all people are good and have the best intentions, learning where someone you diagree with is coming from is only goi...

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 P...

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 m...

I'm going to push back on this one. If you're a commercial business, anything you're building should be monetizable. Now that doesn't mean you have to charge for everythi...

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...