AMA: Figma AI Product Manager, Rodrigo Davies on Influencing the C-Suite

Whenever you have potential overlaps or teams you need to collaborate with to be successful, it's really important to establish shared goals before diving into roadmap details. Meet with the other team and articulate together what higher-level goals both teams share, and how your current plans match those goals, and where they might not. Also call out any differences in goals or structural / strategic issues that might lead you to start from a place of misalignment. It's always best to start by ...Read More

A few common anti-patterns I've seen: Always agreeing with the feedback you get live in a meeting quickly. If feedback is worth changing your plans for, ask clarifying and probing questions first. Make sure you really understand the goal of the feedback, and the why behind it. You'll need those things to act on the feedback. Doing so builds credibility with your stakeholders and gets you comfortable with having an open dialog with them. Treating C-suite meetings as pure sales pitches. You need t ...Read More

It's my job to ensure everyone in the room understands what we're talking about. If it's not clear to them, that's on me to fix. My audience is making lots of high-stakes decisions every day. They're looking to me to help them understand what's important and why. If I'm not clear on that, they won't be.It's my job to facilitate the conversation that the company needs to make progress. That may or may not wind up being exactly what I planned, but it's up to me to adjust, and make sure we get unbl ...Read More