AMA: GitLab Group Manager, Product, Derek Ferguson on Influencing the C-Suite

This is a constant challenge. Not only do they require different amounts of detail, different roles care about different things. The CEO wants to know what business impact your project will have and when it will be delivered. Support wants to know what problems a customer could run into with this new feature and how they can troubleshoot it. Sales wants to know what value their customers will get out of it. The key is creating one single source of truth at a high level, then allowing each stakeh ...Read More

Find out what the stakeholders need from you and set up a regular meeting cadence with them. It can be a lot of meetings, but setting these meetings up with clear agendas and expectations can help you avoid meeting overload while keeping everyone aligned. This will likely need to be adjusted for your company and release cycle. For example, if you release more frequently, you might need to meet with Marketing more frequently to keep them up to speed on what is going out to customers. Here are som ...Read More

Every executive is different and their roles necessitate them caring about different information. I've found that PMs often interact the most with CEOs, CPOs, and CMOs. Based on this, here are three things that I’ve found consistently get positive feedback from these leaders: Business impact, not feature lists: They don't care that you shipped 10 features. They care that you increased activation by 15% which drove $2M in additional ARR. Always lead with outcomes and tie everything back to compan ...Read More

I think that everyone struggles with this when they start as a PM. Typically, I've found that it's simultaneously exciting and terrifying to get exposure to the C-Suite as a junior PM. Despite the feelings involved, getting face time with executives is pretty crucial for career growth as a PM. Here are some tactics that have worked for me and my team members: Own the pre-read: Volunteer to write executive briefing docs for your manager's presentations. You'll learn how to communicate at that lev ...Read More

Building the right alliances is fairly critical for building your own organizational capital and driving change. Find the right people to ally yourself with and don’t be afraid to engage with them. The most successful PMs I’ve seen have made an effort to get to know people at levels higher than they are and understand what these leaders care about. Your direct manager is your most important ally, but that mostly goes without saying. Outside of that relationship, here are a few others that I've f ...Read More

I've been there. It's not easy to be the PM for a legacy product with declining value. But, it is possible to reposition yourself. It requires some hard work and strategic positioning, but it is possible. Make the legacy product boring (in a good way): Automate everything possible, document thoroughly, and train a junior PM or technical PM to handle day-to-day. Show leadership you've made it sustainable with minimal oversight. Even if you can't find a more junior PM to take over, it shows that y ...Read More