AMA: Hootsuite VP of Product, Clara Lee on Stakeholder Management

The path to gaining product roadmap approval depends on the decision-making culture of the company: * If you are in a place where approval rights are clear, the key is understanding what those stakeholders need to say "yes." What level of detail do they require to feel confident that the team is doing the right things? Do they like to be brought along on the journey or handed a solution? Are they most likely to respond to data, written descriptions, visuals? * If you are in a place where approval is less straightforward (e.g., are implicit, or granted via consensus), then I'd suggest "previewing" your roadmap with key stakeholders individually to surface and address concerns that might otherwise go unspoken in a larger/generalized group setting.

In my experience, time horizon and top customers can be the two biggest drivers of conflicting goals. Examples: * Product is building tomorrow's vision – but Sales and Customer Success need to sell what is in the product today. As a Product leader, it can be challenging to justify working on feature iterations and bug fixes when you are also expected to deliver a completely new experience that will solve or negate those code red issues in a few months. The main questions I ask in these situations are: Which features or experiences do we expect to remain consistent from now to then? Are there dependencies that can be tackled now that will help us make the future vision a reality? * Measures of success for various stakeholders may be dependent on different customer segments. As a result, the Product team may have to manage mixed signals when it comes to prioritization. In this situation, I would look toward the corporate strategy or long-range forecasts to understand which segment the company expects to drive growth in the next 1-3 years. I would also look at which features or experiences are common across customer segments, as a way to consider prioritizing problems with the broadest impact.

At the VP level, these are the meetings I try never to miss: * Engineering, Design & Operations peers [Weekly] – Having this at my current has made the biggest difference. My peers are my "first team" and we have time set aside to proactively problem-solve together, instead of being brought together only in escalation situations. Anyone can add agenda topics, and we order them at the beginning of each meeting based on urgency. * GTM Sync & Launch Readiness [Weekly] – This is a regular touchpoint with Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success leaders. The agenda is dually driven by Product/PMO which provide a status update on delivery and Marketing/Customer Success sharing targeting, comms, training, and assets. (Separately, I have biweekly 1:1s with CMO and CRO for strategic alignment.) * HR [Weekly] – This meeting changes depending on growth stage and/or seasonality. It expands with hiring sprints, promotion cycles, and organizational transitions. It contracts at other times, to a 1:1 with my HR peer. Agenda includes tactical and urgent topics first, then reviewing a tracker to ensure progress on longer-term shared goals. * Finance, Legal [Monthly] – These meetings are all about risk management. Legal keeps me up to date on AI concerns and changing regional regulations. Finance helps me understand our revenue and investment ranges, so I can understand where I need to mitigate Product downsides.

My approach at my current and former company (both of which are medium sized) is based on how well-resourced the other team is. * For example, in experiences where Design and Marketing are still growing into the opportunity, I've found that the most beneficial conversations tend to be focused on prioritization and sequencing. * With functions that tend to operate at a greater scale, like Sales and Customer Success, I have found it is best to quickly figure out who can be your "single point of contact" – e.g., unify feedback across their org, speak authoritatively on behalf of the function – in order to avoid balancing 30 opinions from 30 people.

My #1 tip here is to bring the Product Marketers into projects as early as possible! PMMs can bring valuable customer perspective to discovery, research, goal-setting, and scope refinement. Engaging their input at kickoff will (hopefully) ensure that they are equally invested in the success of the the solution you will jointly bring to market.