AMA: Intercom Group Product Manager, Marc Abraham on Stakeholder Management

Classic product management answer: it depends! If you are talking about structuring a team of product managers, I've led teams where PMs were part of a cross-functional team dedicated to a specific product or PMs that were more platform focused. One thing that I always want to make sure of is that my Product Managers is that they have end to end responsibility for a product or feature. PMs are measured by the outcomes that they achieve and not by their outputs. I therefore measure PMs by the des ...Read More

I measure the success in my role based on the measurable value that my team and I deliver to customers, which in turns translates into business results. Example metrics are (increasing) conversion rate or (reducing) response time to end-users. I wouldn't say the KPIs themselves have evolved dramatically. The leading and lagging indicators that I've been accountable for thus far have varied based on the products (e.g. B2B vs B2C metrics). As I've grown within my role, I've become accountable for ...Read More

If you do feel that goals are inversely correlated, I believe it's important to outline the impact of a potential solution on the other person's goals and on your goals. There will be solutions where the impact on someone else goals might be greater than the impact on your goals, and that might be acceptable. However, what you don't want is a watered down solution which doesn't meet your goals or that is detrimental to the customer or your organisation. In this scenario you need to be able to ex ...Read More

I work at Intercom where Product Managers where closely with Product Marketing Manager ('PMM'). The four main areas that our PMMs cover are: Customer and marketing insight - Like PMs, our PMMs want to be as close to the customer and the market as possible. PMMs represent the voice of the customer internally. Product strategy - Whilst the PM is ultimately accountable for the creation and execution of the product strategy, PMMs play an important role in informing the product strategy and roadmap. ...Read More

To get roadmap approval from internal stakeholders, we need to make sure that they're bought into the overarching product vision and strategy first. This means explaining and getting input into the direction for the product and the path we're taking to achieve the vision. It thus become easier to get approval for roadmap goals and sequencing from stakeholders, as they should logically follow the vision and strategy.  One thing to align with stakeholders on is the expected format of your product ...Read More

I know it sounds obvious, but it's important to have an open and early conversation about decision-making to avoid this becoming a blocker further down the line. You can use a RACI or DACI model to guide these conversations and achieve calarity about who owns a decision. The added benefit of models such as RACI and DACI is that they will help clarify overall responsibilities when working on a product or project. https://monday.com/blog/project-management/raci-model/ https://www.productplan.com/g ...Read More

The main thing I've learned - the hard way :) - is that 'listening' is key to establishing successful partnerships across multiple partnerships. When I talk about listening here, I mean really trying to understand where the other person is coming from: What is important to the other person? Why? What are they accountable for? What are their goals? What frustrates them?  How can you help achieve their goals or remove their blockers? How do they like to work with product managers?  Listening out f ...Read More

I don't think my answer here is unique to building relationships with product marketing. The key for me is to engage with people early and often. Eearlier on in my career, I've definitively made the mistake of treating product marketing as the 'launch team'; the product development teams build the product and throw it over the fence to marketing team to do the launch. As I highlighted in my previous answer, PMMs want to deliver customer value as much as PMs do and it's therefore important for PM ...Read More

Curiosity - Product Managers need to be curious. Good PMs will always want to know 'why' or explore the problem a customer is facing. Being open to alternative solutions as well as having a Plan B for when things don't go to plan ... Product Managers need to be able to think in assumptions and hypotheses, and test accordingly.  Communication - Well developed communication and influencing skills are critical for Product Managers. We work with a wide range of stakeholders with a different interest ...Read More