AMA: Intuit Director of Product Management, Rosa Gonzalez Welton on Product Development Process

I’m a big fan of customer advisory boards, or CABs for B2B products. These customers or potential customers can be excellent and recurring sources of input for your product roadmap, an avenue to understand deeply how your customers run their business, and can be a source of users for beta programs or prototype testing. CAB customers appreciate being part of beta testing. In a past role I worked with a marketing manager to identify and recruit customers who fit the target profile. We held quarter ...Read More

Embrace change as the constant, as part of the cycle of life in our product management practices. I know it can feel frustrating to shift from a well laid out plan but I would urge you to consider the “why” behind the change. It could turn out to be the best outcome for you and your product. Ask yourself: Do I have new information on customer needs and competitor actions Is there a sudden imperative to close acquisition or revenue gaps, for example if another initiative has fallen through Do I h ...Read More

Your feedback loop is an important part of the entire product development life cycle, not just post-launch. I encourage my teams to build the muscle to continually gather and weigh multiple sources of input, so that they can gain conviction on their decisions, or on the need to pivot and iterate. What has this looked like over the years? I’ll share a few examples: Creating a customer advisory board for continued input. This is a good way to get input on needs as well as feedback on proposed and ...Read More

This is a critical question for Product Management leaders. The fundamental PM principles still apply. I urge my team to start with the customer need and make resourcing and prioritization decisions to create customer value and business impact, all while experimenting and pivoting to iterate and drive adoption. You and your teammate may ask yourselves “is it AI enough?” Ask instead if you’re addressing a problem worth solving, and if AI is indeed the solution that makes sense in the context of a ...Read More

Success in this area starts with trust and data. Trust: Reducing risk starts with trust within the product triad of product management, engineering and design. This trust enables transparent conversations about levels of effort and levels of confidence in execution. Check in regularly to refine the quality of your estimations. Data: Use internal and competitive data to inform your strategic priorities and enable more efficient trade-off discussions. Early data from product experiments can build ...Read More