AMA: Momentive Vice President Of Product Management, Aleks Bass on Stakeholder Management

Team alignment is critical to maximizing impact within the organization, but there are so many barriers to alignment, even with in-person environments. These can often be compounded by remote teams, company culture, communication channels, ceremonies, transparency or absence of, psychological safety, and more. To address alignment I first work to determine where the misalignment is:  Vision (what the future looks like) Strategy (approach to achieving the vision) Tactic (specific actions to deliv ...Read More

Decision-making and roles and responsibilities around decision-making vary from team to team and company to company, and because of that, you are likely to run into this scenario at some point in your career. There are several tactics you could take to resolve friction or conflicts like this, below are some examples: Understand the Motivation. Dig into this area thoroughly so you get a clear picture of what is motivating their point of view. Understanding the motivation can help you refine your ...Read More

My objectives when meeting new stakeholders are centered around finding out more about them as a person and how they like to work, understanding their objectives, and getting feedback from them about what their experience with my team, function, and the broader organization has been. Here are some details about why and how I dig into these topics: Personal - I find it’s easier to build relationships and avoid some negative behaviors and experiences with people at work when you put in the effort ...Read More

The following sources of feedback are very important to me and my team:  Customers our PM team is directly in contact with, as well as our direct digital feedback channels in the application Sales Teams - why do we lose deals, and why are we winning deals? Who is asking for what, and what is the context of the account (Rev, Use Case, Engagement, etc) Customer Success - What are current customers asking for help with? What are they frustrated by? What are they pushing for? Market Research - we ke ...Read More

Product intuition is that elusive skill that we all look for and want to select, nurture, and encourage in our team members. If I had to break down product intuition, I’d break it down into the following parts: Experience - having made the mistakes that make you aware of what to look out for (or learning from those that have) Customer centricity - knowing on a deep level what your customers or potential customers need, want, and feel (deep empathy and understanding of their jobs and goals) Readi ...Read More