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

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) * Reading the market - following trends both in your direct industry and competitive set, as well as more broadly in adjacent industries. * Communication/Storytelling Skills - being able to leverage the knowledge and awareness you have gained in the previous 3 points and articulate it in such a way that your cross-functional partners, customers, and prospects feel heard, seen, and validated. Hopefully, you are seeing a trend that each of these elements is also a skill that can be honed over time. They are not necessarily capabilities you either have or don't have, although some people have honed them so well that watching them work makes you feel like it is an inherited trait. Investing time in each of these categories to find a sustainable way to maintain your knowledge and comfort level with these skills over time is the key to developing and growing your product intuition. Pro tip - find people who impress you with their mastery of product intuition (or even any of the skills listed above) and observe them, talk to them, ask them questions, and try to glean insight into how they have developed their skills.

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 keep a pulse on what our customers are feeling toward our competition, what our competitor's customers are feeling towards us, and many other examples like this that help us prioritize our roadmap. Usage data - if product areas are not being engaged with, we can make the decision to disinvest in that particular product area.

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 to get to know more about their life outside of work. I try to get a sense of where they live, what they do on the weekends, etc. In every case, we either find something we both love and are passionate about, or find some very comical differences, both of which give each of us a better sense of the other person. This is helpful in building empathy between you and your stakeholders. It’s much harder to assume negative intent or to be rude to people you have bonded with over things like the best local coffee shops in a favorite neighborhood for instance, than ones where your only experiences are work-related. * Goals & Objectives - The next area I focus on is understanding their objectives and goals. To put a finer point on it, I want to understand their objectives and goals for themselves and their team, and what they need to be successful. The stakeholders of a healthy organization generally want the same outcome (more revenue, better customer experience, etc), but they differ on the prioritization of the goals and/or the method for reaching that goal. I ask questions and try to uncover details that will allow me to link my goals and theirs in any way. I then look for opportunities for my role and skillset to contribute positively to my stakeholder’s goals, and I brainstorm some of these opportunities with them. The shocking thing is how many people are taken off guard by this approach. So rarely are stakeholder meetings voluntarily helpful that whenever I offer to support their goals with things in my purview people are genuinely surprised and extremely appreciative. It sets the tone for a great relationship and partnership. * Experiential - Another potential friction point with stakeholders is the experience that they are having or have had in the past with your function, certain team members, or the approach the organization is taking to address a shared need or objective. Therefore, I often spend time while relationship building asking questions about my stakeholder’s experience. What do they think is working well vs what could be improved? Are there any friction points in the process we can address? Etc. If you are going to ask these types of questions, make sure you are ready and willing to hear the answers. Be very mindful of how you respond, because anything less than “Thank you so much for sharing that, can you please tell me more,” and you have negatively impacted your relationship with this stakeholder or partner as well as their likelihood to share this kind of feedback with you in the future.

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 tactic of choice. Is the person used to making this decision and therefore see’s this shift as a scope decrease for their team? Is it a trust issue in which they don’t believe you will make the right choice or the best choice? Do they fear their voice will no longer be heard, and there will be a negative impact on their performance or their teams? Or is it something else? * Build Bridges - Work on seeing if the two of you or several of you can align on a common decision-making framework to ease the concerns of other stakeholders and give them peace of mind that the variables they care about will be paid attention to. * The Let’s Try It approach - Offer to test out the new decision framework for a pre-determined amount of time to see if their fears are warranted or if you would have been aligned all along. Cycle back after the trial period to gather any feedback and determine if there is any opportunity to improve the framework. * Leverage Best Practices and Past Experiences - You can often find sources of insights in a variety of decision-making frameworks. Leverage this to make the case that the current approach is not industry standard or best practice in the industry and that your primary goal is to leverage best practices and industry standards to drive sustainable impact. * Escalate and Force a Decision - this is the least popular option and you should save it as a last resort after you have attempted at least several of the other solutions first, but it is one you can rely on should things get very messy or contentious.

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 deliver on the strategy) * Process (steps, sequencing, prioritization, too much, not enough, etc) * Stakeholder Engagement (DACI/RACI or other frameworks) * Execution (approach, team size, timing, etc) * Completion (what it looks like, when we are there, how we know we are there) * Rollout (slow roll, full blast, or anything in between) * Go to market (channel, content, who is responsible, etc) * + More Once I understand where the disconnect is, I start working to close the alignment gap at that level with one or many of the following tactics, which you can deploy depending on your team’s constraints: * Communication & Over Communication: Many times people hear a small part of a vision or strategy or even tactic and tell themselves a story about it that may or may not be true. One quick way to resolve some of these misunderstandings is to set up a session with the team you are trying to align to walk them through the details of the vision, strategy, or tactic, and give the team a peek behind the scenes so to speak for how you got there. Ask for feedback and either address it or incorporate it into your work. These tactics will help resolve alignment issues due to misunderstandings. * Use Data to Support Your Alignment Efforts - There have been very few and far between scenarios where disagreements happened and data didn’t help resolve some or all of the tension around a particular topic. To the extent that the supporting data exists, feel free to deploy it in the name of alignment and shared understanding. * Brainstorming & Alignment Sessions - for tricky situations, bring the team together, have them brainstorm potential solutions together, bucket, and prioritize them. When team members co-create the output, their feedback and point of view are incorporated and therefore there is less to be misaligned with. * Build Empathy - One of the most powerful mind-changing tools out there has been building empathy. Approximating the experience of a customer, team member, project leader, etc. would open eyes, minds, and hearts. Many times, things look easy, or unimportant from the outside, until you try to do them. That’s when perspective comes, then understanding, and finally alignment. There are many I'm sure I’m missing, but these are the highlights I’d focus on.