AMA: Salesforce Senior Director of Product Management, Manjeet Singh on Product Strategy

Great Question. I focus on three key areas: continuous innovation, deep customer understanding, and strategic differentiation. Here's my approach: 1. Continuous Innovation: * Maintain a robust product roadmap with both short-term improvements and long-term visionary features. * Allocate resources for R&D and experimentation with emerging technologies, and encouraging ideation from all levels in the teams (product, design, dev). How you allocate varies based on your product stage.. but try to carve 20% for new experimentation in your capacity is a good start. 2. Deep Customer Understanding: * I have this rule of talking to at least one customer every week to learn about their pain points and unmet needs while keeping in context of existing product vs new product discovery. If it is an existing product then creating a customer advisory board (CAB) is also a great idea if you are working on B2B products. * Analyze usage data to identify trends and opportunities for improvement. 3. Strategic Differentiation: * Strategy is about how you will differentiate. To do that you need to continuously assess the competitive landscape to identify gaps and opportunities. * Focus on developing unique value propositions that set the product apart and align your proposal with the core strength of your company/team. To determine if the plan is successful, I use a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics. It's crucial to establish baseline metrics before implementing the plan and to regularly review progress. I typically set quarterly check-ins to assess these indicators and make necessary adjustments to the strategy. Success is often indicated by positive trends across multiple metrics, rather than just one or two isolated improvements. Remember, staying ahead of competitors is an ongoing process. It requires constant vigilance, adaptability, and a willingness to challenge assumptions and pivot when necessary.

This is a 3 parts question, so let me take it one by one: Balancing user requests with optimal design: This comes down to mastering the art of prioritization as a PM. * Pick a framework. For design I prioritize user requests based on frequency, impact, and alignment with product vision * Conducting usability testing to validate design decisions, and have two version of design. A North Star to show end to end journey (to excite customer and cross functional team) and a smaller version that team can actually deliver (tactical execution). I am a big fan of pushing team to build re-usable design components that can be re-used -- this bring standardization and not everyone has to re-invent the wheel for the same components. How do balance between my work and personal life? I have master the art of work life fit balance. I have written about this, so enjoy reading these two posts: 1. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/manjeetmba_worklife-fitness-health-activity-7217912634551980033-nqiK?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop 2. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/manjeetmba_selfcare-worklifebalance-activity-6906098649202356224-msUD/ What is your marathon PR? I am a sprinter -- do not enjoy marathon.. I believe that longer than half marathon is not good for your knees in long term. I can run 400m in less than 70 seconds.

I typically use a multi-tiered reporting approach: 1. Weekly: Brief updates to immediate team and key stakeholders * Format: Short email or Slack update * Content: High-level progress, blockers, and wins 2. Bi-weekly: More detailed report to cross functional leads * Format: Presentation or detailed dashboard * Content: Deep dive into metrics, progress on key initiatives 3. Monthly: Comprehensive report to executive leadership * Format: Formal presentation with Q&A session * Content: All key areas, with emphasis on strategic alignment and financial impact 4. Quarterly: In-depth strategy review, product reviews etc * Format: 30-45 mins sessions * Content: Comprehensive review of all areas, including long-term planning and major pivots if needed. Tips: provide pre-read 24 hours before the meetings, set clear agenda, if it a decision meeting then make sure decision are made before the meeting ends. Do not meeting to come up 3 other meeting. Prep well and provide recommendation and POV

Stakeholder identification varies by the company size, culture, how decision making happens and types of the product (B2B vs B2C). But in general key stakeholders needing buy-in for your product strategy should include: 1. Executive Leadership: Ensure alignment with company goals and secure support for strategic initiatives. Define the customer problem and the opportunity size. 2. Sales and Marketing Teams: Collaborate to align the strategy with go-to-market plans and customer acquisition efforts. 3. Product Development and Engineering: Coordinate to ensure the feasibility and technical alignment of the strategy. 4. Customer Success and Support: Align with their feedback to ensure the strategy addresses customer needs and supports retention plans. The larger the company, the more efforts it takes to bring alignment. I have seen that the communication start to break down when org and team gets bigger and more distributed. The challenge amplified in WFH environment as people has shorter focus and memory frame. Here are some common practices to bring alignment. Remember, it is not a one time job - you have to put continuous effort and ask people do you agree? * Communicate Clearly: Present the strategy with a focus on how it aligns with company goals and addresses stakeholder interests. * Engage Early: Involve stakeholders early in the strategy development process to gather input and build support. * Regular Updates: Provide regular updates and progress reports to keep stakeholders informed and engaged. * Address Concerns: Actively listen to and address any concerns or feedback to ensure alignment and buy-in across teams. create a FAQ document and share widely. If a question is asked twice- add it to the FAQ and make it easy to access by everyone.

Here is my simplified formula to protect the strategy: Product Strategy Protection = (Clear Communication + Sales Enablement + Data-Driven Decision Making + Collaboration) * Leadership Alignment Breakdown: * Clear Communication: Effectively conveying the product vision, target market, and value proposition to the sales team. * Sales Enablement: Equipping the sales team with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to sell effectively to the target market. * Data-Driven Decision Making: Using data to inform product decisions and demonstrate the success of focusing on the target market. * Collaboration: Fostering a collaborative environment between product and sales teams to align on goals and strategies. * Leadership Alignment: Securing executive support for the product strategy and target market focus. Alignment is the key. It always help to loop in sales early when building products. Go to sales team's meeting and all hands and communicate your product strategy and roadmap as often as you can..

First, Evaluate how disruptive gen AI is to your business If I don’t do anything, can competitors with gen AI make me obsolete? * Creative work: advertising, design, gaming, media, entertainment * A lot of document processing: legal, insurance, HR If I don’t do anything, will I miss out opportunities to boost revenue? * Customer support: chat, call centers * Search & recommendation * Productivity enhancement: automated note-taking, summarization, information aggregation If there are opportunities, what advantages do I have to capture them? * Proprietary data * GPUs lying around * Existing user base Then start playing, and prototyping. Find out what works and then make a proposal

Understanding a customer’s ideal outcome or JTBD is crucial for product managers because it aligns product development with what truly matters to users. When you grasp the JTBD, you can design features that solve real problems, leading to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. Without that you would be flying blind.. and will take longer to find a product market fit.

Short answer: When product strategy is successful, everyone can feel it easily (employees, customer, patterns..) Long answer: You know your product strategy is successful if it meets key performance indicators (KPIs) like revenue growth, user acquisition, and market share, while also achieving strategic milestones. High NPS and low churn rates, further signals success. Additionally, strong market response through user engagement and competitive positioning, coupled with solid financial performance and effective cost management, confirms that the strategy is resonating. Internally, high team morale, productivity, and smooth cross-functional collaboration are also critical indicators that your strategy is well-aligned and effectively executed.

Focus on the Core, Expand with Purpose First focus on growing and protecting your core (what product area is a cash cow for your business). Always play by strength before expanding too thin and peanut spreading features just because competition is doing something. Some Key Strategies to find the balance: * Invest in features that not only differentiate your product but also directly enhance user experience and satisfaction. This reinforces your core value proposition and strengthens customer loyalty. * Understand your customers' deepest pain points and develop innovative solutions that address these issues while maintaining your product's unique identity. This approach ensures sustained growth and market differentiation. * Continuously gather and analyze customer feedback to refine existing features and introduce new ones that deliver tangible benefits. This data-driven approach ensures your product stays aligned with evolving customer needs and market trends.

Markets trends works as your tailwind or headwind. You should be continosly scanning the macro and micros trends and make an educated guess of where the puck is going.. for example where the most VC investment is happening this year? Market trends help inform strategy by: * Informs Direction: Market trends help identify emerging opportunities and threats, guiding the focus and direction of your product strategy. * Aligns with Demand: By understanding trends, you can align your product with current and future customer needs, ensuring relevance and competitiveness. * Drives Innovation: Staying on top of trends encourages innovation, allowing you to introduce features or products that meet evolving market expectations.

The core of product strategy is to answer the question "how you will differentiate" Once you have a differentiated offering (based on internal alignment) then you can validate over a period of time by: Track progress towards your success metrics: revenue growth, retention, customer acquisition..etc Talk and listen to customer. They will tell you if your product is heading in the right direction Conduct market analysis to verify that your product addresses a real and sustainable market need, ensuring it resonates with your target audience.

Creating a successful strategy involves several key steps 1. Market research + Customer and competitors insights 2. Start defining Goals and Objective 3. Develop positioning - Value props --> how you will differentiate 4. Build and execution plan - short term and long term 5. Define what success will look like and how we will track it 6. Stakeholder alignment- identify, engage and align with key stakeholders throughout the process. 7. Continuously track metrics and refine the strategy as needed. I know these are basic.. but that is what you need. Find roadblocks and misalignment and creatively solve those to make progress

If your execs are pushing your product in a different direction from your customer & market input, try to understand why that is. In most cases, exec have some more insights than you do, either from customer conversation or through feedback from sales. They may be trying to pivot for where the market is going that doesn't quite map to where the market currently is. Or there may be a miscommunication or misunderstanding about what the market needs. In each case, do your best to figure out why you're pointed in different directions, and drive alignment on those inputs so that the product strategy can be grounded in a set of hypotheses everyone is committed to testing even if they're not quite totally sold on them. Spend time in thinking deeply about the tradeoff. For example, if the exec is asking to build a feature then highlight what it means to other things that are in progress on were in the priority list earlier. Document the decisions and share progress update often.

In my world (B2B AI driven product) we revisit our strategy every 3-6 months and make adjustment based on new learning from customers, sales team, market research and product usage/adoption data. Get all available data talk to 5-10 customers look at customer tickets Then evaluate if everything we are doing in next 3 months is still inline with new learning. Adjust as needed

I think strategy skills can be build and improved over time by continuous practice and asking the right questions. And build habit of thoughtfully writing your strategy again and again. Break down problems to their core elements and ask "why" questions repeatedly. Why are we building this AI product? What fundamental needs are we solving? Here are some good questions to ask when you start to 1. Who is customers, what is their JTBD? 2. Which big idea do we do? Which one best aligns with what is best for our product but also the broader business. 3. How does it fit in to company vision - No understanding as to how we contribute to the broader business flywheel 4. How we would sell? 5. Make recommendations 6. Who is the user? What problem do they have? What is the happy path? 7. What story are you trying to tell? 8. How it works