How do you balance market needs driving your product strategy with exec input?

Love the spirit of this question, and will broaden it a bit to "how do you balance market needs with the vision your company may have?" Prior to shifting to Product Strategy & Ops, I was hired as the 2nd Account Executive at Airtable. I found this experience so valuable because I had a front row seat to literally thousands of customer perspectives on what our product needed to evolve. One of the biggest lessons I took away from that experience was how to think about the balance between provi ...Read More

Ultimately, our job in product management is to make products that succeed in the market. So to me, that's always been the high order bit in prioritization and planning. If you're not delivering value to your customers, or the business model isn't sustainable, your product and team will fail. But the teams we work with also depend on having exec support, buy-in, and sponsorship. So you can't ignore this. You have to ensure that your exec stakeholders understand and agree with the team's strategy ...Read More

If your execs are pushing your product in a different direction from your customer & market input, try to understand why that is. They may be trying to pivot the business, or they may have a vision 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 th ...Read More

Avoid balance. "Balance" very often feels like a political game we are forced to play. Instead, Make sure everyone understands the company vision, and call out areas that are poorly defined. Ask for definition. Educate everyone on customer needs. Exposing them to direct quotes or data is more powerful than trying to argue things. Lay out the options you think are best based on customer needs and vision. (Focus on the outcome of each bet!) Now, the secret is to be willing to 'disagree and commit' ...Read More

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 ...Read More