What is the single most important activity you prioritize as a product leader? Why do you prioritize this activity above all else?

Setting a solid product vision, strategy and a clear roadmap for atleast 3-6-12 months is the top activity for a PM leader. Some benefits of having this in place are:

1. Determine and solve customer problems

2. Clearly articulate the impact you will have on company or product metrics

3. Alignment across the entire organization on what you will deliver by and when

4. Make sure resources are allocated to the right initiatives as outlined in the roadmap

5. Inspire Engineering, Design, Marketing, Data Science and all other teams to achieve the vision

6. Communicate this roadmap and plan to executives and get their buy-in for resources and support

As a product leader, the single most important activity I prioritize is attempting to build an amazing team. A players attract A players and building incredibly diverse, smart and committed teams is the single most important job of a product leader.

People come and people go, as a product leader you're always hiring. One of my former boss said to me once that once you team reaches a certain size (~10/12 people) you're always hiring. Something always happens, (internal/external mobility, reorgs, hiring spree, layoffs, performance management etc...) and you end up always hiring. So staying ahead of the curve, networking, always having your next hire in mind and keeping an active pipeline is key, but also ensuring your key players are properly incentivized, motivated, fulfilled and have room to grow and do what they do best is critical too.

I know this isn't the original question but I can't help myself 😊 The second most important activity I prioritize as a product leader is keeping up with the product and keeping up my product knowledge. Staying close to the users, the sales teams, the detractors and understanding the ins and outs of your product will contribute to make you a strong product leader.

Speaking with customers + reading customer feedback from the various sources it comes through: support channels, sales channels, in-product feedback. No week has gone by in the past 5 years that I did not talk to one customer or read feedback.

Why?

1. with every customer, you learn something new about what works and does not work in your product and its GTM (messaging, positioning, state of field enablement). Do that enough times and you build a complete picture over your business.

2. When you speak with senior leaders that challenge you with things they think they know, having a counter-example from a customer (preferably from the top paying ones / renowned brands) is gold. It gives depth and weight to your arguments like nothing else.

3. Lastly it gives me energy in my job, because I feel the pain better, and confidence as a PM to bring a point forth.

How do you choose customers to speak with?

• Choose those part of the segments that have power over the metrics you are trying to optimize for. E.g. trying to improve conversion rate along your onboarding flow? Reach out to the customers who just signed up.

• No matter which metric you want to move, revenue is the top one in B2B SaaS so always be in touch with the top 25 paying and top 25 using customers. I speak with them often and help them as much as I can to then have a direct line with them in the future.

• If sales/CSMs are you in your way, frame the need for the conversation as an opportunity for the customer to influence your roadmap. I book 15 min the first time so it feels low-effort and high ROI for the customer to chat. Then they realize they like it, if you are polite, sharp, curious, and express gratitude for them giving time.

• Some reps/CSMs might say no to speaking with the customer because hard renewals/conversations are happening. I would respect that, and move to the next customer on the list.

The short answer is deep customer understanding all day long. Because everything else, from product development, feature prioritization, market fit, strategy, etc stems directly from knowing your customer inside out.

This will bring the org and teams together and work in good pace while reducing silos and dependencies.

After all, your product is for users to try and adopt to solve their issues. And you solve that by making sure theres a problem for a user your product can solve.