Which stakeholders have input into your roadmap, and how to balance giving them influence vs control?

There are several stakeholders that have input into our roadmap, a few main partners and collaborators are listed below: Other Product & Design Teams Sales/CS teams Marketing & Growth Research And more… Most cross-functional partners just want to be heard and want to understand whether their requests will be addressed or not. This is why transparency is a key element in all 3 of the following tips to help you maintain the balance between influence and control:  Give your cross-functional ...Read More

If I could reframe the question slightly, I’d say this: our roadmap is a living, evolving artifact. We’re operating in a high-growth environment with an AI-first product suite, and we pride ourselves on being highly responsive to both the market and our customers. While we conduct quarterly planning and true-ups, we frequently make intra-quarter adjustments as needed. Our teams are organized into “missions,” which are composed of multiple squads. In terms of input and influence, most of our miss ...Read More

I appreciate this question! Generally speaking, we get inputs mostly from sales, customers and product/engineering. I’ve used the approach of building partnerships with stakeholders and that takes care of the influence vs control dilemma. When you have a strong partnership with your stakeholders, they trust you that you’ll make the right product decisions and in turn, you show that you value their inputs. So I would encourage you to think more about building stronger partnerships so you don’t ha ...Read More

The short answer: everyone gets influence; (almost) no one gets control. It is important to assume the role to smartly synthesize the inputs, and not to take the requests at face value. The stakeholders I engage regularly include executive leadership, engineering, design, PMM and marketing, sales, customer success, legal and compliance, and of course customers and users themselves. It would also depend on the type of initiative, etc. Each stakeholder brings a distinct perspective, and the roadma ...Read More

As a general rule, everyone should have input into the product roadmap. In fact, at GitLab our mission is to make it so that everyone can contribute and we apply the same principle here. A good product manager knows that listening to an idea, asking questions, and truly trying to understand it is in no way a commitment to implement it. So they don't shy away from this dialog, and in fact embrace it. Now, when it comes to doing the prioritization, we need to be market driven and not stakeholder d ...Read More

Prioritization is more art than science. My goal is to actively listen to all stakeholders and help communicate how I make tradeoffs and how that impacts timeline to deliver a requested feature. But as a rule... Customers have the most impact on roadmap. Then engineering (especially on tech debt, architecture, compliance, and quality improvements needed). Then, I weigh any influence from market trends and changing competitive landscapes. Here, I consult with analyst relations, product marketing, ...Read More

This is possibly a good application of the RACI framework to determine which of your stakeholders have influence vs Control Responsible: Think of your product, engineering, and design leadership. They should have the same goals and priorities as you. Hence their feedback as well as endorsement is critical Accountable: These are your working partners, your engineering, product designer, content strategist. You want to create confidence with this group because they are responsible for delivering y ...Read More

In my mind, several groups of stakeholders often influence the roadmap. They include your customers (both internal and external), your product team (e.g., engineering, design, data science), your internal non-product stakeholders (e.g., legal, compliance, sales) and your leadership.  From these stakeholders, it's important to put most of your focus on the ideas coming from your customers and ideas generated by your team. While we all like to work on things that benefit the customer, it is equall ...Read More

The stakeholders who typically have input into a roadmap can be: Customers and Users: Product Managers on other teams (that have a dependency) Development Team Executives and Leadership team Sales, Customer Success, Support and Marketing Teams Some tactics to balancing influence vs. control: Regular communication and feedback from all stakeholders Regular communication of the product vision, strategic goals and OKR's/metrics Sharing customer and end user usage data Defining clear roles and respo ...Read More

It varies. Mostly the stakeholders fall in four categories Customers especially in B2B larger enterprise products (there is sometimes more control here) Partners like engineering, design, data science etc. who provide feedback and help crystalize the sequencing of work Senior leadership who often wants a concrete, confident and rationale driven roadmap but sometimes might also have top down asks [Optional] For core, platform or internal products - Internal stakeholders like other product leaders ...Read More

At GitLab, we say that everyone can contribute. This is true even when it comes to input into the roadmap. Our product managers know that the best ideas can come from very unexpected places. Anyone can meet with us and give us their opinion or write up an issue and ask us to look over it. As far as real stakeholders go, customers, sales, product leadership, and executives have the most influence over the roadmap. Engineering, UX design/research, and security are also incredibly important to list ...Read More

It depends on the role and problem space, but I try to invite (1) virtually everyone I collaborate with on a regular basis, (2) their management/leadership, and (3) fellow PMs as partners in the roadmapping process. I think it's important to think of stakeholders more as partners in the roadmap creation process, since their ideas and input really shape my POV on what's important there. Influence vs control is interesting. I've been in situations where stakeholders are pushing for specific featur ...Read More

Prioritizing is one of the hardest tasks for a PM. Balancing the needs of stakeholders, with customer needs, and business priorities. However, only your manager (and their manager and so forth) should have any "control" on your roadmap. Everyone else, should be able to provide In reality, you will find other stakeholders will expect some level of influence. Once you've identified the initiatives for your team, you should use the RICE framework to prioritize them (see my other answer on this topi ...Read More

The main stakeholders that have input into my roadmaps are (1) Customers, (2) Sales, (3) Customer Service, (4) Leadership / Executive Team, (5) Other teams dependent on my team. In addition to these stakeholders, my roadmap is also influenced by product data and customer behavior in the product, market research and trends, competitive research, and our company and product strategy.  In a perfect world, the product manager controls their team’s roadmap. They build the roadmap based on “streams of ...Read More

Your key stakeholders to shape a roadmap are: Customers/Users: Capture direct feedback and use data to gain insights into user needs, pain points, and feature requests. Sales & Marketing: This group will provide insights on market demand, competitive landscape, and feedback from prospects and customers. Support & Customer Success: These teams are an excellent source for understanding common issues, pain points, and feature requests from existing customers. Executive team: Seek guidance f ...Read More

Everyone can contribute to the roadmap—sales, marketing, developers, leadership, the board, customers, executives, and even random people on the street with great ideas. It’s crucial to stay open to feedback and solicit input from diverse perspectives. However, there’s a big difference between influence and control. Product managers own the roadmap—they are responsible for the success of the product and its strategic direction. While many voices influence decisions, the final call rests with the ...Read More

Typically, several key stakeholders generally contribute to the roadmap, each bringing unique insights based on their functions, goals, and customer interactions. Broadly they include: Executive Leadership (e.g., C-suite or senior management): They provide strategic direction and ensure alignment with high-level business goals. Sales and Marketing Teams: They bring insights from the market, customer demands, and competition, helping to identify trends and refine positioning. Customer Success and ...Read More