Which stakeholders need to have buy-in for your product strategy, and how do you approach creating alignment?
The only stakeholder that must have buy-in for your product strategy is the one accountable for the results of your org or area. That may be a C-level exec or VP or GM or a discipline lead. Once they believe in the strategy as the best path to hit their goals for the business, what remains is largely a communication challenge.
Keep in mind that getting alignment with your primary stakeholder may require you to get the approval of multiple other stakeholders along the way. For my thoughts on how to do that, see the first question on the list.
The stakeholder list is very different for every company. Each dynamic is different.
Approach leaders in 1:1s BEFORE you make a pitch. Ask about their team strategy, what they think about the company vision, etc.
Run ideas for strategy by them and get there feedback informally, ahead of time.
Bake the results of that conversation into a presentation so they feel represented.
This is a great question! Product strategy is only as good as those who believe in it and choose to follow it.
First, product strategy is typically best when it is aligned with company and business mission/goals. So, I usually seek alignment from the executive group with my longer term strategy first. This is typically done by creating a pitch deck for my product strategy that follows a 5-6 slide format of: market pain point/user research, market size & serviceable market, competition, where we are going (long-term roadmap), and how we are going to get there (short term direction). I will incorporate any feedback into the deck from this audience first.
Second, I will share this V2 strategy deck more locally with teams working on products and PMs and ask for their feedback. Specically asking for areas where I could add more relevance and then incorporate some of their findings and research into the strategy. Typically it helps to add their feedback to help get buy in.
Third, I will share the V3 strategy deck with external to product and R&D stakeholders like the field teams. I will ask questions like "what is missing here" or "how hard or easy would this be to sell". At this point I would usually add a slide around "Monetization" or "Field enablement" to capture any narratives needed to support the field.
These three steps really help build iterations along the way, but also foster a sense of inclusion and deep understanding of direction in the product strategy.
Product strategy has to align with company, sales and engineering strategies. Start with the company strategy/mission, then define product pillars to support company mission. Once you have a draft of product strategy, vet that with Sales leaders to ensure your product strategy will help them achieve their revenue goals and vet with Eng leaders to ensure they have the capacity and resource to deliver against your product strategy (this might be an iterative process). Once you align with the cross-functional leaders, snapshot it for the year and iterative quarter over quarter based on business outcomes/changes.
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:
Executive Leadership: Ensure alignment with company goals and secure support for strategic initiatives. Define the customer problem and the opportunity size.
Sales and Marketing Teams: Collaborate to align the strategy with go-to-market plans and customer acquisition efforts.
Product Development and Engineering: Coordinate to ensure the feasibility and technical alignment of the strategy.
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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.
There are many stakeholders that need to buy-in to your strategy - your exec team, your cross-functional peers, your cross-functional product teams and just as importantly, your GTM teams - mktg, sales, CS. I would also contend that getting initial buy-in is half the problem and but keeping the strategy front and center in day-to-day decisions is extremely hard and this is where more companies go wrong. They spend the time to develop the strategy, get buy-in, etc. but don't spend the time constantly repeating it and reporting against key milestones/deliverables to keep the strategy front and center for everyone. The worst thing that could happen is for you to develop a thoughtful strategy, get buy-in but people forget about it. Please don't let that happen.
In general, you want to be as inclusive as possible by involving different stakeholders early in the process. Every group should feel like they have had their say and are able to provide feedback along the way.
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