Startups are unique because (virtually) every employee is also a shareholder.
Which means that every internal meeting is also a shareholders' meeting.
Now, unlike companies where you are a passive shareholder (Grandma bought you 10
shares of McDonald's, for example) but have no way to influence day-to-day
decisions, you get to make a big difference at the company where you work. Every
day at a startup is a chance for you to make an impact that will increase the
value of your (and your colleagues') shares. It's a meaningful opportunity.
What does all this have to do with ensuring alignment amidst disagreement? Well,
it can help for Product Marketing to be the "voice of the long-term shareholder"
in situations where there is disagreement (and where the decision you all make
together is meaningful to the company's future prospects). This way, you are no
longer "in the middle", you are adding a unique perspective to the discussion
and helping frame the issue in a better way. Here are some suggestions when you
get into a situation where there is strategic disagreement.
1. Acknowledge that there is disagreement. I think this is a critical first step
that often gets missed in the heat of the moment. It relieves some of the
pent-up tension to just say out loud that we disagree.
2. Lean into the disagreement
3. List out the assumptions behind each position - i.e., what would have to be
true about the world in order for each of your executive stakeholders to be
"right"? Does one view of the world seem more plausible than the other?
4. Make everyone argue for both answers - at the very least, this expands
everyone's aperture - even if they still may disagree after.
If all else fails, and you really need to make a decision (as we always do), all
parties should bring in other perspectives, or simply escalate the issue up.
Product Management Stakeholders
7 answers
Vice President & GM, Global SMB, Braze • June 16
Director, Product Marketing, Intercom • November 7
This is a tough one! It can be really difficult when you have exec stakeholders
who aren't aligned. Ultimately, it's on them to get aligned and provide clear
direction 'down the chain' but a few things that could help:
* Understand where the misalignment is - is it the whole strategy, or specific
parts of it? Is there a compromise you could propose that would help get
alignment? What are the main concerns of whoever isn't on board, and can you
ask questions to better understand what is driving the concerns - and can you
then address those?
* Provide additional research/evidence or test a proposal - if you can, try
proposing a way to further validate or test out the strategy such as customer
research, a/b testing etc (this will depend on what type of strategy you're
working on!)
* Re-align on goals and timelines - sometimes it can be helpful to go back to
the original goals and make sure everyone is still aligned on what you're
trying to achieve. Re-sharing timelines, and how not making a decision by x
date will impact them, can also help drive things forward when they get stuck
If one of these execs is your manager, it's also worth having an open
conversation with them about the challenging position of being in the middle and
asking them to take the lead on getting alignment with their peer.
VP, Product and Growth Marketing, 1Password | Formerly Dropbox, SurveyMonkey, LinkedIn • February 8
This is where DACIs (or RACIs) decision-making frameworks are critical. At a
projects inception, it’s important to agree with senior executives on who the
single final approver should be. Who is accountable for the success of the
project (ie. whose job is on the line if it succeeds/fails)? Agreeing on the one
approver in the beginning should prevent downstream conflicts.
If you are stuck in the middle, the best you can do is offer objective data for
both sides of the argument and leave it up to the decision-maker to understand
the trade-offs being made with the decision. (In some occasions, a “test both
options” solution might also be worth considering.)
But disagreement can and will happen. “Disagree and commit” is a very valid, and
common outcome. If that’s the path you find yourself on, make sure both parties
truly commit and move forward owning the decision, even if it wasn’t the one
they wanted.
Head (VP) of Global Enablement, Benchling • March 10
Goes back to the shared goals - which at a high level, are hard to argue with -
revenue, cost savings, customer success, etc. Once you get that common
agreement, then it's about the strategy / the "how" to get there. If there are
disagreements here, I would start with trying to understand why and seeing it
from both of their vantage points. Then trying to see if you can get them 1:1 to
understand the other point of view or better yet, get them to talk to each
other. Ultimately though if all that doesn't work, you may need to get a tie
breaker that's someone else and who they will listen to.
Vice President, Marketing, Glassdoor • March 17
Getting senior alignment is a key strategic role for PMM - we can be powerful
bridges and connectors. Whenever there is a clear difference of opinion the best
thing I’ve found is to bring the customer more fully into the room. Bring
research to bear on the problem. You can be a powerful tiebreaker if you can
couple your opinion with insight and data.
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • August 2
This is definitely a challenge most PMMs see themselves in. I typically find
success when I work the challenge from both ends. If the executives cannot
disagree and committ while in the same room, spend time with each one
individually. Understand their concerns, their perspective, and their
reservations on an indiviudual level. I find that often many people are speaking
"different languages" and the disagreement is somewhat superficial. It's your
job to frame the strategy in a way that appeals to both. It's not easy but it's
possible. Good luck!
Oftentimes, disagreements are simply differences of opinion, which exist because
there is a lack of data.
In this case, PMMs are great neutral third-parties who are well-positioned to
close that data gap. Listen carefully to what the execs are saying, and
understand the WHY behind their disagreement. Are they disagreeing on strategy
because one of them believes that the decision will make you uncompetitive in
the market? As a PMM, you can bring competitive intelligence and customer
insights to bear here. Are they disagreeing on a decision that impacts the
customer experience? As a PMM, put on your customer hat and bring some customer
insights (maybe pull in a customer marketing friend to help). Do they think that
the decision will impact profitability? Bring in your finance counterparts to
weigh in and model out a few scenarios.
All decisions should be grounded in business impact. As a PMM, you might not
hold all the data that are necessary to come to a decision, but you can (and
should) be able to get data to ensure that the decision is made with the
business in mind.
3 answers
Product Lead (fmr Head of Product Marketing), Square • February 1
It’s a joint decision between product management and product marketing at
Square. In general our PMMs tend to have more ownership here. They will lead
competitive analysis and commission qual/ quant research to inform pricing
decisions.
That said, from what I observed, when you zoom into the specific PM/ PMM pair,
it really comes down to whoever has the expertise and the respect from the team
to make the right call.
Product, Square • February 25
Pricing and packaging is typically a PMM function.
1. P&P is typically a business decision. In general, PMMs own business and
go-to-market decisions, while PMs own the user experience and the product
roadmap. And P&P falls into the former.
2. Product should have a perspective on which features to build. Pricing and
packaging refreshes typically happen because the composition of your
existing product has changed materially (i.e. a lot of new features have
been launched, new acquisitions, etc). As such PMs will always have a role
to play in determining how certain features and product should be packaged
3. P&P involves a lot of market research. P&P requires deep market and
competitive knowledge. Many PMs will have that, but this is typically a PMM
function. As such, PMMs will be best placed to turn those insights into a
coherent pricing strategy.
Senior Director of Product Management, GitHub • July 10
I used to be very much on the side of "PMM should own pricing" but I will now
caveat this with a couple considerations.
First off, though, I think at a smaller company, say a startup where you're the
only PMM, PMM should still own pricing. That's because there's both a strategic
("how should we set our suggested retail prices and package the product?") and
tactical ("how much should we allow our reps to discount the product and on what
basis?") element to pricing. At smaller companies, I've seen more problems with
the latter. Failure to set acceptable discount levels and enforce them with the
sales team creates the wrong kind of working relationship with them and leads to
a lot of "special" deals that you'll end up having to unwind later when your
product is successful. ("What do you mean $EARLY_CUSTOMER from 5 years ago is
only paying $5/seat/year? They have 80,000 seats now and we can't raise our
prices that dramatically!")
At a larger company, my answer is "it depends who is capable of taking a
rigorous approach to pricing and packaging" including conducting both
quantitative and qualitative research on how products should be priced and
packaged (P&P). If this sounds a lot like product management, it is. That
doesn't necessarily mean I think P&P should sit under PM, however. P&P is such a
specialized skillset that works in a domain so distinct from traditional PM that
I've started to see companies start to create VP/Senior Director of Pricing
roles. These roles often roll up to a Chief Product Officer (CPO), but not
always; particularly with the rise of growth marketing and the renewed hype
around product-led growth (PLG), sometimes it's more effective for these folks
to sit in marketing.
My default choice would be to put P&P in product marketing, because
experimenting with packaging and pricing is a job better left to the
go-to-market side of the house.
4 answers
Director of Product, Netflix • August 4
The candidate must “spike” (“8/10” or higher) in all of these areas, in order of
importance:
1. Critical Thinking
Given how many decisions and complex problems are thrown at PMs, this the #1
most important attribute I screen for. They don’t need to be a rocket scientist
(top 0.5% of population) but they should be exceptional at this (top 5%). Good
looks like:
* Take large ambiguous problems and break them down into smaller pieces
* Uses logic to convince others
* Gets to the root of the issue: Think about things from multiple angles but
then focuses on what matters (this is key and hard to find).
The more senior a candidate the more critical thinking/problem solving looks
like: starting the why and bigger picture, being principles-based, helping
others to structure their thinking (good frameworks, simplifies and structures
conversations etc.).
I usually test for this both in the initial phone screen and through a product
thinking interviews (case questions, panels)
2. Drive
PMs have a lot of responsibility, get very little direction, and get too much
credit and blame, so they need to a) self start and b) be motivated to keep
trying even when faced with obstacles. Good looks like:
* Ownership over outcomes vs. just doing the activities? A former manager of
mine once called this “an insatiable desire to ship”
* Self starter - Can we throw them at a problem and trust them to figure it out
without hand holding?
* Vigilance - do they generally think ahead to the outcome they are trying to
achieve? Do they proactively address what may get in the way?
This is very hard to screen for in an interview but you can get signals from
behavioral questions, their questions to you, and follow ups.
3. Bridge Building
There are two parts of bridge building
1. EQ - not easily coachable
2. Communication - this includes both written and verbal communication skills
and both the quality and frequency of comms. Verbal and written comms are
usually coachable.
It’s ok if someone isn't a perfect communicator because people improve on this
over time. But it’s not ok if they don’t have sufficient EQ. Good looks like:
* Self aware - seeks to know (and improve on) their own strengths and
weaknesses, self reflects without defensiveness
* Situationally aware - skillfully navigates people situations and figures out
how to influence others towards an outcome
* Concise and clear answers that are easy to follow, verbally and written.
I usually test for written and verbal comms in the panel exercise and interview
questions. I test for self awareness and situational awareness in behavioral
interviews.
Group Product Manager, Google • August 16
I'm lucky in that Google has a really rigorous interview process that I benefit
from. Google is also known for taking a long time during that process but I
promise you that is largely because of the rigor.
Post that process though what I look for are three key signals
1. Grit is my first. Big companies are notoriously slow, process heavy, and
plodding. But the way I look at this is that with so much user trust, such a
large business, and really a huge opportunity that we have to respect we
want to get it right. I tell my team all the time that if you want to go
fast go alone, but if you want to go far go together. And we've all chosen
to go far so grit is critical (and sounds cooler than patience)
2. Passion. Yes this one could seem to fly in the face of the first one. But I
often find that I'd rather have somebody always frustrated we can't move
faster, always frustrated that we can't do better and help them mature into
taking a balanced position than the other way around. Another way to say
this is that I can help show somebody the upside of measuring twice and
cutting once, but I've never been able to teach passion.
3. Finally EQ. Most of what PMs do depend on building trust and trust is built
via relationships. Too much detail isn't likely needed here as this one is
obvious but where I will go into detail is that EQ isn't the same thing as
being sociable. I have excellent PMs on my team who build strong
relationships that aren't loud and in your face extraverts. EQ comes in all
shapes and sizes so look carefully.
Group Product Manager, Production Experience, Figma • December 12
There's a lot written about basic PM competencies
(https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/), and for
any PM on my team, they should be able to do all these things you'd expect from
a PM (write specs, understand the customer, communicate upwards and outwards,
GSD). I'll focus my answer on a few attributes that I think are really
"make-or-break" for me:
* Good communication skills, both written and verbal, are an absolute must-have
for any PM on my team. Whether it's through writing specs, influencing
stakeholders, or pitching product ideas, PMs have to be able to communicate
effectively across mediums (written, verbal), forums (large groups vs. small
groups vs 1:1) and audiences (to developers, marketers, sales, executives).
In particular, they need to be able to tell good stories (e.g.,, can they get
their team inspired about an idea?), structure their communication
effectively (e.g., can break down ambiguous problems using a framework?) and
make technical concepts easy to understand for non-technical folks (e.g., can
they explain how routers work to someone without a CS background?)
* Great PMs "own" the problem. They're not afraid the step outside the
boundaries of their function to do what it takes to get the product out the
door. They rarely ever use phrases like "that's not my job" or "this was the
designer/developers responsibility". Their strong sense of ownership of the
problem leads them to passionately debate about the right solution, speak
truth to power when necessary, but also be open to other points of view
(because it's not about "them", it's about solving the problem).
Sr. Director, Product Management, Mezmo • December 12
The product manager's job is to identify the most impactful problems to solve,
enable their team to build and ship solutions that delight users, learn, and
iterate. Product managers need a multitude of skills to be successful. The two
most important skills that I view as must-haves no matter the seniority or
product they will work on are owner mentality and leadership and influence. The
reason for these two things being make-or-break things for me is because one has
it or does not have it. It is extremely difficult to teach someone these two
skills.
Let me share a little bit about what having an owner mentality and leadership
and influence translate to.
* Owner Mentality - Owner mentality means thinking holistically and taking
initiatives that may not be directly tied to the area of ownership to drive
positive impact and achievement of business goals. A lot of times, PMs put
themselves in a box where they just focus on building a new feature or
shipping an enhancement without considering the entire experience that
customers may experience. Great product managers work with stakeholders and
define an end-to-end delightful customer experience by thinking about how new
and existing customers discover the capability, what the monetization
approach is, understand and influence how sales will sell and how customer
success will support. PMs with an owner mentality wake up every morning
thinking about what can be done better to delight customers. They don't
operate in silos and hold themselves accountable for the success or failure
of the product.
* Leadership and Influence - PMs need to work with multiple teams to drive
outcomes without having any direct organizational authority. To be
successful, PM needs to know how to work with different teams, and inspire
and motivate them to march on the path they have laid down the vision for to
meet business goals and objectives. PMs need to act as leaders for their
teams by establishing trust, being persuasive and reliable, focusing the team
toward shared goals, and removing distractions by saying no to anything that
is unimportant.
1 answer
The following sources of feedback are very important to me and my team:
Customers our PM team is directly in contact with, as well as our direct digital
feedback channels in the application
Sales Teams - why do we lose deals, and why are we winning deals? Who is asking
for what, and what is the context of the account (Rev, Use Case, Engagement,
etc)
Customer Success - What are current customers asking for help with? What are
they frustrated by? What are they pushing for?
Market Research - we keep a pulse on what our customers are feeling toward our
competition, what our competitor's customers are feeling towards us, and many
other examples like this that help us prioritize our roadmap.
Usage data - if product areas are not being engaged with, we can make the
decision to disinvest in that particular product area.
2 answers
Senior Group Product Manager, Intercom • June 21
I know it sounds obvious, but it's important to have an open and early
conversation about decision-making to avoid this becoming a blocker further down
the line. You can use a RACI or DACI model to guide these conversations and
achieve calarity about who owns a decision. The added benefit of models such as
RACI and DACI is that they will help clarify overall responsibilities when
working on a product or project.
https://monday.com/blog/project-management/raci-model/
https://www.productplan.com/glossary/daci/
Decision-making and roles and responsibilities around decision-making vary from
team to team and company to company, and because of that, you are likely to run
into this scenario at some point in your career.
There are several tactics you could take to resolve friction or conflicts like
this, below are some examples:
* Understand the Motivation. Dig into this area thoroughly so you get a clear
picture of what is motivating their point of view. Understanding the
motivation can help you refine your tactic of choice. Is the person used to
making this decision and therefore see’s this shift as a scope decrease for
their team? Is it a trust issue in which they don’t believe you will make the
right choice or the best choice? Do they fear their voice will no longer be
heard, and there will be a negative impact on their performance or their
teams? Or is it something else?
* Build Bridges - Work on seeing if the two of you or several of you can align
on a common decision-making framework to ease the concerns of other
stakeholders and give them peace of mind that the variables they care about
will be paid attention to.
* The Let’s Try It approach - Offer to test out the new decision framework for
a pre-determined amount of time to see if their fears are warranted or if you
would have been aligned all along. Cycle back after the trial period to
gather any feedback and determine if there is any opportunity to improve the
framework.
* Leverage Best Practices and Past Experiences - You can often find sources of
insights in a variety of decision-making frameworks. Leverage this to make
the case that the current approach is not industry standard or best practice
in the industry and that your primary goal is to leverage best practices and
industry standards to drive sustainable impact.
* Escalate and Force a Decision - this is the least popular option and you
should save it as a last resort after you have attempted at least several of
the other solutions first, but it is one you can rely on should things get
very messy or contentious.
4 answers
Reality these days is that we mostly work in remote settings, and even when we
do go to the office, some people will be dialing in. As a result, I believe 80%
of the strategies have to do with focusing on the fact that we are all people,
20% are tactics and adjustments for remote settings.
General alignment strategies:
* Build trust ahead of time. This is fundamental and driving collaboration
without it is hard
* Focus on common goals. There’s typically a higher goal that teams can easily
align on (e.g. Revenue, Engagement, Better experience), and the differences
show up as you start double clicking into the “how”. Starting the discussion
with a longer term view can also help in skipping tactical disagreements and
alignments
* Frame, rather than take a position. With common goals in mind, center the
discussion on what the characteristics of a good solution are, rather than
starting with comparing options. This helps setting a more objective ground
before jumping into the solutions
* Call out your biases (easier to do when you have trust). In an environment
where there is trust, I expect my teams to be able to call out other
considerations that may cause them to pull in a certain direction, those can
be different stakeholders that push in other directions, past experience and
others. Some of those reasons may be valid, some may not be valid. Calling
them out can help the entire team work through them.
A few remote specific tactics:
* Set the right structure, if possible. This includes minimizing the number of
time zones each team has to work across (In my organization we are trying to
limit ourselves to 2 time zones per team, when possible). If you can, hire
senior enough people in the right locations to be able to run autonomously.
* Invest in getting to a clear strategic direction. Having an upfront debate on
the direction is time consuming, but can then help in setting the guardrails
for autonomous decisions that can happen within the teams, locally.
* If you do have the opportunity to meet in person, do so. Especially when
working across time zones with little overlap, a good relationship would
allow you to accomplish more offline, and can dedicate the overlapping time
for working more effectively through the tougher topics. While I still mostly
work from home I prioritize going to the office when team members from other
offices are coming to town (and I am writing this note from the airport,
while waiting for a flight - going to visit my team in Austin!)
I've tried to drive a writing culture in every team I've been on—with varying
degrees of success. I don't think there's a more effective way to drive
alignment, especially for remote teams.
I'm a big fan of providing pre-reads for meetings, so that everyone comes in to
the meeting with the same context. Meetings are slow when each person involved
is figuring out what the meeting is truly about at a different pace. Anchoring
around a written document helps keep everyone focued.
Writing tends to spur more discussion, too. If a detail is left out in a verbal
discussion, it can seem like an oversight. If it's left out of a written doc,
people take notice.
Admittedly, this is diffcult to practice consistently. It requires more up-front
time, and it forces you to commit to an expression of an idea because it's right
there on the page. I still don't do it as often as I should, and I've seen
firsthand how valuable it can be.
Senior Director of Product Management, GitHub • September 6
First, get good at written communications -- both as a writer and a reader. One
of the most impactful lessons that I took away from the Amazon Working Backwards
book by Bill Carr and Colin Bryar is how much they focus on crafting and
refining written narratives like the six-pager or the PR/FAQ. Not only is the
information density per hour higher for someone who is reading it (i.e., you can
convey more information in a shorter period of time using the written word), but
it also ensures that poor reasoning can't hide behind flashy PowerPoint. Written
communications also level the playing field to ensure that ideas are what is
being debated, not how good of a presenter a person is.
Second, have a good object hierarchy for how you will plan, track, and report on
work in flight. Having an agreed-upon meaning for "initiative", for example, and
criteria that must be satisfied before engineering (not discovery) work
commences is critical for ensuring stakeholders are read in. Once you are in
operational/execution mode on initiatives, have a set cadence (we call it
"rhythm of the business") at which your management team will walk the work
in-flight and discuss any issues is a key synchronous meeting to surface and
address obstacles head-on.
Third, and this relates to the first item -- regularly publish and evangelize
the product vision and strategy and how the department or company's current work
connects to it. This should be a low lift if you've already written it down (see
item 1) but admittedly, some people will not want to read lengthy OKR or
business plan documents. Use synchronous time to unleash the passion you have
for your area and get the team excited about what they're doing.
Team alignment is critical to maximizing impact within the organization, but
there are so many barriers to alignment, even with in-person environments. These
can often be compounded by remote teams, company culture, communication
channels, ceremonies, transparency or absence of, psychological safety, and
more.
To address alignment I first work to determine where the misalignment is:
* Vision (what the future looks like)
* Strategy (approach to achieving the vision)
* Tactic (specific actions to deliver on the strategy)
* Process (steps, sequencing, prioritization, too much, not enough, etc)
* Stakeholder Engagement (DACI/RACI or other frameworks)
* Execution (approach, team size, timing, etc)
* Completion (what it looks like, when we are there, how we know we are there)
* Rollout (slow roll, full blast, or anything in between)
* Go to market (channel, content, who is responsible, etc)
* + More
Once I understand where the disconnect is, I start working to close the
alignment gap at that level with one or many of the following tactics, which you
can deploy depending on your team’s constraints:
* Communication & Over Communication: Many times people hear a small part of a
vision or strategy or even tactic and tell themselves a story about it that
may or may not be true. One quick way to resolve some of these
misunderstandings is to set up a session with the team you are trying to
align to walk them through the details of the vision, strategy, or tactic,
and give the team a peek behind the scenes so to speak for how you got there.
Ask for feedback and either address it or incorporate it into your work.
These tactics will help resolve alignment issues due to misunderstandings.
* Use Data to Support Your Alignment Efforts - There have been very few and far
between scenarios where disagreements happened and data didn’t help resolve
some or all of the tension around a particular topic. To the extent that the
supporting data exists, feel free to deploy it in the name of alignment and
shared understanding.
* Brainstorming & Alignment Sessions - for tricky situations, bring the team
together, have them brainstorm potential solutions together, bucket, and
prioritize them. When team members co-create the output, their feedback and
point of view are incorporated and therefore there is less to be misaligned
with.
* Build Empathy - One of the most powerful mind-changing tools out there has
been building empathy. Approximating the experience of a customer, team
member, project leader, etc. would open eyes, minds, and hearts. Many times,
things look easy, or unimportant from the outside, until you try to do them.
That’s when perspective comes, then understanding, and finally alignment.
There are many I'm sure I’m missing, but these are the highlights I’d focus on.
1 answer
Product intuition is that elusive skill that we all look for and want to select,
nurture, and encourage in our team members. If I had to break down product
intuition, I’d break it down into the following parts:
* Experience - having made the mistakes that make you aware of what to look out
for (or learning from those that have)
* Customer centricity - knowing on a deep level what your customers or
potential customers need, want, and feel (deep empathy and understanding of
their jobs and goals)
* Reading the market - following trends both in your direct industry and
competitive set, as well as more broadly in adjacent industries.
* Communication/Storytelling Skills - being able to leverage the knowledge and
awareness you have gained in the previous 3 points and articulate it in such
a way that your cross-functional partners, customers, and prospects feel
heard, seen, and validated.
Hopefully, you are seeing a trend that each of these elements is also a skill
that can be honed over time. They are not necessarily capabilities you either
have or don't have, although some people have honed them so well that watching
them work makes you feel like it is an inherited trait.
Investing time in each of these categories to find a sustainable way to maintain
your knowledge and comfort level with these skills over time is the key to
developing and growing your product intuition.
Pro tip - find people who impress you with their mastery of product intuition
(or even any of the skills listed above) and observe them, talk to them, ask
them questions, and try to glean insight into how they have developed their
skills.
1 answer
My objectives when meeting new stakeholders are centered around finding out more
about them as a person and how they like to work, understanding their
objectives, and getting feedback from them about what their experience with my
team, function, and the broader organization has been. Here are some details
about why and how I dig into these topics:
* Personal - I find it’s easier to build relationships and avoid some negative
behaviors and experiences with people at work when you put in the effort to
get to know more about their life outside of work. I try to get a sense of
where they live, what they do on the weekends, etc. In every case, we either
find something we both love and are passionate about, or find some very
comical differences, both of which give each of us a better sense of the
other person. This is helpful in building empathy between you and your
stakeholders. It’s much harder to assume negative intent or to be rude to
people you have bonded with over things like the best local coffee shops in a
favorite neighborhood for instance, than ones where your only experiences are
work-related.
* Goals & Objectives - The next area I focus on is understanding their
objectives and goals. To put a finer point on it, I want to understand their
objectives and goals for themselves and their team, and what they need to be
successful. The stakeholders of a healthy organization generally want the
same outcome (more revenue, better customer experience, etc), but they differ
on the prioritization of the goals and/or the method for reaching that goal.
I ask questions and try to uncover details that will allow me to link my
goals and theirs in any way. I then look for opportunities for my role and
skillset to contribute positively to my stakeholder’s goals, and I brainstorm
some of these opportunities with them. The shocking thing is how many people
are taken off guard by this approach. So rarely are stakeholder meetings
voluntarily helpful that whenever I offer to support their goals with things
in my purview people are genuinely surprised and extremely appreciative. It
sets the tone for a great relationship and partnership.
* Experiential - Another potential friction point with stakeholders is the
experience that they are having or have had in the past with your function,
certain team members, or the approach the organization is taking to address a
shared need or objective. Therefore, I often spend time while relationship
building asking questions about my stakeholder’s experience. What do they
think is working well vs what could be improved? Are there any friction
points in the process we can address? Etc. If you are going to ask these
types of questions, make sure you are ready and willing to hear the answers.
Be very mindful of how you respond, because anything less than “Thank you so
much for sharing that, can you please tell me more,” and you have negatively
impacted your relationship with this stakeholder or partner as well as their
likelihood to share this kind of feedback with you in the future.
7 answers
Ultimately Product Management is about people. I do approach stakeholders
differently, but it’s based on who they are, rather their role. Some
stakeholders like to be consulted ahead of time, some prefer being briefed in
bigger forums where they can gauge the reactions of others. Some like structured
approaches, others react to the anecdotal evidence. Some may have specific
trigger points on specific topics.
Part of my role is to understand those differences and be able to navigate
through them.
Yes and no. I think of these relationships in terms layers of depth.
Design and Engineering are, of course, your deepest stakeholder relationships.
You're building a product together, so the dynamic is fundamentally different.
Customer Success (and Support) should be the next layer. They should generally
have a better understanding of the product than your go-to-market stakehodlers,
and the time they spend with customers usually leads to more specific insights.
This relationship can and should be more collaborative than the next layer.
Sales and Marketing are the next layer, as their input is typically based on
pattern recognition. Incredibly important, but often not as deep as the other
layers. You also need to nurture this group differently, and be intentional
about demonstrating your impact, because they can often be the loudest when they
don't feel they're being supported.
Senior Group Product Manager, Intercom • June 20
No, the foundations of stakeholder management are the same for me, irrespective
of the discipline and expertise involved. Like I mentioned in one of my earlier
answers: listening and developing empathy are key, as well as involving
stakeholders early and often in the product (development) lifecycle.
Head of Product Marketing, HiredScore • July 30
I do and it all starts with understanding their needs, what motivates them, and
what demotivates them. Some teams like to be more involved and are motivated by
being part of the process and others are motivated by having to do less work,
making them more comfortable with a different approach. Get to know your
stakeholders, understand their goals, and build relationships. Once the
relationships in place, you can better understand how to influence and manage
expectations for these teams.
Senior Director of Product Management, GitHub • September 7
There are some commonalities and some differences. First and foremost, across
all constituents, I always promise that product management will always listen to
them, carefully consider their feedback and advice, but we may not do what they
want. This isn't to be mean. Many constituents not worked with truly empowered,
autonomous product teams, so they don't understand why product management is not
just a department of project managers to shepherd through work orders that they
are issuing in the form of "feature requests". It's important to set the record
straight about who's ultimately in charge of the roadmap.
Now, by doing so, I'm also obviously inviting these constituents to hold us
accountable to customer satisfaction from what we are building. After all, with
great power comes great responsibility, and if product continually is failing to
deliver products and features that delight customers, then we deserve to lose
our jobs.
With that out of the way, I always try to put myself in the shoes of the
constituent and what they care about. How are they being measured, what is their
background and context, what is their level of tech and business savvy and what
do they need to know, in what form. This is a constant learning process, as
other functions in an organization are always evolving! But just basic knowledge
about what are the key drivers of constituent points of view -- to be blunt,
what are they paid on -- helps to properly frame up any discussion about
roadmap. It would behoove any product manager to understand the difference
between "customer success", "customer architecture", "sales" (and the many roles
in sales), "marketing" (and the many roles in marketing), etc. It's not all just
"sales and marketing". Achieving this level of understanding is on the product
manager.
Finally, be consistent. I use a small set of artifacts to describe roadmap, and
I use them again and again with different constituents. The only difference
between these artifacts is the level of resolution & detail. A salesperson for
example typically doesn't want that much detail -- he or she just wants to know
what are the hottest features that are going to help him or her retire quote.
Sales engineers want to know which are the most complex features they're going
to need to learn, but also which ones are going to be the most differentiated
from competitors and impactful for showing off in a pre-sales motion. And so on.
Being disciplined and consistent in articulating roadmap, down to just silly
things like "don't call an initiative 5 different things to 5 different groups"
goes a long way towards building confidence in you as a product leader,
particularly as you know constituents will talk to each other without you. The
more their stories align about what's going on in product, the higher level of
confidence they have in you and your leadership.
Director of Product, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Oracle • October 30
It is important to align your requests to the goals of the team you are
partnering with. From that perspective, you need to align your approach to
stakeholder management.
For example, your design leadership might be more interested in the long-term
vision of your product while sales is interested in how much customer demand
your product is likely to generate.
Program Delivery Manager, Microsoft • December 14
The answer is Yes.
We do not expect every stakeholder will have same questions, similar stakes,
similar mindset and same requirements hence management will be different when
reaching out to various stakeholders.
'How'- do I manager different stakeholders, is a broad question and I am unable
to provide an answer that will be standard for various teams, this is not
pragmatic. However, in general, we keep them updated on project contexts,
changes, lowlights & highlights at least weekly, to avoid any surprises. In
addition to this I try to be in touch with them a little less formally which
helps me charter tricky situations and I usually get a buy in quickly. Since I
am working remotely hence 'less formal connection' for me is a casual hellos,
and quick semi formal chats. At time, I am intentional in sharing my issues and
challenges with the stakeholders and reach out proactively, asking if I am
making mistakes or what is their recommendation. People like to get some
attention, :) hence being intuituve helps a long way.
Keeping all project specific information ready to be shared is a must.
4 answers
To be successful in a remote working environment, leaders and employees must be
willing to think and work differently.
Shared context: The most critical component to drive alignment
cross-functionally, especially with a remote team, is to provide clear
communications and establish shared understanding of expectations and goals. It
is important that everyone is aligned on what the project is.
Project briefs: We use project briefs to provide an overview for the
cross-functional teams to understand what is this project, status quo
challenges, key deliverables and milestones, and most importantly, metrics for
success. Then, in the kickoff meeting with the cross-functional groups, we
discuss what is needed from each function using the brief as a working document
to get buy-in from the other stakeholders.
Connect Asynchronously: We outline the critical information in several channels
for asynchronous dissemination of information. It was frustrating when my team
members could not find content/resources that seemed straightforward because
they were buried under comments in an obscure Asana task under a
hard-to-figure-out-unless-you-knew-the-exact-name board.
With a remote team, we needed to adapt on how we relay information and be
patient with when to expect a response because of the distributed time zones and
flexible work hours. It also requires open-mindedness on establishing new
rituals and habits for the team. For instance, we established team norms and
processes for when and how we communicate (an area I was personally actively
engaged in defining) because information silos became problematic and pockets of
people had very specific work styles that weren't conducive to the overall group
needs.
Director of Product Marketing, Twilio • March 14
In my experience, preferences need to be considered here. I personally have
found success by adopting a variety of strategies across communication channels
and with varied cadence in order to cater to others' varied preferences.
First, we do a lot of writing; sharing plans, strategies, and agendas in advance
of meetings allows for deeper engagment vs. a real-time discussion in the
moment. Second, we schedule regular check-ins with key stakeholders, both 1:1
and cross-functionally to keep people informed and accountable for their
participation (with key considerations for timezones). Depending on the newness
of the material for the cross functional team we prepare presentations to
educate stakeholders on the value and messaging of our launch/product/initiative
to build shared ownership. In this time of attrition and growth, we welcome
intro 1:1s and have a centralized document with our goals and training assets to
help onboard new stakeholders to the cross-functional team. We also send
quarterly team email updates with priorities + progress to all key stakeholders
in which we also actively request feedback. And for real time engagement, we
have several cross-team and project-specific slack channels where we share
noteworthy updates.
Head of Product Marketing, Core Product, Gusto • April 27
One of the most important things that PMM can do to drive cross-functional
alignment (whether remote, hybrid, or in-person) is to keep the customer at the
center of the conversation. By operating as a customer evangelist, we can bring
data-driven, customer-centric stories to the forefront and get folks aligned on
who our customer is, the most important problems to solve for them, and how to
best serve their needs.
Having a shared vision for your target market helps create natural alignment
that can reduce friction during strategic and operational planning.
Two more things I’d recommend include:
1. Know who the real influencers and decision makers are in your org. There is
always the formal RAPID, and oftentimes, less codified paths and people to
influence. Build your understanding of that and use it to your advantage
when anticipating or experiencing friction.
2. If you are going into a meeting where you hold an opinion that might be
contentious or expect to get pushback, pre-sell the idea with key
stakeholders in 1:1 settings where you can tailor your delivery to your
audience. Sales is going to naturally care about different things than
product, so pitch your idea accordingly. This can ensure that when you enter
the room, you’ve got some allies on your side that can help tell the story
from multiple angles and get broader cross-functional alignment. This can be
especially key in remote settings where it is naturally harder to read a
room. Giving folks the ability to digest the information and provide input
in advance can go a long way in not only building allies, but also
up-leveling your thinking and recommendation with a diversity of
perspectives.
Head of Product Marketing - Security, Integrations, Mobile, Salesforce • December 9
Define your north star, and stick with it.
For remote teams:
* Whats our mission as a team
* Whats each person's mission and how does it tie to the north star
* How are we going to get there, what are the specific actions we take
* Do an audit every 3 months on if you are operating against that or not and
fix if needed
For cross functionals
* What business outcome are we driving, or problem are we solving
* Keep checking if everyone is on board with that, and resolve any conflicts
immediately that challenge the north star