Product Management Stakeholders

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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