AMA: Atlassian Head of Product Marketing Craft, Matt Hodges on Influencing the Product Roadmap

December 14, 2022 @ 11:00AM PT

What feedback do Product Marketing and Product Managers typically expect from alpha/beta users, and what perks or incentives do you offer them?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

PM and PMMs are likely to have different goals when it comes to feedback from users with early access, but I think that both should at the very least seek to understand, "to what degree have we solved the problem for customers that we set out to solve with this feature/product/release?". If you practice jobs-be-done, that question might be better phrased as "is the user able to hire our product for their job-to-be-done? Why or why not". As for PMM-specific expectations, I would base these on the ...Read More

2,544 Views

2 requests
How does your customers' (or the market) willingness to pay influence your product roadmap?

Do you prioritize features based on their revenue potential?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

This all depends on both your pricing and company strategy, which together determine to what degree revenue opportunity should be weighted when making roadmap decisions. Are you currently focused on optimizing for usage, growth, or revenue? Only you can answer that. In my experience, instead of focusing specifically on revenue, I prefer to prioritize based on "impact" of which revenue is just one measurable component. I could go into more depth on this, but the fine folks over at Intercom have a ...Read More

2,314 Views

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What research goes into informing Product what they should be delivering and what is the tangible output of that research?
Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y
Research

Competitor analysis to identify gaps to fill and opportunities to strengthen your unique value proposition

Customer research to understand needs and willingness to pay

Market and analyst research to inform how to strengthen your position in your category

Win/loss analysis with sales to identify common blockers and hurdle

With regard to the tangible output, see my answer to, "How do you influence the product roadmap if the roadmap has already been laid out by product?".
1,484 Views
2 requests
How do you influence the product roadmap if the roadmap has already been laid out by product?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

Product roadmaps are, or at least they should be, always subject to change. At least that is what a PM will tell you when you want to share the roadmap with a customer. 🤣 So, use that to your advantage. tl;dr Make a case for change and back that case with hard evidence Longer answer I would suggest you start with a repeatable process for ensuring PMM has the opportunity to bring its value in the form of rich customer, market, and sales insights to the table when the roadmap is being updated. In ...Read More

2,250 Views

2 requests
What’s your approach when you join a new company? What strategies have been working best, and what would you recommend not to try?
Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y
Seek first to understand before being understood

Focus on identifying where you can deliver the most impact in the short-term

Invest in establishing relationships with your closet stakeholders to aid in building trust over time

Set clear expectations with your manager on what success looks like in your role with concrete examples

Last, but not least, be kind and always assume positive intent
1,889 Views
1 request
Who should lead the creation of Customer Advisory Board? PMM with PM and CS or PM and CS with the advisory of PMM?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

I don't think there's a hard and fast rule here, so I'd start by asking what you want from a Customer Advisory Board and what types of customers you'd want to participate. In my experience, specifically at Intercom, the creation of the CAB was owned by Sales & Success since they owned the relationships with the customers we wanted to participate. The goal at the time was to help us shape our "enterprise" roadmap.

804 Views

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What is the role of the product marketer when it comes to monitoring product analytics? What metrics to monitor? How do we differentiate the metrics a product marketer has to monitor from those that the PM owns?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

Role depends on what other people/teams you have around to support you and metrics to monitor will depend on your GTM motion and business goals. Without getting specific, PMMs should care about the full funnel–from top to bottom. When you have a deep understanding of your funnel you can connect the dots where other can't and identify opportunities to improve, which may not be obvious in isolation. I think PMM should at the very least own traffic and signup metrics, but there should be shared acc ...Read More

1,620 Views

1 request
At what stage should product marketing collaborate with product design on the design process?

Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y

At the stage before anything is handed over to eng for design. At Atlassian, we refer to this as the "Explore" phase–"Wonder" and "Make" come before and after, respectively.

When you do this, be clear on the role PMM is playing and the type of feedback the design wants and needs to move forward. In my opinion, that feedback should not be focused on visual design.

1,458 Views

2 requests
What do you bring to the conversation during product/feature discovery?
Matt Hodges

Clarify.ai Head of Marketing | Formerly Atlassian, Intercom, Loom, Equals • 3y
How do competing offerings solve the problem for their customers today?

How do competitors price and package their own solution to this problem?

Are there opportunities to amplify a solution to the problem trying to be solved with product that's "already on the shelf"? i.e. How can we make what we build differentiated and/or defensible with features we already have?

What story do we want to be able to tell if we solve this problem for customers?
612 Views
1 request

AMA: Atlassian Head of Product Marketing Craft, Matt Hodges on Influencing the Product Roadmap

View AMA Answers

What feedback do Product Marketing and Product Managers typically expect from alpha/beta users, and what perks or incentives do you offer them?

How does your customers' (or the market) willingness to pay influence your product roadmap?

What research goes into informing Product what they should be delivering and what is the tangible output of that research?

How do you influence the product roadmap if the roadmap has already been laid out by product?

What’s your approach when you join a new company? What strategies have been working best, and what would you recommend not to try?

Who should lead the creation of Customer Advisory Board? PMM with PM and CS or PM and CS with the advisory of PMM?

What is the role of the product marketer when it comes to monitoring product analytics? What metrics to monitor? How do we differentiate the metrics a product marketer has to monitor from those that the PM owns?

At what stage should product marketing collaborate with product design on the design process?

What do you bring to the conversation during product/feature discovery?