AMA: Barracuda Networks Product Marketing Director, Olesia Klevchuk on Influencing the Product Roadmap

This is a great question to ask here.   To start with, don’t just bring problems without solutions. I think we have all seen this – someone walks into roadmap planning meeting and says “customers are complaining about X” but has zero ideas about what to do about it. That’s not influence, that’s just noise. Instead come with a couple of approaches, even if they are very rough ideas. Show them that you’ve thought it through.   As you propose and talk through ideas start with a ‘why’ rather than a ...Read More

There are several ways PMMs can share roadmap externally while being strategic about it. Use your customer facing channels (these will probably have the most impact). For example, during customer calls or QBRs – you or your customer success team can share relevant upcoming features that directly address customer pain points. I’ve found success saying something like “base on the feedback like yours, we are working of feature X this quarter”. This shows that we are listening without overpromising. ...Read More

There are two things to consider here what’s happening in the market and what will move the business forward. As a PMM you should be listening to customers, sales team, keeping an eye on competitors. Input from all of these sources can be very valuable during annual planning. You could prepare a short brief ahead of planning that summarizes any new (or old!) customer pain points that keep surfacing during win/loss analysis; a competitor’s new capability that sales struggle to position against an ...Read More

One of the most practical ways you as a PMM can influence the is by bring in the voice of the customer. For example, if you notice a consistent theme in win/loss, say customers are walking away because you don’t integrate with a tool they rely on. Instead of saying “we need this integration”, bring in the numbers and share something like “We’ve lost 8 deals in the last quarter worth $600K because of this gap”. That’s very powerful context project manager can use.   Another way is by looking at c ...Read More

The roadmap and marketing strategy are basically your rebranding guardrails, they tell you not if you should rebrand but when and how. The roadmap will tell you about timing and scope. If you are planning, let’s say, a major platform shift or launching into a completely new market, that could be a signal that your current brand might not stretch to cover where you are going. But if your roadmap is mostly incremental improvements, rebranding might be an overkill, and you just need better messagin ...Read More