AMA: Guidewire Software VP Product Marketing, Axel Kirstetter on Influencing the Product Roadmap

Like any department its always risky to commit to something that may fail / not happen. I find it helpful to shift the dialogue from roadmap and talk more about customer problems that are being solved and / or market opportunities that are being addressed. It moves the goal post from we must deliver X next week, month, quarter to how to plan to solve X problem. Further, most companies have some non-agile ie deadline occasion. like a customer event or internal sales kick-off where not sharing about where one is heading is simply a missed opportunity

At some point it makes sense for a company to invest in an international product team responsible for gathering non-domestic feedback. Once there, the same roadmap process should apply with trade-offs and priorities. And then its a matter of weighing up the importance of international opportunities with those elsewhere.

This should be a continuous exercise with time investment dependent on the where the biggest issues are. When it come to net new product launches, those that expand TAM, its worth spending tons of time on the roadmap. When the launch is around bug fixes and what is really CSAT, its probably not as worthwhile.

Competitive Insight impacts the roadmap in 2 ways. 1. It can be used to identify competitive strengths and weaknesses. That insight can be used to steer the roadmap while weighing up what is important to address and what can be ignored. 2. CI can als be used for pricing and packaging decisions. Are you a price leader or leaving money on the table? how are other providers their terms of service and payment conditions. subject to where entitlements are tracked (in the app or the billing system), this could also be used for roadmap items

We need to distinguish between what goes into the roadmap [1] and how it is communicated outwards [2]. For [1] establish PMM as a core stakeholder in the product planning process, giving them a regular seat in roadmap discussions. This allows PMM to bring valuable customer insights (VoC, Win/Loss), support data (feature requests, support tickets, and competitive data—and everything around inbound product marketing—before key decisions are made, ensuring features align with market and customer needs. When it comes to communicating it outbound [2], there are decisions to be made on time horizons, problem grouping, and solution or outcome grouping that PMM as product communication experts, are well versed in and can lead on. From there, shared success metrics can reinforce collaboration and set up integrated planning workflows where PMM reviews potential feature impact, aligning roadmap priorities with GTM success. Finally, establish a feedback loop post-launch to ensure continuous improvement based on real-world results.

Who says that PMM can't be the supplier of some of that information? PMMs can take the customer requests and map them against ICP or personas. They can take a point of view on the economic impact of technical debt vs acquisition vs retention vs adoption. From there they take a PoV and influence the roadmap