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AMA: Microsoft Director - Head of Copilot for Microsoft 365 Narratives and Sales Enablement, Alina Fu on Influencing the Product Roadmap

June 6 @ 9:00AM PT

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How would you recommend a PMM influence the product team to think more about longer term value rather than just always building products geared towards low hanging fruit/quick money?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

This is when strategic planning – either annually, semi annually or even quarterly – would be valuable. When product teams can think about their north star, big picture v...

1151 Views

2 requests

As a product marketer, when and how do you communicate your product roadmap to both active and prospective customers?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Our team takes it seriously and does a great job of making sure the product roadmap is accurate, updated regularly and communicated with our customers in a timely manner....

1288 Views

2 requests

What do you think of a public product roadmap for the customers as part of product marketing?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

I think it’s great to share a public roadmap if your company is able to meet timelines and expectations. We provide public roadmaps for our customers on our external webs...

1146 Views

2 requests

What kind of PMM organizational structure is ideal for ensuring that PMMs are set up for success (in this case, to influence the Product roadmap)?

For eg: Should PMMs be aligned with PMs (we have a 3:1 mapping), or should PMMs be aligned with the market/buyer persona or something else?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Some organizations don’t have PMM influencing the product roadmap at all. I believe that is shortsighted. It is valuable to have PMMs weigh in on the product roadmap, esp...

1212 Views

2 requests

How do you advocate for adding a new feature to the roadmap when it's something competitors have launched and customers are asking for, but internally it isn't seen as a priority?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

This comes down to how leaders at your organization make decisions. For this specific scenario, I wonder which functions within a company are not aligned that this featur...

1175 Views

2 requests

How can we leverage product marketing for post-feedback product updates? What's the best way to reintroduce a product to users who didn't initially like or understand it?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

This depends on how your organization views product marketing. If PMM is seen as a change management vehicle, what are the established rules of communicate for product ch...

1168 Views

2 requests

How do you manage and inform the futuristic vision of the product roadmap with current customer requirements / feedback?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Current customer requirements are helpful to give us a sense of where they are getting stuck, what are their pain points and unmet needs. A futuristic vision of the produ...

1259 Views

2 requests

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

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

My experience has been that product managers work with product design directly. I personally have not engaged with the design process beyond seeing their concept videos o...

1192 Views

2 requests

How and when do you integrate qualitative research throughout your product development and launch cycle?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Integrating qualitative research throughout the product development and launch cycle is a multi-faceted process.If you read books on product management, they will discuss...

1240 Views

2 requests

Our product team ships feature updates incrementally, how would you decide the scope of each of the feature changes? Do you market each of the feature updates as when they come out, or group them together? Thank you!

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Depending on how broad your product is (does it span multiple categories, are there different aspects of the platform,e tc) and how many products your company offers - yo...

1152 Views

2 requests

How do you influence product roadmap when big picture product vision hasn't been established and there are continuous changes?

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

This sounds like there may be some alignment with the C Suite on what is their big picture product vision. It is hard to motivate teams and lead others when leaders don’t...

1680 Views

2 requests

What are best ways to develop a great working relationship with product management counterparts?

Weekly status, shared google docs, etc

Alina Fu•

Microsoft Director, M365 Copilot for storytelling and narratives, sales enablement, and compete • 1y

Establish trust with your PM counterparts. You can do this by bringing something of value to the table, sharing your data-driven insights with them, working WITH them and...

1632 Views

1 request