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Harish Peri

AMA: Salesforce Former Head of Product Marketing - Security Integrations Mobile, Harish Peri on Influencing the Product Roadmap

August 2, 2022 @ 10:00AM PT

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  1. What's your best product marketing 30-60-90 day plan to make a big impact?

    I'm starting a new job next week! Would love to hear your top tips in general as well as at the director level.

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    Answering this one in the 'product roadmap AMA' because its super relevant in all situations. I prefer 30-60 days, because most SaaS companies, PMMs need to move faster and start demonstrating value a lot faster than 90 days. 30 days - Find out your stakeholders and meet each one of them. Create a stakeholder map (can be a spreadsheet) that answers the questions: what are your expectations of me, what should I expect from you, what's been going well in the last 2-3 months, what needs improvement ...Read More

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  2. How can PMMs get involved in the early stages of Product development, and how much influence should a marketing strategy have on the overall vision for a product?

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    Ideally, very early on. If your org uses an agile methodology, its best if PMMs get involved at the release planning or 'epic' phase to help shape the bigger direction. Its not ideal for PMMs to get involved at the story level because that tends to be about technical tradeoffs and can lead to PMMs stepping on PM toes for no reason. If there is a clear hypothesis of target market/buyer/segment, then PMM can provide useful input on what capabilities and use cases should be prioritized.   PMMs shou ...Read More

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  3. How do you work with the sales and success teams, in conjunction with the product team, on the roadmap? What pieces of the puzzle do you own, versus your sales and success team?

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    PMMs can provide a scaling function for sales and success teams. Usually sales and success teams will offer inputs based on their experience with their territory, accounts or regions. PMM can help ask the right questions that can get to the root of buyer needs, synthesize feedback across sales/success teams, spot patterns and help PM teams make decisions in a more holistic way.

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  4. What kinds of market research do you do to shape the product roadmap and build, buy, and partner strategy? And more tactically, what format do you share your analysis?

    I'm tasked with doing market research -- voice of the customer, competitive intelligence, and doing internal interviews -- to segment a new market and what we need to invest in to increase market penetration.

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    For the purpose of this question, lets assume that the PMM team is either directly doing the work or strongly influencing the teams doing the work. E.g. competitive, market strategy, GTM, focus groups, etc. Then you need a few key inputs to help PM make roadmap decisions: 1. Market definition. Which specific market segment(s), market problems are you considering overall for this new product roadmap. This is very important upfront because it defines the common language for both PMM and PM teams.  ...Read More

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  5. As a product marketer, how do you prioritize the features that you are requesting in the roadmap?

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    Always think of a unique prioritization angle to help PMs make their decisions. Chances are they have talked to customers and users and have a good sense of their needs. But many times there are blind spots in terms of sales needs and competitive intelligence. Specifically: 1. What will make the product more sellable? Better demo environments, easier self serve experience, quicker billing, easier implementation process, etc. Things that aren't directly related to user needs but have a big impact ...Read More

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  6. 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?

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    If your main goal is to stay tightly aligned with PM, then its best to mirror their structure as much as possible. E.g. in my world we have alignment at both the product VP/GM level down to the individual PM level. Its not necessary to have a 1:1 between PM and PMM because that can be inefficient. Said another way: 1. Product VP/GM <--> PMM VP. Alignment of portfolio/solution level messaging, big pricing or GTM decisions, influencing longer term product strategy 2. Product leader <--&gt ...Read More

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  7. How do you know when you have enough solid information to put forward a product suggestion?

    This ties into convincing teams that a feature or change is needed. What level of evidence or research is needed to show that a certain feature or requirement is a "must have" on the product roadmap. "The competitor has it" is not always justifiable evidence.

    Harish Peri
    Harish Peri

    Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

    1. Focus group or survey data from customers or prospects
    2. Market research study showing the need for certain capabilities
    3. Survey data from sales, customer success showing the need
    4. Deal loss analysis showing that lack of a capability is killing deals

    If you have all of these, thats a perfect storm. But even one of these, provided its accurate and unique data can go a long way in convincing PM.

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