AMA: Salesforce Former Head of Product Marketing - Security, Integrations, Mobile, Harish Peri on Stakeholder Management

December 13, 2022 @ 10:00AM PT

What are some tried and true strategies to drive alignment cross-functionally for a remote team?

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

Define your north star, and stick with it. For remote teams: Whats our mission as a team Whats each person's mission and how does it tie to the north star How are we going to get there, what are the specific actions we take Do an audit every 3 months on if you are operating against that or not and fix if needed For cross functionals What business outcome are we driving, or problem are we solving Keep checking if everyone is on board with that, and resolve any conflicts immediately that challeng ...Read More

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What are some of the best ways to begin becoming a more influential PMM?

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

Demonstrate the basics: messaging, positioning, ability to make an impactful/relevant/meaningful presentation that conveys the value prop + differentiators of your product or portfolio. Cant be influential if your house is on fire. Learn the business REALLY well. How is money made, who do we sell to, how is the sales team structured, what are their main sales motions, is it self-serve/direct/partner driven? Learn it ALL. Then figure out where are opporutnities to add unique value: better target ...Read More

2,608 Views

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As a product marketer, I run multiple projects simultaneously. In such a scenario, stakeholder management becomes an operational task. Is there a checklist that you follow to ensure efficiency?

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

This is a common problem no matter what function you're in. Its about stakeholder management in complex, multi-threaded project environments. Really its about project management 101. A few tips: Before starting the project, get everyone's buy in on their role in the project. Use a RACI if that's the culture, or at least a simple document saying if someone is in the 'working team', 'approval team', informed/consulted team etc. This will ensure expectation management up front. If someone comes u ...Read More

2,768 Views

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Have you ever considered using a stakeholder empathy map? How much time and resources went into it? And how often do you think a product marketing team needs to refresh it? Thanks

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

Its always good practice to have a stakeholder map. The goal of this document (which I prefer to keep at at individual level) is to remind yourself of who should be included in decisions such as launches, campaigns, sales motions, pricing, web changes etc. Information you need in this could be: Name, title, relationship What should they expect from you What should you expect from them RACI for their involvement in key processes. E.g. R for pricing, or I for launches, etc Create one of these with ...Read More

2,846 Views

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My role sits at the intersection of brand marketing and product marketing. What do you say to those (on both sides of the field) who say product marketing isn't or shouldn't be "part of brand"?

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

I'll approach this question as a stakeholder problem. Seems to me that there is a lack of understanding of the shared goals between the brand and PMM teams - and hence a conflict between stakeholders. Ultimately they are both operating in service of your customers. They are jsut taking different lenses and operating at different altitudes. In an enterprise B2B company, there is no brand without a product that solves problems, and there is no organic product growth without a brand that delivers ...Read More

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Knowing that people in different functions and different levels of leadership often need different approaches to storytelling in decks, docs, and shareouts for key strategic projects, do you have any tricks for thinking through whether it's worth the work to "reskin" docs and decks for these diverse stakeholders?

I suppose with executive level comms, it's more obvious, but how do you manage work that's in-flight that requires as many as 5 PMs, in addition to analysts, designers, marketers, and more? How do you keep people "in the loop" at the right level of fidelity without opening up a can of worms and adding complexity? A DACI model is great, but has its limits.

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

Not necessarily. The goal is to ensure that for whatever initiative (launch, pricing, campaign etc) youre leading, the north star is clear, expectations from each member (or group) are clear, and the communication is very clear. The only group that usually 'needs' their own reskinned decks and docs are senior leadership. They usally get packaged updates that are much more streamlined with a focus on updates, risks and asks. If you have other stakeholders that are asking for their own format, Id ...Read More

1,892 Views

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What's a good way to approach decisions that UX/design feels they should own vs. Marketing feels they should own?

I've seen this quite a few times when it comes to brand related items both in terms of developing and brand keeping guidelines, as well as tone of voice where design has assumed they should have a stronger say.

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

Always comes down to, whats right for the customer. And what does each team uniquely bring to the table to drive the best customer outcome. UX can bring a unique lens of what end users what, vs marketing can bring the viewpoint of sales and buyers. Together, it can lead to products that easy to sell, easy to buy and easy to use, which is the holy grail. Also, if there is a lot of politics in your org, then best to explicitly call out stakeholders, create recurring forums, get buy in from folks b ...Read More

952 Views

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How to get everyone aligned on a decision making framework? Usually, everyone including engineers wants to get involved on strategy/marketing piece on what we want to communicate. How do we make sure people follow and understand it?

Harish Peri

Okta SVP Product Marketing • 3y

There's nothing wrong with engineering/UX/CSM etc getting involved in launch/pricing decisions (for eg). The key is to: establish parameters of what types of decisions need input and what can be done independently create a forum for opinions to be expressed determine and announce who the actual stakeholders are have a specific window in which feedback can be given So if youre doing a product launch for eg. Setup a working group recurring meeting involving all possible stakeholders. Use that to ...Read More

620 Views

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AMA: Salesforce Former Head of Product Marketing - Security, Integrations, Mobile, Harish Peri on Stakeholder Management

View AMA Answers

What are some tried and true strategies to drive alignment cross-functionally for a remote team?

What are some of the best ways to begin becoming a more influential PMM?

As a product marketer, I run multiple projects simultaneously. In such a scenario, stakeholder management becomes an operational task. Is there a checklist that you follow to ensure efficiency?

Have you ever considered using a stakeholder empathy map? How much time and resources went into it? And how often do you think a product marketing team needs to refresh it? Thanks

My role sits at the intersection of brand marketing and product marketing. What do you say to those (on both sides of the field) who say product marketing isn't or shouldn't be "part of brand"?

What's a good way to approach decisions that UX/design feels they should own vs. Marketing feels they should own?

How to get everyone aligned on a decision making framework? Usually, everyone including engineers wants to get involved on strategy/marketing piece on what we want to communicate. How do we make sure people follow and understand it?