AMA: Snorkel AI Former Director of Product Marketing, Molly Friederich on Stakeholder Management

I've been fortunate to work with extremeley talented teammates who have far more expertise than I do against their specialized channels, but as is inevitable, I have experienced conflict when these channel owners must juggle several launch or content priorities.  In an ideal world, as a PMM you've provided ample lead time for planning, clear positioning and message strategy, launch goals (including co-created channel goals). In a scenario where channel owners aren't able to invest as much as you ...Read More

My top recommendation is to immerse yourself in the prospect/customer experience, document your learnings, and surface insights that are helpful to those around you in discussion. The credibility of a relevant customer quote or anecdote stands on its own and demonstrates your ability (and commitment) to customer centricity. Another is to seek to understand, not to prove—what I mean is it's good to ask genuine questions to speed up your onboarding or ramping; while it may be uncomfortable to "exp ...Read More

I'd say the foundation lies in communication and meeting commitments. Despite the best intentions, you'll risk eroding trust if you're not on the same page with your teammates about what their top priorities are, exactly how you can/will support, and in what timeframe. Once you have aligned, continue investing in communication both progress and, critically, any changes to as scope or timeframe—the earlier you flag shifts, the better you're able to reinforce trust. Beyond this foundation, you can ...Read More

While this will depend on the company culture and existing relationships across stakeholders, there are first principles that I always find helpful.  Crystalize your story and strategy first. Start by mapping out your goals, critical context, and what you need from each stakeholder end to end (with placeholders for inevitable unknowns). The more buttoned up you are, the easier it will be for your stakeholders to help you.  Think from the vantage of each stakeholder you're seeking to build alignm ...Read More

Getting everyone aligned on a decision making framework can definitely be tough, especially in fast-paced environments. I've had my share of projects where we kick-off with a thoughtful RAPID, only to have that fly out the window as we get into crunch time.  That said, when decision frameworks have persisted through projects, it's usually because we've 1) had full buy-in from the named Decider (in the RAPID framework I tend to use) and 2) have been consistent in reinforcing the framework with ea ...Read More