AMA: Atlassian Former Marketing Director (Trello), Jessica Webb on Influencing the Product Roadmap

This happens a lot, PMMs are brought in quite frantically once a team already has a very specific way of working and it's on the PMM to figure out how to slot themselves in. I think the first thing that needs to happen is to clearly delineate and articulate team members' roles and responsibilities - Atlassian actually has a great guided playbook you can run with your team to do just this! Doing the above ^ creates a space for the team to better articulate and understand their own roles and those ...Read More

I'd start with the data! This may mean tapping your data analysts, marketing analysts, basically anybody who is knee-deep in the metrics. What I would do first is attempt to map out the funnel for the product in question (if this doesn't already exist) - figuring out how people get to your website, what they do once they arrive, and where any significant drop-offs may be occurring.  In this case, if you are more focused on retention then I'd look at what users are doing once they are in the prod ...Read More

Over the years we've worked really hard to get PMMs a seat at the table when it comes to working with the predetermined product triad - Engineering Manager, Product Manager, Designer. I've found that building individual relationships with each of these people is key to getting brought in to higher-level conversations from the onset. Besides developing interpersonal relationships I think it's really important to express that you WANT to be a part of the design process, and that doesn't mean you n ...Read More

Great question and I've thought about this a lot, I LOVE watching Product Managers work and think that the problems they tackle are super fascinating, that being said, I'm a marketer at heart. I think PMMs are lucky to be in a position where we get to work super closely with PMs but our jobs are very different. I like Product Marketing because it's so versatile, what I do from day-to-day can really vary but I also get to really own things and take them from start to finish, collaborating with to ...Read More

I definitely think the process when it comes to PMM life is very important. Especially for things like GTMs. One of my team's go-to resources is the Confluence Messaging House Template - I like this one because it really is essential for getting everyone on the same page about a product or feature. This is the kind of thing that takes some leg work upfront but pays massive dividends down the line. It helps keep everyone who works on the product or feature – writers, designers, events and sales t ...Read More

This is always tough, for Trello this was trello.com/templates, it's something we had thought about doing for a long time but we didn't want to be overly prescriptive about how people should use our product. That being said, we got a lot of inquiries about templates - and a LOT of other tools provided templates - so it became something that felt like we should consider adding. Like I've said in a few other answers, I think the best way to convince internal stakeholders that something should be a ...Read More

Bringing in information about trends in the market, what competitors are doing, and the most important thing - USER FEEDBACK! I have learned over the years that the best way to get any sort of buy-in for roadmap planning is to come armed with real evidence. This includes existing user anecdotes but it also definitely includes higher-level trends you are seeing in the market. I think PMMs should be utilized as more than just marketers, we should be experts on our users, their needs, and the clima ...Read More

Some of the best prioritization I've seen and been a part of is based on the ICE framework: Impact: what do we think this feature will do for our user-base, our metrics, our bottom-line. This is also a place to consider the size of the opportunity, is it going to impact your whole userbase or a small subset of users? Is this a longer-term feature or a quick fix? Confidence: how sure are we of this, do we have the right data to back it up, can we test it? I'm going to sound like a broken record b ...Read More

One of the biggest things people get wrong when working remotely is accidentally forgetting to create space for human connection. It can be so easy to end up in a very transactional workflow where you only meet to check-in on statuses of projects and to talk about timelines. This can go on for months when all of a sudden you look around and realize your team is burnt out and disconnected. Something that helps me stay connected with all types of teammates, but in this case my PM is making time fo ...Read More

Building relationships with the right stakeholders. If you want to have any influence regarding the product roadmap you need to garner respect from the people who already influence it most. The best way to build those relationships is to create consistent touchpoints and check-ins that don't just happen when you want something :) Think about what you can bring to the table, whether it's competitive intel, customer insights, or general brainstorming - you need to give to get. I see many PMMs make ...Read More

This is always a bit of a dance, I'd say we've fluctuated over time with being better at sharing things in advance vs. more so communicating a changelog of features we've added over time. In my eyes, this often comes back to who owns this type of communication, and it can sometimes be a bit of a hot potato between PMs and PMMs. The needs for these changes being communicated are also different within our userbase. Understandably, some of our larger-scale clients and admins need to know about chan ...Read More

It can be tough to get access to data sometimes depending on how your org or team is setup. Maybe you are small and don't have people dedicated to digging into this, maybe team siloes create too much process or your industry is highly regulated. If that is the case I'd encourage you to go out and get the data yourself - can you test competitor products and write up your findings? Can you have some friends or relatives sign up for your tool and gather feedback? Social listening is another great w ...Read More