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AMA: Twilio Principal Product Marketing Manager, IoT, Elizabeth Grossenbacher on Influencing the Product Roadmap

January 18 @ 10:00AM PST

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Twilio Principal Product Marketing Manager, IoT, Elizabeth Grossenbacher on Influencing the Product Roadmap

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How have you been able to successfully impact the product roadmap when you disagreed with a product leader and were able to persuade them?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

Story time! I once worked at a small company where two stakeholders disagreed on the product roadmap. The CTO disagreed with the CPO. In that scenario, the CTO had the experience as the customer, so this person felt that the experience was valid and warranted a seat at the table in product develo......Read More

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

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

I view these as two different things: (1) informing the future vision of the product roadmap and (2) impacting the roadmap in the short term to meet current customer requirements. An example for #1: A few years ago, I partnered with a PM to dream up a product that was unlike anything else on t......Read More

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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?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

First I try to understand why it isn’t a priority. I’ve seen this happen a lot. Many times, it’s because our brilliant product managers are trying to build a better way to “do it.” Other times, it’s because the feature doesn’t really make sense for the market, and it’s just a marketing ploy. For ......Read More

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How much of your product design is data driven based on product marketing learnings and experimentation vs trusting the word of the designer?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

We have never quantified this, but I will say that we always start with assumptions (i.e., “the work of the designer”). But then we go on to validate (or disprove) and further iterate on those assumptions with what PMM uncovers from customer data. I come to every collaboration with the assumpt......Read More

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Who should lead the creation of Customer Advisory Board? PMM with PM and CS or PM and CS with the advisory of PMM?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

Anyone can lead a Customer Advisory Board (CAB). But when you put together the goals of the CAB, you’ll see that it’s more efficient for it to sit under PMM. Here are two main reasons for this: 1. It’s part of our job. 😉 PMMs are uniquley positioned to lead the CAB because we already aim to......Read More

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What are two examples that you would share of how you influence the product roadmap to a Product Manager?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

Any time I’ve influenced the product roadmap, it was a direct result of a customer-centric research initiative. Here are two examples of this: 1. Focus Groups! After dozens of Voice of Customer interviews, I put together a face-to-face focus group. The event coincided with a key industry ev......Read More

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How do you define between a customer(s) want or request and a feature that is actually needed?

Customers may want many things, but it might not always be the right feature to implement. How do you decide this?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

My first thought is: Have you asked your PM this exact question? ;) In my experience, balancing customer wants and needs is typically handled by the PM, while PMM supports recommendations based on market and customer intelligence. How we handle this is by answering a handful of questions: 1.......Read More

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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.

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

I use both primary and secondary research. Here is a non-exhaustive list of research sources to help you get started: customer interviews, customer surveys, customer usage data, recorded sales calls (or interviews with sales if recorded calls are not available), sales data or win-loss reports, an......Read More

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What is the role of the product marketer when it comes to monitoring product analytics? What metrics to monitor? How do we differentiate the metrics a product marketer has to monitor from those that the PM owns?

Elizabeth Grossenbacher

Cisco Product Marketing Leader • January 19

This will depend on how your organization defines the PMM vs PM role. While I’ve never seen PMM “owning” product-specific analytics, I’ve also never seen PMM function without utilizing these metrics for analysis. Whoever “owns” these metrics will vary by organization. I would start by having a......Read More

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