How do you work with the Product team to get them to commit to a roadmap? How do you "sell" them the idea that it is important?

Convincing your PM partners to accept and fund your product or feature ideas is certainly never easy. The best approach will vary from one company to the next. That said, I've found that a combination of qual and quant works best -- plus some good old-fashioned persuasion techniques and relationship building.

Qual:

• What are our customers telling us in our advisory boards, panels or focus groups? Are they reflecting a need/pain point that your product idea solves for? Are they directly asking for or affirming their interest in buying/trialing a product idea you have? Do these customers represent a valuable segment we want to protect or expand into? (Pro tip: Whenever possible, get your PM's in front of customers directly so they're hearing their feedback firsthand; it's more persuasive that way.)

• What is the competition doing in this space? How would your product idea or recommendation position us more competitively vs our peers?

• What are your Product team's priorities, principles, or strategic pillars? Can you show how your idea directly maps to the things your PM team already cares about the most?

• Do you have any partners in Strategy, Finance or Business Operations who can do a rough market sizing or TAM analysis of your top product ideas? This can add analytical heft to your recommendations.

Quant:

• Have you conducted market research or customer surveys that reflect high demand for your product or feature idea, or a profound customer need/pain point that your idea addresses?

• Does your company already conduct regular customer "pulse" surveys (NPS, C-SAT, etc.)? If so, you might already have a lot of readymade customer verbatims that reflect a need or demand for your product/feature idea.

• Do you ever survey your sales org? What are the top feature requests from reps? How do they feel about your idea's potential to unlock incremental budgets?

Relationship angle:

• Building personal trust and kinship with your PM partners makes them more likely to embrace PMM's ideas. Never underestimate spending face-to-face time with your PM counterparts for coffee, lunch, happy hour, etc!

Experience angle:

• Do you have unique industry or functional wisdom from a prior job/role that you can draw from when fashioning your argument? Draw from your anecdotal outside experiences to position yourself as a trusted domain expert to "fill in the gaps" in PM's knowledge of the market or customer.

Like any department its always risky to commit to something that may fail / not happen. I find it helpful to shift the dialogue from roadmap and talk more about customer problems that are being solved and / or market opportunities that are being addressed. It moves the goal post from we must deliver X next week, month, quarter to how to plan to solve X problem. Further, most companies have some non-agile ie deadline occasion. like a customer event or internal sales kick-off where not sharing about where one is heading is simply a missed opportunity

• Get buy-in early. You can "own" the customer-facing roadmap, but make sure to ask for their input early and often. This collaboration makes them more likely to commit, as they see their input reflected in the final plan and you're less likely to get any crazy surprises when it comes time to discuss plans for the next seasonal launch.

• Understand their challenges, concerns, constraints, and priorities, such as technical limitations or resource allocation. By acknowledging these challenges, you show that you understand their perspective and am ready to work within those boundaries.

  • But...if something is seriously delayed/pushed, ask WHY!

• Probably the best tip from me...We all HATE last minute changes. I recommend setting a clear and consistent standard for when those changes can be made. For example, establish a "go/no go" timing for a feature/update to be included in a seasonal product release (i.e. x months/x weeks out from the launch date, nothing can be changed after that).

  • If/when something is delayed, but you're already including it in a seasonal release, I say keep it (unless it's deprioritized for 9+ months).

• Remember, "tech ready" is different from "market ready." If a product manager wants to ship a feature by adding a note in the tool that it's new and ready to be used, they totally can.

• SHARE SUCCESSES, SHARE SUCCESSES, SHARE SUCCESSES, SHARE SUCCESSES

And if you haven't tried the RICE framework to help prioritize in a numerical/data-driven way. try this!

RICE Framework (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort)

• Reach: How many users/customers will this feature impact?
  Example: Number of users affected, target segment size.

• Impact: What is the expected benefit?
  Example: Score as High (3), Medium (2), Low (1).

• Confidence: How certain are you about the reach and impact?
  Example: High (100%), Medium (80%), Low (50%).

• Effort: How much work is required?
  Example: Estimate in engineering person-weeks or months.

Formula:
RICE Score= (Reach×Impact×Confidence)/Effort

Example:

Feature: Real-time behavioral data pipeline for enterprise clients.

• Reach: Affects 20 enterprise customers, impacting 15% of revenue.

• Impact: High (3) — Addresses a top complaint and enables upsell opportunities.

• Confidence: Medium (80%) — Based on customer feedback and sales insights.

• Effort: 4 person-months.

• RICE Score: (20x3x0.8)/4=12

I would focus on research and revenue, which can be highly interrelated. Consider a situation where one or more large strategic customers have indicated a preference for a new product or feature or change to an existing one. Tying your customer insights to incremental or potential lost revenue will strengthen your case.

I just launched a new product that delivers multiple products through a single API. The key insight? Delayed delivery due to multiple API integrations was causing a delay in recognized revenue. If customers can't go live as quickly as they prefer, they can lose interest or turn to a competitor.

My recommendation (and experience):

To influence the product roadmap, tie your recommendation to a customer need that impacts revenue.