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

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 development discussions. As the PMM on the product, I took extra care to understand why the CTO disagreed. I took an inquisitive approach and treated the conversation like an interview with a Key Opinion Leader. I continued to bring the interview back to how this would impact the customer (current and future). Ultimately, we were able to come to an agreement and made timeline adjustments which accommodated the CPO’s vision as well as the CTO’s insights.

When you have a disagreement, step one should be to have an open conversation with the customer’s best interest at heart. More often than not, the PM will have a good reason for their thinking. It’s possible that one of us has different information that maybe neither of us shared or didn’t explain thoroughly.

If you still disagree after this conversation, bring it back to the customer and the customer’s priorities. More importantly, explaining WHY this is critical for delivering outstanding customer experience. Bring it back to both qualitative and quantitative information:

• Use customer quotes
• % or # of customers requesting the feature
• Call out specific logos for customers who have credibility (champions or big logos have worked well for me)
• Explain how the feature impacts buyer requirements
• Provide win/loss data based on the feature
• Share dollar amounts around opportunity costs from not having the feature

Most disagreements come from people having different sets of assumptions or information. I've found that if you lay out the reasons why you believe the product roadmap should be a particular way and make it easy to prove or disprove your hypotheses, it's easier to make better decisions. For example, in one of my prior product launches, our sales team strongly disliked our mobile app interface and disagreed with the product team on whether the product was ready for a broader launch. Rather than arguing about this subject, I worked with the product team to set up a few additional usability workshops that anyone across the team could attend. We brought in a couple of actual end users to test the mobile app and provide feedback directly. This quickly showed that we needed a redesign of the mobile app and avoided more back-and-forth discussion of the topic based on different opinions across two internal groups. In general, when there's a disagreement on product direction, I try to lay out the assumptions and look for easy, low commitment ways to test hypotheses and inform more objective decisions.

I always fall back on the first rule of product management - "your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant." Back your idea up with solid, detailed customer research. A good blend of qualitative anecdotes and quantitative research data will serve you well. 

Also, just general good advice for winning debates, is to make sure you fully understand where the other person is coming from. The PM knows her product and market well, so her opinion likely has merit. You can only present a compelling alernative if you know exactly what part of her reasoning you disagree with, and you're only going to have credibility if you can demostrate you know exactly where she is coming from. 

As the CEO of Product School, I’ve seen how Product Marketers are responsible for more than they used to be in the past . Especially in terms of being aware of development timelines, constraints, and roadmapping. 

I’d say that a good PM should reach out to its product marketing team to answer specific questions about the customers in the roadmap. Answers to questions like “Who will use our product? Who will pay for our product? What do they care about? Why will they choose our solution?” are of vital importance to narrow down the potential market to a realistic cohort of potential buyers.
So if your input is based on those points, as part of the product marketing department you are one of the best sources of information. 

However, in terms of how to persuade the PM team, I’d suggest letting go of opinions and keeping to the facts. But remember, there are some parts of the roadmap where a PM might need the help of the technical team, and others the PMM team. So don’t get frustrated on the parts where you don’t necessarily fit the best in. As I said before, a good PM will definitely need your help in constructing their buyer personas and understanding who their customer is.

Only with market facts. Opinions don't count unless you are the CEO or founder. The facts will speak louder than your emotions. 

*** I like short, pithy answers. Had to add this filler to get to the minimum of 300 words. Please forgive me for the unnecessary dribble. I put asterisks around it so you know to ignore it. Maybe next time I'll use Lorem Ipsum to fill in the extra space. ***