What is the best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback in preparation for a launch?

Not all launches are created equal, so it’s important to have a t-shirt sizing exercise upfront to determine how large a launch is (and hence what level of effort/mix of activities should be dedicated to launch). Once that’s done, the sooner we can put a launch plan in place, socialize that, and kick-off the launch process, the better. The process can then include checkpoints like getting the messaging finalized, locking the website copy, etc. with each activity having a mini-process to get sign ...Read More

Hey - Thanks for the question!  Short answer - Early. and. often.  Get stakeholders in a room early on and set the cadence with them. When I was at Zendesk, we used a RACI model when it comes to ownership and development of launch assets. Set this and then decide when you want folks to review. My take is that it's always best to share before you're ready. Sometimes it can be hard to do because you receive critical feedback BUT that feedback helps immensely with whatever you're trying to do.  As ...Read More

As often as possible. Launches are exciting for all departments - so questions and input can definitely start increasing the closer you get to GA, launch date. To help with this, create opportunities to communicate your launch plan to each team. Tailor the message to your audience as Sales will have interests around pricing, packaging, target audience, dates; while CS will have questions about customer environment changes, reporting impacts, and shifts to rules/established workflows. Outside of ...Read More

This is a great question. Managing stakeholders is such a huge part of the product marketing role - and it can quickly become unweidly if not managed properly. I think the cadence is really personal to what kind of lead-time your team has running up to a launch and the size of your teams, etc. But I can give some insight into the key milestones where we are solict stakeholder feedback with clear guidelines on 1. what kind of feedback we're looking for 2. timeline 3. setting expectations around h ...Read More

We tend to take a pretty standardized approach for leading launches with my team. First we do a kickoff meeting with key stakeholders/deliverable owners across sales and marketing where we cover the target persona, problem and positioning of the new launch (shared early as a pre-read too) including a proposal of launch deliverables like emails, blog posts and their proposed owners. We then open for discussion on the proposal, requesting suggestions for additional opportunities and feedback.  Sta ...Read More

This is a good question. It depends how much buffer time you have leading to launch and whether you’re in a comfortable place to execute on each phase and collect feedback at each step. For me, I often need different people’s input at different stages.  The two stages I need input in most are 1) after drafting positioning, messaging, and high level launch tactics and 2) about a four to two weeks ahead of the launch to ensure there’s time to make any last minute adjustments.  That said, stakehold ...Read More

It varies as you proceed in the various stages of the product development and GTM. For example, in the early product development phase, It is more ad-hoc where I rely heavily on the customer feedback through our customer interviews / focus groups / surveys to ensure our team clearly understands the customers' needs. I gather feedback with the core team that is in those same customer research sessions to help synthesize what we're hearing from the customer. Then as I prepare for the pilot and lau ...Read More

Because a launch has so many different moving parts across very distinct disciplines, it is always handy to be agile as pivots may occur. The best cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback is throughout the launch process - at the beginning, during the middle and definitely at the end. There are different stakeholders that you want to involve at the various stages of a launch. If unsure, you can use a RACI to determine who is in the “need to get” vs “nice to get” feedback camp. In the beginning ...Read More

Here’s a framework to build a cadence for gathering stakeholder feedback during launch prep - Build some basic assets for team members to align on, such as: Launch FAQ: A 2-3 page doc on key facts around the launch Deck version of the FAQ doc: To get a buy in from business leadership, so that functional leaders can be looped in. Set up one on one alignment calls (over zoom / MS Teams) with functional leaders (like heads of consumer marketing, branding, design etc.): Get their input & feedbac ...Read More