How to handle stakeholder requests?

#productmanagement

Author

Gary Chan
November 01, 2024

"Here's another thing you should do" - CEO


"But there's no more engineering resources on our PLG roadmap" - me

"You figure it out" - CEO

I am sure we all experienced this

How do you handle stakeholder requests on your roadmap? 🤔

It is an art for sure

Listen to how the requests impact the stakeholders 👂

Reflect

Is it something they need right away?

What are the strategic implications?

Have they requested it multiple times? Even on follow-up sessions?

Let's assume YES ✅

Then… 👇

What are some projects in the past or in progress that have some learnings?

AKA, what data do we already have? 📊

What is their understanding of the PLG roadmap today?

AKA, do they think you are twiddling your thumbs, or is this urgent? 🚨

Who else should be involved with this request?

AKA, this sounds like a large request; who else should reason with them

Let's assume it's reasonable

Next… ➡️

Bring it back to the team

And see if the PLG team has capacity

Are there areas in-flights that have higher priority

Go back to the stakeholders…

Communicate the priorities 📣

Start at high level

The metrics PLG is targeting this Quarters 🎯

The priorities in-progress

What are the key areas slotted in next

Where the stakeholder's request can fit 🧩

😂😂😂

In all seriousness...

As leaders

It's our responsibility to communicate the roadmap

How do we communicate the roadmap to diagonal leaders and the wider organization?

I changed my approach from reactive communication

To

Proactive communication

Here are our high-level metrics

Here's some of our challenges

Here's what we are working on

Lay it out from a high-level business impact

What is going well 👍

What is not* going well 👎

Own that communication 💬

One barometer I have in my experience

When you get requests from executive stakeholders

It's likely they don't know your roadmap

Drive that communication forward

I was not perfect 😅

I found where I fail

Is when I was the implementor, strategist, and the communicator

I was trying to do much 😫

Getting the metrics right

Come up with strategies

And present it to my inner circle

I was able to do that

But when it comes time...

I often dropped the ball on presenting to diagonal stakeholders

They are not requesting anything

Or it's not common that I speak to them often

But it was my responsibility to provide more outward communication 📢

Being the leader

It's important to communicate the roadmap

Don't let it sit in the roadmap tool

Nobody goes there

If they did…

They would have made the request in the roadmap tool 😅

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I am Gary Yau Chan. 3x Head of Growth. Product Growth specialist. 26x hackathon winner. I write about #PLG and #BuildInPublic. Please follow me on LinkedIn, or read about what you can hire me for on my Notion page.