How do you adjust to stakeholder preferences as a product manager?

In the world of product management, success hinges on effectively identifying key stakeholders. While various frameworks can guide you and provide structured approach, yet there are nuanced insights that can't be encapsulated within them. # Org charts & roles are not true reflection of actual influence # Expectation are not always stated black and white # Often asks will be conflicting with your product vision So go beyond the matrices and charts, network, see whose support you will require. Possible that you included Engineering, Design, Sales & Marketing but missed Compliance stakeholders whose go ahead will be critical at the time of launch.

Every company has power dynamics. That power is yielded differently by different people. Often companies skew to sales, or product, or engineering or marketing. Knowing who commands the ROI and decision making is key to adjust your stakeholder management. The ability to get the resources you need to execute your product strategy is often connected to the most important stakeholders' view of you and your team. It doesn't mean this is the right way, but often it is what it is.

Understand the Desired Outcome and Create a Win-Win Strategy. Considering that stakeholder management is one of the most vital tenet of product ideation, design, development, roll-out and eventual managment, it is important to understand their pain point, desired outcome and how it aligns to the overall objective of the organization, and in so doing create a win-win situation. Change management is one key challenge for stakeholders when a new product is in view, especially if it radically changes how they manage it in the face of competition and industry dynamism. As product managers, it is our responsibility to fully understand the product and communicate effectively through the development process to guarantee stakeholder buy-in.

Managing stakeholder preferences as an product manager involves identifying all relevant stakeholders, actively listening to their needs, and prioritizing based on alignment with your product vision. Clear communication is crucial, including sharing your roadmap and making well-considered trade-offs when preferences conflict. Data-driven decisions, iterative development, and a user-centric focus ensure your product remains responsive to evolving preferences. Conflict resolution, documentation, and measuring success through defined KPIs round out the process. Adaptability and continuous learning are key, as you balance diverse interests while driving your product towards its goals.

My tip for this moment is to cultivate empathy with each of the stakeholders. Empathy goes beyond understanding product development for each stakeholder; it’s also about understanding each individual’s unique context, distinct perspective, and abilities. By listening carefully to your stakeholders, you will build strong relationships, ensuring more aligned and effective solutions.

One and only important stakeholders are the customers. All other stakeholders inside the company are advocates of their department or function or interest group.

Identification of stakeholders is crucial. I'm part of building a data visualisation tool where client requirements are part of final implementation cycle. However, generally someone from the leadership position passes on the requirements. But the product utilisation is done by all levels of stakeholders, right from the entry level to supervisors all the way till Leadership. Fundamentally, all of them look at the same KPIs and metrics [more or less]. But the product delivery is tweaked for each one of them. With experience, you'd come to know that this is one of the most crucial elements in keeping customers happy. Even though your product makes sense, it should strike with the use case of the stakeholder

Why Stakeholder Identification Matters Alignment with Goals: Identifying stakeholders ensures your product aligns with business objectives, crucial in SaaS and B2B sectors. Resource Allocation: Knowing who controls resources lets you focus on initiatives likely to secure approval and funding. Risk Mitigation: Stakeholder mapping uncovers potential roadblocks, enabling proactive problem-solving. Enhanced Communication: Tailored messaging for different stakeholder groups minimises misunderstandings, keeping projects on track.

Start with the key customer insights from the voice of the most active/users of your product and services. If the new product feature or iterations or offering will deliver a significant product advantage, higher stickiness and deliver PROFITABLE revenue, it should help guide your decision.

Communication can help you understand where the stakeholders are coming from, as well as help your stakeholders understand your view. That communication breeds an understanding that leads to effective negotiation, and in that effective negotiation comes ownership and buy-in on behalf of the stakeholders that grows excitement for the product direction.

Every product strategy starts from a goal (north star or KPI) and a vision (what you believe the future will turn into). Have a solid vision and goal guiding your decisions is the best shield against stakeholder pressure or HIPPO dumps. Being able to communicate, adjusted to the stakeholder on the other end, is key to guarantee they contribute in a positive way. If you don't do this, they will take over the decision making process and turn you into a shopping list taker.

Why Aligning Goals and Vision Matters Strategic Cohesion: Clear alignment avoids conflicts between stakeholder preferences and product direction, crucial for maintaining a unified strategy. Informed Decision-Making: Involving stakeholders in goal-setting ensures their insights are considered, leading to more robust OKRs and KPIs. Shared Understanding: Regular communication of the product vision fosters a common purpose, enhancing stakeholder buy-in and collaboration. Success Metrics: Aligned goals enable the creation of relevant success metrics, ensuring everyone measures progress in a consistent manner.

In my journey as a senior product manager, I've discovered that embracing empathy is a powerful tool for navigating stakeholder preferences. Beyond understanding their roles and expectations, it's crucial to empathize with their goals and challenges. This empathy enables you to not only meet their preferences but also find creative ways to align them with your product vision. By genuinely listening and placing yourself in their shoes, you can foster stronger partnerships and build a shared commitment to the success of your product.

Art of balancing stakeholder preferences while staying true to product vision, strategy & roadmap. Key strategies include: Identifying stakeholders and understanding their expectations Prioritizing a user centric approach to meet customer needs and preferences, Establishing open, transparent communication channels to foster trust and gather valuable insights, Educating stakeholders about product management principles and methodologies Adapting with flexibility and agility to evolving preferences and market dynamics Seeking alignment through shared goals decision making & find common ground These strategies enable me to effectively navigate the challenge of accommodating stakeholder preferences while delivering successful products

Every B2B company's product manager goes through this. But this is inevitable. Hear me out. As a user of a B2C product, if the product doesn't align with your use-case, you'll stop using it and jump to another one. Its that simple. But in a B2B product, this option is not there at the end user. Its generally multi-year deals with the product company. So as a user ,you tend to demand changes. From a PM perspective, this used to be very frustrating for me. But lately I've realised this is genuine, by being empathetic towards the customers. Now I proceed the problem in a different way. I've checklist as which feature requests and feedbacks to go into roadmap, patch enhancements etc.Somebody is helping you enhance your product, whats the harm?

Absolutely! Having solid goals (OKR, KPI, Roadmap) is essential, but equally important is the ability to communicate product progress to stakeholders and champion your initiatives. As mentioned previously, prioritize empathy and focus on your users' problems. Maintain a continuous learning cycle with them. This will provide enough arguments and data to support product development and keep everyone aligned on the problem you are solving. Focus on the problem and constantly learn from your users/customers.

I suggest product managers start by sensing the level of understanding and commitment from stakeholders to a specific organizational strategy and goals. It's not uncommon to see product managers creating prioritization frameworks tied to strategic goals, to see those overrun by one-off or tangent requests, including from people building that strategy and defining those goals. Being 'more papist than the Pope' gets draining after a while. When product managers and stakeholders are committed to delivering on the same goals and strategy, more involvement will bring more alignment. When no overall company strategic direction is followed, no amount of involvement will do. Understand which case are you in.

Aligning Goals & Vision Observation: Misalignment: Often derails product direction. Communication: Constant, clear vision sharing is vital. Strategic Harmony: Ensure vision matches organizational objectives. Inclusive Planning: Involve stakeholders in goal setting. Feedback: Essential for refining OKRs, KPIs, and metrics. Unified Understanding: Creates a smooth product pathway. Achieving alignment propels the product towards success, ensuring satisfaction and efficacy.

Why Validating Assumptions and Hypotheses Matters Reduced Uncertainty: Data-driven validation minimises guesswork, aligning stakeholder expectations with factual insights. Increased Confidence: Evidence-based decisions bolster stakeholder trust, making it easier to secure resources and support. Conflict Resolution: Transparent sharing of validation methods and results clarifies disagreements, fostering a more collaborative environment. Informed Choices: Validation ensures that product decisions are not just opinion-based but are backed by empirical evidence, enhancing overall strategy.

In my opinion, validating hypothesis is easy internally. Cross verify the same the product improvement across other client and users. I mean, if you are a product manager, you would have an eye for features. When stakeholder gives you feedback, it must immediately click if its useful or not. Rest the data is for validating the same.

When you're building a feature you decided there is value in pursuing an hypothesis. Proving the hypothesis is true will return more value than the investment. The way you know whether the hypothesis is true is by validating it, whether pre-production or post-launch. Validation helps you allocate resources with a high degree of certainty, and not make it binary. Validation also trumps opinions, which stakeholders tend to have many.

Focus on your user, on the problem, and keep continuous learning! Even when you think you have all the validations, ask your users if this is indeed a problem. Whenever possible, and if you have the opportunity, go to the field, see how your users solve the problem you want to address, and analyze if it makes sense. Conduct quick validation tests, observe what worked, what didn't, learn, improve, and redo the tests. The success of your product depends on continuous improvements. For this, you need to be in continuous learning with your users.

Validating assumptions & hypotheses is crucial, underpinning informed decision making & aligning development with factual insights. A structured validation approach, utilizing A/B testing, user interviews, prototype testing, provides objective, evidence-based insights for decision making. In a past project, an assumed beneficial feature fell flat in real-world testing. This early feedback allowed refinement before full-scale release, saving resources & ensuring success. Sharing these insights & methods with stakeholders is vital. It builds trust & demonstrates a commitment to evidence-based decisions, ensuring all voices are heard & valued, fostering a collaborative and informed product development environment.

Personally, I've found that it's more helpful to reframe it as "joint solutioning" rather than as compromising. Your stakeholders have goals, pain points, constraints, and context that you may not be aware of. As a product manager, you want to work with them to surface this valuable information so that you can create a solution together. And, sometimes, the most important thing for a stakeholder is simply to be heard. Previously, when I built products for real estate agents, one of their concerns was "we never get to talk to product," which meant that they didn't adopt new features because they didn't trust us. Once we looped in Real Estate Ops into our roadmapping, we found that they were much more likely to adopt new functionality!

Negotiating something unfeasible to stakeholders is difficult. It takes more communication than technicality. Here's a personal experience. A client of mine wanted an aggregated data dashboard. It was logically not possible, as there was no key between the two data sets. My consultant went ahead and told the client its not possible. They didn't bulge. Started questioning the product. Next day I went on the call, started with an example. Asked him to calculate the metric on pen and paper with the given set of information. He realised its not possible. Stakeholder management is not dumbing it down. Its explaining the tech in the right way.

Why Negotiating and Compromising Matters Trust Building: Skillful negotiation fosters trust, laying the foundation for long-term stakeholder relationships. Conflict Resolution: Compromise allows for a harmonious path forward when stakeholder preferences clash, ensuring project continuity. Data Leverage: Using evidence and stakeholder analysis strengthens your negotiation position, making your proposals more compelling. Mutual Benefits: Finding win-win solutions not only resolves immediate issues but also aligns stakeholders towards common goals, enhancing collaboration.

In product management, balancing varied stakeholder expectations is crucial. Utilize tools for detailed stakeholder mapping and ensure clear, consistent communication of product vision and goals. Employ an evidence-based approach for decision-making, sharing methods and results transparently with stakeholders. When faced with conflicting expectations, navigate negotiations adeptly, leveraging data and stakeholder analysis to support your position, fostering trust and building strong stakeholder relationships. Aligning goals, validating assumptions, and skilled negotiation ensure smooth product development and successful outcomes.

Expectation management is a core skill of any product manager. Happiness (which matters in the marathon of building product) is the delta between reality and expectations. You want the delta to be positive (reality was better than expectations). You can achieve this by underpromising but overdelivering. The stakeholder will have preferences, desires and hopes. Your communication of feedback, results, validations and changes will be crucial to keep you in a positive light.

Embrace change and feedback proactively in product development. Develop a comprehensive change management plan and establish regular feedback loops with stakeholders. Utilize tools like roadmaps for clear communication and documentation of changes and feedback. Consistently engage stakeholders, ensuring their input is valued and integrated. Maintain flexibility and agility, adapting to evolving needs and expectations. Prioritize responsiveness, making timely adjustments based on stakeholder insights. These strategies facilitate smooth adaptation to change and enhance stakeholder satisfaction, contributing positively to the product development process.

Adding to the previous story, its not like if you convince the client something is not feasible, you dont give them anything else. The reason they came to you at the first place is because they required something from the product which is currently not there. So what I did is I gave the two data sets separately, explained him a logic as to how use it to reach to the same data point but in an another way. Provided an ETA, devised a roadmap, got the changes implemented and delivered. The final 3-4 steps count the most. If you fail here, then next time the stakeholder wont even listen to you in the first place.

Why Managing Change and Feedback Matters Adaptability: Being agile and responsive ensures you can pivot as stakeholder needs evolve, keeping your product relevant. Feedback Utilisation: Effective feedback loops enable continuous improvement, aligning your product more closely with stakeholder needs. Change Documentation: Using tools like change management plans ensures transparency and accountability, bolstering stakeholder trust. Strategic Alignment: A proactive approach to change aligns stakeholder expectations with your roadmap, facilitating smoother transitions.

The way it is phrased - 'document the changes and feedback as you adjust' - seems to express the perspective of the product manager as a reactive note/requirements taker from stakeholders. Product managers should be the ones proactively initiating the changes, not the ones vicariously documenting the changes initiated by someone else (although some documentation explaining the rationale may be needed, different from change logs.) I would change the section title to 'Initiate and Communicate change'. The way it is gives strong 'project manager' vibes.

Product managers ought to practise active listening when other stakeholders highlight their concerns or needs for supporting the product. Be open to assess stakeholders’ suggestions as well. It may also be helpful to bring everyone together for more ideas to be generated. Product managers don’t have to be the only ones to provide the answers. But they can play the role of guiding all stakeholders to reach common consensus.

A good practice for product managers of technical and engineered goods is working with sales/BDM and SME teams to identify key customer stakeholders and arrange for Voice of Customer (VoC) meetings/calls. Those can be organized without the sales team present as many customer especially technical teams appreciate an engineer-to-engineer discussion without the slightest note of running into a sales pitch.

As much as possible, it is best to be data driven in product management. This takes emotion out of the equation and importantly levels the playing field for those providing input. Also, unforeseen circumstances often influence product plans. How could your plans get detailed? Where is there risk? What features offer the best ROI in the event cuts need to be made? Change is inevitable, so best to plan to be adaptable.

As a Product Manager, continuously learn about industry trends and technologies. Network with professionals for collaboration and innovation. Prioritize user feedback and needs, ensuring product alignment with expectations. Make data-driven decisions, using metrics for evaluating product performance. Adopt an agile mindset, embracing change and working effectively with teams. Implement robust risk management to identify and mitigate potential risks. Communicate transparently with stakeholders, keeping them informed about product progress. Efficiently manage time and resources for timely, quality product delivery.

The terms used in this article are triggering, as they reek of dysfunctional product management. The title question uses: - 'adjust', as if product managers should be passively reacting/accepting what stakeholders ask - 'to stakeholder preferences', a preference is close to a whim. Stakeholders and product managers should be adhering and working towards a strategy and goals, not 'preferences'. A better article with a better title would be: How do you work with stakeholders to best fulfill an organization's strategy as a product manager?

What I have found is: - There will always be different PMs for different product and business evolutions. The founding PMs are generally not the ones leading the teams as they scale and evolve - Transparency and the ability to say NO appropriately to the stakeholders. ProductBoard and ProductPlan have some great articles on this top on how to manage stakeholders.

There is no way to adjust to stakeholders without compromising your objectives. A product manager must know it and they also. The question is who bears final responsibility for such decisions...?

As Program Steerco are frequently part of the Decisioning process in hybrid agile Product-Programs ... ensure clear ownership of Issues, Decisions, Risks and Actions to keep late and sometimes bumpy iterations in place. Inputs and collaboration are critical but so is strong decision making governance! For Chief Product Owners and their Managers these ways of working are the toolkit of proactive and defensive product protection. A takeaway action should be to .. establish consistent ways of working and visible systems of Governance and communications before inevitable complexity bubbles up. :)