Stakeholders are at odds over core product features. How will you navigate their conflicting perspectives?
When stakeholders clash over product features, it's crucial to guide them towards consensus. Here are strategies to manage differing views:
- Facilitate a structured dialogue where each party can express their priorities and concerns.
- Identify overlapping objectives to focus on shared interests rather than differences.
- Propose compromises or phased feature rollouts that address the most pressing needs of each stakeholder.
How do you handle conflicting stakeholder perspectives? Feel free to share your approach.
Stakeholders are at odds over core product features. How will you navigate their conflicting perspectives?
When stakeholders clash over product features, it's crucial to guide them towards consensus. Here are strategies to manage differing views:
- Facilitate a structured dialogue where each party can express their priorities and concerns.
- Identify overlapping objectives to focus on shared interests rather than differences.
- Propose compromises or phased feature rollouts that address the most pressing needs of each stakeholder.
How do you handle conflicting stakeholder perspectives? Feel free to share your approach.
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One thing I've found useful is to establish a clear criteria for evaluating features based on maximum customer value and alignment with core product promise. This establishment of criteria can be done through a series of short structured open conversations where everyone has a voice. As a precursor, running workshops on creating a psychologically safe space will help the team immensely. Alternatively, utilising AI to build rapid iterations and to evaluate the potential benefit of conflicting core product features could serve as a beneficial tool to aid the discussions.
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Test their "must have" features through user research and testing: whether paper prototypes, data and insights analysis, concept testing, usability research and prototype development there are a myriad of ways to develop concepts before building and assess what the customers problems are and how you prioritize solving them....
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I always look to have as much data from various sources from competitor analysis, trend paths and how users are are responding to both our own & competitors features, many times I see products get into trouble with stakeholder who are domain experts and its their gut feeling or where they beleive the product should be, which doesn't help to align all stakeholders. All this data is available, it just shouldn't be ignored or not researched.
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To handle conflicting stakeholder perspectives on product features, I focus on structured dialogue and common ground. For example, in a recent project where marketing and engineering clashed—marketing wanted a flashy, feature-rich design, while engineering needed a streamlined approach to meet deadlines—we organized a meeting where each team could share their priorities and concerns. We discovered both teams valued user engagement but had different methods to achieve it. By identifying this shared goal, we proposed a phased rollout: a core feature set for the initial release, with additional enhancements planned for later. This approach aligned the teams, addressed immediate needs, and kept the project on track.
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Great approach on aligning stakeholders with conflicting perspectives. In addition to the mentioned strategies, one practice I’ve seen add value is implementing a detailed impact analysis for each proposed feature. This allows everyone to visualize the benefits and challenges in the medium and long term, helping to prioritize decisions based on concrete data. I also find it helpful to bring in market benchmarks to contextualize choices and support consensus. These actions tend to strengthen collective understanding and align expectations.
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I talk to companies with this issue day in and day out. A few things to consider: - Do personal politics create bias? Ex. Does “being right” mean a promotion? - What happens if neither person is right? - Do situations like this pose risks for customers? Executives? Shareholders (Yes to all three) The missing factor is access to structured and verifiable customer insights. Without that, you’re in a dual. One of my customers would literally put an empty green chair in their meetings that represented the voice of their customer. Giving the customer a “chair” in all stakeholder discussions mitigates the risk of this problem situation. Very often this problem is symptomatic of the disease - limited access to customer insights.
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Es útil aplicar herramientas que brinda el Design Thinking como mapas de emociones u otros, que permitan crear situaciones hipotéticas para ponerse en el lugar del usuario final del servicio, de esa manera se va a identificar cuál es el mejor camino a seguir, testear y confirmar las teorías planteadas. En este aspecto es importante dejar a un lado los egos y evaluar de manera objetiva la solución, enfocada al cliente, lo cual permitirá tener mayor éxito en el producto.
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We can: Facilitate Structured Dialogue: Organize a structured meeting where each stakeholder has the opportunity to share their priorities, concerns, and reasoning behind their desired features. This allows all voices to be heard and helps identify the root of the disagreements. Identify Overlapping Objectives: Focus on the common goals that all stakeholders share. By identifying the shared interests or objectives, you can shift the conversation from disagreements to areas of alignment, creating a foundation for consensus.
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In any product development effort there are two hygiene factors to consider. First, you need to establish a clear and transparent prioritization and decision making framework that includes key metrics to evaluate each feature's impact (e.g. CX, revenues, operational efficiencies, etc). It also needs to support your long-term goals. In parallel, you need to actively engage with stakeholders to create a collaborative environment and understand their motivations. Involve them in interpreting data, definition of goals and metrics to foster alignment on what they mean for the product direction and prioritization. Together, these two factors will make your life much easier when conflicting views arise and help you drive the product forward.
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