One of the hardest things about being a Product Manager is that we get a myriad of new requests from multiple different stakeholders, all the time.
And understandably, they usually want their initiatives to be #1. And as we know, there can’t be multiple top priorities at the same time. So how do we navigate this without driving ourselves crazy?
If we’re all working towards the same overarching company goals, it will help us stay more aligned across teams.
Include data & projected ROI of their requested product work, include expected impact to the users & business, and gather feedback or other helpful info to make the case for why something is important.
Involve stakeholders in the process. Make sure they know what’s on the roadmap and when they can (roughly) expect things to be worked on.
It’s meant to be a working document and should evolve when the need arises. Be careful not to over-flex and abandon things that are in progress, find the right balance for your business needs.
It might sound obvious, but it’s often lacking. Stakeholders who see and hear what else is being requested of product/tech can better understand that their initiatives are not the only ones, and can start to see how things are prioritized.
Also, get creative with incremental work. Some progress/improvement is generally better than none, so if there’s a way to deliver value to stakeholders in smaller increments, rather than wait on a big project, that can equal big wins.
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