The Saassy Guide to... "influencing" product roadmap
There’s a lot of desire within the product marketing community to “influence” the product roadmap, and a lot of talk about how to do it. Across the companies I have worked at, product marketing has had a varying degree of input into the roadmap, from negligible to high. In this blog I want to summarise my best experiences as a blueprint for other product marketers.
Let’s talk about input, not influence
Personally, I hate the word “influence.” It implies a dodgy, behind-the-door attempt to change an agreed position, something that shady characters do. Product marketing shouldn’t influence because it should have a seat at the table. So let’s talk about PMM’s input into roadmapping.
Why do product marketers provide input?
There are three key reasons why product marketing wants to have a say in the product roadmap.
Firstly, at the most basic level, we don’t want to be surprised by what is coming. Product marketing needs to prepare the right timeline and cadence of launches, but also have enough time to execute each campaign. While I have been lucky not to have this type of surprise, I know a plenty of product marketers with “we are releasing this feature tomorrow - can you promote it?” stories.
Secondly, we want to ensure product bets are focused on what the market wants and is willing to pay for. While some product teams are very business-minded and prioritize product roadmap around market needs, it’s not the case for everyone. The role of product marketing is to provide product teams with insights on the potential market opportunity, competitor moves, buyer needs and their willingness to pay.
Finally, and maybe a bit selfishly, sometimes we need engineering help to implement our own projects. This could range from implementing a new customer communication software to enabling SSO for a user community. The tactics behind this reason are around building an internal business case to get the resources, so I will not focus on it in this article.
The levels of input product marketing can have
There are different levels of input product marketing can have.
At the very basic level, it is about being aware of what is coming when, so you can plan your work accordingly. In this case, you can’t really talk about “input”.
At the medium level, product marketing is involved in the prioritization of the roadmap and provides feedback on the proposed roadmap - whether the company is making the right bets at the right time.
At the highest level, product marketing works hand in hand with the product before the roadmap is drafted to decide together what needs to be built and when.
The level of input depends on several factors, one being the bandwidth and resources product marketing has. The highest level of input requires time-consuming research that would be outside of the scope of lean teams.
I’ve had two great experiences of close collaboration between PM and PMM teams when it came to building the roadmap.
My favourite “influencer” memories: Oracle Opower
Oracle Opower provides energy efficiency and customer engagement solutions for utilities. As the number of households with solar rooftops grew, utilities needed to adapt their engagement programs but there wasn’t anything on the market to answer the need.
Product team approached product marketing to investigate.
At first I did an “MRD” (a market requirements document). The goal of this document is to make a high level business case whether there’s a market potential. The document articulates the problem statement, analyses existing solutions in the market, provides market sizing, identifies potential buyers and their needs and buying process.
Once I finalized the MRD, I presented the findings to the product team. We decided that there was, indeed, a market interested in this solution. The product team started creating a PRD (a product requirement document) that would identify the minimum viable product and the resources needed to build it.
Next step was to get feedback on the PRD and the MVP. We organized a workshop with key customers we thought would be interested in the solution. They blessed our solution and even gave us additional insights into their budget and willingness to pay.
Now, everything confirmed, the product team started building the product, while I was working on the go to market strategy.
My favourite “influencer” memories: Spendesk
At Spendesk, I was lucky to be “binomed” with a brilliant and highly collaborative PM, Lise. Together, we were building a net new product for a new type of user. There are two tactics that I particularly liked when it came to the product roadmap.
Firstly, we conducted all the user interviews together. While we used the interviews for different goals (Lise thought about MVP and capabilities, I thought about GtM and positioning), it allowed us to be on the same page, and sparked many discussions about what the MVP should look like.
Secondly, we ran several design sprints. This was a cross-functional effort that included PM (Lise), PMM (myself), a product designer, and an engineer. The goal of each sprint was to focus on a particular part of the product, develop an ideal solution or user experience, that would then be implemented in the roadmap (if you are looking for a guide on how to run sprints, get this book).
Lessons learnt: what should you do?
The lessons I have drawn from my experiences:
Be realistic about the resources and bandwidth you have because it will impact the involvement you can have with the roadmap.
There is no influence without close collaboration between the PMM and PM. They need to come up together with the research plan, and what insights are needed.
The role of PMM and PM differ across companies, so not all the different tactics will work. There are many different ways to be involved - from way before the product is charted (such as MRD) to prototype and user interviews, or design sprints. Assess what works best in each situation.
The goal of PMM is not to influence or provide input just to have a say. Focus on the goal of ensuring the product roadmap is geared towards the right market bets.