#3 Melissa Appel - Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders

Speaker A: Welcome to the Product Masterclass podcast. In today's episode, Melissa Appel, co author of aligned with Bruce McCarthy, joins us to tackle, uh, one of the biggest challenges in product stakeholder alignment. Melissa shares practical strategies for building trust, managing relationships, and driving alignment to deliver valuable product outcomes. From mastering influence and, and negotiation to fostering collaboration across teams, Melissa explores the essential skills every product manager needs to succeed, especially when no one reports directly to you. Whether new to product management or a seasoned professional, this conversation offers actionable insights to help you navigate stakeholder relationships and lead with confidence.

Speaker B: All right, showtime again. Hello, Melissa. Welcome.

Speaker C: Um, thank you. Thank you for having me.

Speaker B: Hello. Yeah. How are you doing today?

Speaker C: Great. It's a good, nice, bright, sunny day in Boston, so, uh, doing well.

Speaker B: That's awesome. Like, you guys have 12 o', clock, right? So it's right noon. Um, so you skipped lunch today? Yeah,

Speaker C: I have m. Lunch.

Speaker B: That's okay. Yeah, perfect. Yeah. Thank you for joining, uh, to this session. So it would be super interesting who's actually joining, you know, whether there is more people from, uh, from the US from, from Europe, uh, wherever you located. Um, just write down in the comments, uh, where you're from, um, and maybe you like what you do. Um, it would be super interesting also, uh, for us to understand. Okay, you know, like, who's here? Is it more junior product managers? Is it senior people? Uh, so just write in the comments, like, who's here, who's joining, um, and from where you join. Um, that's, um, super interesting for us to understand. Uh, um, Melissa, um, tell me a little bit. Make short introduction. Tell the audience a little bit about you, what you do. Um.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Who you are.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, uh, I've been doing product management for about 20 years, working in companies of various stages and sizes and industries. Um, and, uh, recently, uh, in the past few years, I have transitioned from a practitioner into a product coach, uh, which I'm doing very much. And, um, as is the topic of this, uh, events, uh, I've recently written a book, uh, co authored with Bruce McCarthy, who also wrote a very good book called, uh, Product Roadmaps Relaunched. Our book is called Aligned and it's about stakeholder management.

Speaker B: Yeah, great. Um, uh, for me at least I had the pleasure to, um, get in touch. Actually, Bruce was the first one. We did LinkedIn, uh, like that, actually. Uh, yeah. So tell them greetings. Uh, of course, a good book, Great book. Um, and yeah, so we just have, you know, uh, some people tuning in here. Germany, Carl, Kansas, uh, city, um, also Karlsruhe, uh, the Second one, Valentina from Heidelberg, Boston. Yeah, that's maybe your, your crowd, Nicole. Um, cool. So, um, aligned stakeholder management. Personally I have to say, like we do the product masterclass. We help people, you know, getting better with product management. Stakeholder alignment is always in the, let's say top three, um, of the, of the problems of product manager. It's always a challenge. Yeah. How um, did you come up with this topic? Like why did you write the book Aligned?

Speaker C: Well, I think, I think it's what you just said, you know, it's, it's a topic that a lot of people struggle with and um, working on or managing teams. For the past 20 years I've seen a lot of people struggle with product management and it's a topic that I really wanted to give them a book on and there wasn't one that I could find so I decided that one must be written. Um, originally the idea for the book was on how to say no to stakeholders. Um, but Bruce and I talked about it and it's really more than that. You know, you can't just say no in a vacuum. We have to understand how to build rapport with people, how to really kind of build alignment in general.

Speaker B: Just checking the um, a little bit, the, the comments, um, here as well. You know, like they joined a couple of more people from Cologne for example and uh, and things like that. Yeah. Stakeholder management, it's actually like for being one of the big topics. Right. There is really little written about it, isn't it?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's hard because just like product management was 20 years ago, the conception that people have is you have to learn it on the job. Um, but just like product management in general, there are ways that people have developed in order to teach it or to talk about it and frameworks and things like that. So that's what we're hoping to do with stakeholder management is to really introduce some of these frameworks that you can use in, in your day to day work and how to think about it in kind of a more structured way than just, oh, we'll figure it out.

Speaker B: Mhm. Okay. Is that what happened? Just try to reflect. Is that what happened with product management? Actually yes. I mean over the years it got me m. You know, like more resources, more frameworks, more um, stuff you can actually relate and learn how it's actually done.

Speaker C: Uh, yeah, but I think just with other things in product management like creating a roadmap or doing user research, right. It's helpful to not only learn how to do it, but to do it in practice. And I think going back and forth between things that you learn and actually using them and seeing how they work for you is important. So I would encourage people, you know, clearly I would like people to read the book, but also, you know, go out into your daily work and try some of the frameworks and see. See how they work.

Speaker B: Yeah. So how do you break down, um, stakeholder management? Like, what's your mental. Talk us through your mental model, like the big steps before we, you know, dive deep in.

Speaker C: Yeah. So I think the foundational aspect of stakeholder management is really building relationships. Um, if you were to go up to somebody and ask for something and they don't know who you are. Right. They're not going to say yes. So really kind of building that rapport, building those relationships, building trust with people is first. Um, but even before that kind of understanding who those most critical people are at your company to build the relationships with, who do you need? Who are the power players? Who are the people who can kind of make or break your plans? How is the organization structured? How do people make decisions? Um, and then you can identify who you actually want to call your key stakeholders that you're going to build these relationships with. Um, and then the third part is building that alignment. Right. Trying to understand enough about individuals, how they think, what their goals are, what their roles are, so that you can figure out what the plan is and figure out how to get everybody on board.

Speaker B: Okay, you gave me access to the book, and I want to read out loud, like, three definitions because I think they are really crucial in, uh, discussing the matter. And this is the definition of stakeholder. And you say a stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in the success or failure of your product or whose support is required for that success. I really, I stumbled about the failure. Is there really, Like I was reading it.

Speaker C: Ah.

Speaker B: Oh, interesting. You know, failure. Where comes that from? And why do you.

Speaker C: I, I think it's not that people are interested in failure, it's that people are affected if your product fails. Right. So a stakeholder is somebody who is interested in whether or not you succeed. So whether you succeed or fail, it affects them. So, um, yeah, so it's not. It's not that people are interested in bringing you down. It's that your success or failure will be important to them.

Speaker B: Yeah. The second component is alignment. And alignment doesn't mean getting everybody to do what you want. It also doesn't necessarily mean everyone agrees or gets what they want. It does mean that people Feel involved in the process, understand the desired outcome, and commit to working together to make the product successful.

Speaker C: Yeah,

Speaker B: well written. First of all, I thought, like, this is really, like, we speak so often about terms and we don't know, like, what it means. And let me add the third one, the third component, because, you know, stakeholder management. We define stakeholder management as the process of ensuring alignment among your stakeholders.

Speaker C: Yeah. So a lot of people use the word alignment to mean different things. So some people use alignment to mean agreement, which it's not exactly. Right. Um, some people use the word alignment to mean, um, you know, collaboration maybe. Um, but I think the way we're defining it is that everybody is on board with supporting the plan. Right. You're all going to work together as a team. You're going to do the thing. Even if not everybody agrees, they're at least willing to go along. And so it doesn't mean 100% agreement, and it doesn't mean that everybody gets a little peace. It's that there is a plan and everybody is on board.

Speaker B: No good until this, uh, you know, small difference, but the subtle difference makes a big, big impact. Right. And you said, like, at the horde is really that building the relationship? Yeah. And before the building relationship, you have like one. One thing where you say, like, okay, identifying, like, who is really important. Right. Let's start with. Okay, how do you. How do you start identifying, like, who you should actually have a good relationship or a working relationship.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: Um, I guess you would say, yeah.

Speaker C: So I think there's a few ways, right. When most people might join a company or take a look at what's going on, they might look at the org chart, right. Which says who reports to who and what departments there are. But within that org chart, there is more of an influence org chart. So I'm sure people can relate. Right. You go and you say, oh, that's the head of whatever it is. But in reality, it's this other person that's whispering in their ear. So I think figuring that out involves talking to a lot of people and, um, having a good internal network at your company and building rapport with a whole bunch of people is helpful to be able to figure out who those key influencers are. Right. Who are the people that can make or break your decision? Who are the people who can kind of swoop in at the end and change the plans? And so those are the people, um, that you should definitely have on your list. Not that you shouldn't have other people on your stakeholder list. But, um, Being able to identify who those people are. Uh, and it's not going to be in the org chart. It's going to involve a little bit of digging. Um, use your research skills and be a detective and try to figure it out.

Speaker B: Be a detective. So the Colombo question and research, you know that like when you, when you have a conversation or an interview, ah, then you leave the room and then you have last question.

Speaker C: Yeah. There are some clues that you can find. Right. Um, some power players, as we call them in the book, are based on department. Right. We've all seen engineering run companies or marketing led companies or sales led companies. And so figuring out which department is kind of in charge at the company is helpful. Um, is everything in terms of, ah, revenue is everything in terms of what sales needs. Um, is everything in terms of what the latest and greatest technology is. Uh, you can use clues like that to figure out which departments may have more of a say than other departments and use that to focus your efforts.

Speaker B: Yeah, but I guess these are the easy to find people right. Where the org chart is supporting you. Um, tell me more about how do you find those people who are not, you know, obviously the power players, like the hidden power players.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean one of the ways is, you know, when, when you talk with your stakeholders, who's always in the room, Is there somebody who's in the room who's not necessarily on the org chart or like, why are they here? They must be important, right, to find out, find out more about that. Um, and you know, I think that uh, by figuring out who, um, who talks to whom in the company. Right. Who goes and plays golf together or whatever it is, can, can help you figure out who might be like the CEO whisperer, right. Who is in that, the CEO's inner circle that might help you figure out who might have, uh, influence that's not necessarily shown on the org chart.

Speaker B: The next step was really like, interesting for me because you, you talk about doing stakeholder interviews or you know, talking to people. And as uh, if I understood it correctly, you basically, you know, search for, okay, like, which problems do they have, what, what do they struggle with and what's their goals? Like what's the job to be done for them, you know, like in their position. Right?

Speaker C: Yep. Yeah, you can, you can treat stakeholder interviews just like customer interviews, uh, except in addition to trying to get the information out, you're also trying to build the relationship. So if they, if they mention some personal anecdote, right. They like kayaking or whatever it is, you can Note that. And form those connections with them, which helps. Right. We've heard of affinity bias, which can be very bad because you might choose to work with people who are more similar to you, uh, but you can use it to your advantage by building connections with a variety of different types of people, um, and finding those things in common to build those relationships with and also even creating new common experiences that you can, you can connect on. Um, yeah.

Speaker B: So that's basically the basis that the base work. Right. Know their goals, know how they incentivized. Right. Know what, what they actually want to achieve. I really love, um, you know the page 14 where you actually, for the different departments, state, okay, what's their typical goals? Right. So marketing is conversion rate, sales. It's typically, you know, sales numbers, of course. So, so if you cannot connect it to, to these, you know, I guess it's. You're not there yet in totally understand what they need. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. I think even before, like when you're doing customer interviews, for example, you want to know about the industry that you're going into. You want to kind of get an idea about what their company is, Things that you can easily find before you start talking to them. So it doesn't seem like you're talking a different language. So understanding typical metrics that different departments might use can be a good starting place for you to be able to connect with them and be able to figure out what their goals are and what their focus is.

Speaker B: Yeah. So first you analyze your organization. See, okay, who's the powerblaze? Then you talk to them and you engage with them. Understand, okay, which direction do they go? Like, what do they actually want to, you know, achieve? What's their problems and so on, so forth. And, and then, you know, like that, that's. Then the core is actually, you know, with alignment and building the relationship. Right, Right. Yesterday I had a conversation with somebody who said, like, okay, I wonder how you actually can speak.

Speaker C: Ah.

Speaker B: How you actually can write a book about that. Because people, humans are so diverse.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: How can you master that?

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, I think one foundational aspect to building trust and building rapport is curiosity. And so I think everybody has the capability of being curious and just asking questions and getting to know people and assuming positive intent to just say, hey, that person said something that just strikes me the wrong way. I wonder if there's something that. I don't know. I wonder if there's something that would explain the seemingly irrational behavior. And I think assuming good intent, employing curiosity, employing empathy, can help you build Those relationships and build trust. Everybody is completely different. Right. And I think that that's why you need to be curious, because people are not just like you. So it can be hard to form relationships with people who are very different than you if you don't look for those connections, if you don't ask those questions, if you don't really get to know the person.

Speaker B: Hm. So, you know, like, coming into this call, I was directly, you know, looking into the red car behind you. You know, like, if I would, you know what, to establish a relationship with you.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: I would actually, you know, ask first, first thing like, uh, oh, what, what's this car in your bag? Is that something, you know, like having these, starting these relationship. Is that an example for that or is that. No.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we might find that we have a common love of Legos. You never know. Um, I think if you're all business all the time, it makes you less relatable and it makes people less likely to kind of engage. So it's not like you have to tell everybody everything about yourself. It's not like you can't keep your personal life personal. But those little kind of glimpses into things that make you human are important in order to build trust. So, you know, it's not like I have to be completely honest with you and tell you everything. It's like, yeah, I like Legos, you like Legos. Now we have a connection. Now we can, you know, those kinds of connections and just that, um, easing of tensions, because this is a real person I'm talking to, can help both build those direct relationships and can also help in the work environment. Right. If you have some sort of connection with somebody, if you've had these one on one conversations with them, if you, you know, have built this rapport, then kind of the business meetings become a little easier because you're more willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. You understand where they're coming from. You've already spoken about whatever the topic is. And so that makes kind of everything a little easier.

Speaker B: Yeah, just added the, um. Like a couple of weeks ago I spoke to Marty Kagan and that was about transformation. I thought, okay, like, I asked him how you can actually change people if they're on the same level or, you know, even above you. And he said, like, win the hearts and minds of your peers. Is that the same direction? Is that, can you relate to that or is that something totally different?

Speaker C: Yeah, I, I think that's, I think that's. That's right. Um, there is a Certain amount of influence that you need to have in order to get alignment. Uh, but it's not kind of a binary kind of relationship, right? It's like, oh, I want you to do this thing, do this thing. It's how do you work together to agree that this is the right thing to do? How do you take into consideration what the other person needs and what their goals are in order to come up with a plan? And, and then how do you speak to that plan in terms of what they're focused on? Um, you know, we talked about different metrics for different departments. You might speak about something differently if you're talking to sales, right. You say, oh, you know, we, we have this research that people really want this. I think it's going to be easy for you to sell versus engineering, which is like, you know, this is really going to be really easy to support. Um, you know, the infrastructure is going to be straightforward. Uh, so I think even getting ah, alignment with people does require kind of getting their hearts and minds, um, based on who they are, based on how they communicate. Um, and I think that managing stakeholders isn't that different from managing employees either because you have to learn to adjust your communication style for different people's needs. And that's, that's very similar.

Speaker B: Yeah, but now um, when you're a manager and you um, have employees, you're communicating hierarchically down. I know that a lot of product managers struggle with communicating up.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: Do you have any tips, like what's the best practice for that?

Speaker C: Yeah, so it is difficult because a lot of your stakeholders might outrank you at your own company and you still have to work with them and you can lean on your manager or your, your chain if something's particularly difficult. But if you realize at the end of the day that everybody's just a person and you can have conversations with people, I think a little bit of it is being sure enough about yourself and confident in your abilities that you can take on these conversations. Um, have that executive presence to speak with these people who are higher up than you. I uh, know that it's a great skill for product managers to be able to work with stakeholders who are at their level and above their level. And you need that sometimes because those are the decision makers. If you want to work with the sales team, you might need that top, that VP person or whoever it is to okay some sort of plan plan or to adjust how their department works in order to work with a new product strategy. So you do need to, to influence up and I think it kind of goes back to building those relationships and building trust that you are capable, that you're credible, that you know what you're doing, uh, so that those person, those people will have that conversation with you.

Speaker B: Is there, I mean, you know, uh, obviously woman on man. Is there a big difference or how do you. Is there. I know, you know, you've written in a book that you want to write it. Cautious for, um, you know, gender diversity. Is there something specific you, um, can emphasize here for, um, I don't know, differences or, uh, what's, you know, like what's helpful?

Speaker C: Yeah, I, I think there's lots of differences between people, right. Gender, communication style, um, neurodiversity, um, uh, cultural background. Right. There's, there's a lot of differences among people. And we do try in the book to give a variety of ways to do things, like alternates, even like big company, little company. Right. Your situation might, might be different. So, uh, you know, back to the basics, which is finding connection, um, using, uh, curiosity. I don't think those change, um, but the way you do it might change. So, uh, talking, uh, with my co author, Bruce, right. He said, oh, well, you know, we should just, you just ask somebody out for coffee. And I'm like, I don't know that I feel comfortable just asking any old person out to coffee because it might seem inappropriate, right? As, as a woman to like ask a man out to coffee. It might assume things. So I think the techniques that you use to get to know people can be different. But the fact remains that you should get to know people through whatever means, feel comfortable.

Speaker B: That's better. Back to the basics. You said like build a relationship now. Build report. What would like if we, if we dig deeper into that, right. You said like, okay, be relatable. Yeah. What else is really, uh, important to build up that relationship which, you know, which is positively working for building great products.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, I mean, there's a lot of different things. Uh, uh, one thing that I think is really important is creating a safe space for your stakeholder to really say what's on their mind. So, you know, people talk about psychological safety. A lot of companies don't have that, right. If you feel like you say something and you're going to be reprimanded, um, and that's, that's not a safe space because that limits creativity and innovation. But even if your culture is their company, culture is not great at that. You can build those one on one relationships with that psychological safety. So if somebody says something, um, that you don't, like, you don't say like, oh, that's wrong. You say, can you tell me more about that? So they feel comfortable talking about it and they feel like they can say things to you and you're not going to get mad or you're not going to tell other people about it. So over time you can build that trust and build that confidence, um, that they can tell you what's really on their mind. Uh, and this is important because sometimes people will say something in a meeting and then say something else afterwards. Right. And that could be partially that they don't feel comfortable speaking their mind in front of the group, but they might tell you what's really on their mind one on one. Uh, so I always advocate a lot of one on one time with stakeholders, um, not just the group time because I think you can get more into what people are really thinking and making sure that you don't get mad or you know, things like that during the conversation that you stay curious and, and you know, say, oh, like I hadn't heard that before. Can you tell me more about that? Instead of like, you know, that that must be wrong.

Speaker B: Okay, this is, I, I think you had like, okay, respect, empathy, these, these, these words and you know, go, go deeper down. But it's actually, you know, um, psychology, right? Lot, lot of psychology.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I didn't think, starting off mechanical engineering that I would be writing a book eventually with a lot of psychology in it. Uh, but, but it is, right? It's, it's being patient with people, it's understanding, um, how they think and a lot of that is observing and asking and not assuming. Uh, and I think that, you know, there is some, some psychology there and we actually have a table somewhere of a whole bunch of, you know, Kahneman, Tversky type psychology, um, theories, uh, that can help explain why certain things are the way they are. Uh, but a lot of it is just kind of calming down and trying to figure out what's actually going on behind what you're, uh, observing on the surface. So you don't need to be a psychologist. But you know, it's like, um, you know, if you imagine that they're, they're on the, on the psychologist couch or whatever, right? You, you, you think, like, I'm not going to give them all the answers, I'm going to ask a bunch of questions and that's how I'm going to engage.

Speaker B: How did you learn that?

Speaker C: How did I learn?

Speaker B: Just out of your experience, you know, like, what's, how did you learn that?

Speaker C: I think I just sort of learned it over time. Right. I didn't, I didn't have this book to read. Um, I think when, when I started to manage people, I realized that I couldn't do everything myself and I had to help people instead of telling them what to do. And that started to give me the skills that I needed in order to ask questions instead of just jumping into things. And I think that that's been helpful in building stakeholder relationships as well. Instead of just telling everybody, you know, we need to agree on this plan, it's like, well, what do you think?

Speaker B: Mhm. So it's always like it sounds like it's always, you know, it's not pushing what you want. So it's more stepping back first listen to the other person and then find common ground to align on something. Which is.

Speaker C: Yeah, there's also something to, um, the idea of inception. Right. So you probably have opinions, you probably have things you want to do. So that's important. Also it's not just like, oh, whatever everybody else wants. It's more helping people come to these conclusions in their own way, at their own pace, based on what their background is, based on what their goals are. Um, but you can still be pushing a particular agenda, you can still be pushing for a particular product strategy or something like that. Um, the, the old idea of, you know, make it think it was, make them think it was their idea, I think is good advice. You know, like, let's talk about this together. I know what's going to come out of this conversation, but we need to go through the process so that you're comfortable, so you feel involved,

Speaker B: keep feeling involved, make them feel part of the, of the idea of whatever the outcome.

Speaker C: And, and then it's just, it's not just your idea, it's our idea.

Speaker B: Yeah. So much human, you know, stuff in there in alignment and in. It's actually, you know, the biggest chunk of alignment is relationship building, right?

Speaker C: Mhm. I think so.

Speaker B: That's a lot of human stuff. And you broke it down actually. Building relationship is rapport and trust. Let's speak about the components of trust which you, uh, which you have in your book. You know, like what's, um, what's, what's important, um, for to mention here. Um, to build trust.

Speaker C: Mhm. Um. Yeah. Ah, so the, the components of. I'm like literally looking at the book because my, yeah.

Speaker B: You know, like it really likes. For example. No, I really liked. For example, you spoke a lot about relationship and about um, this is uh, no, not a relationship. Ownership. Sorry. And this is something, you know, we hear all the time from, from the management, actually. So, uh, if you, if you're a product manager out there and you listen to that, like, one advice would be just, you know, take ownership and, you know, care about things, because that gives the other side a feeling of, okay, somebody you know is caring. And that's, that's also human. Yeah. And that's like you, you built it in, in this concept of, okay, you know, you build a relationship and then you need to somehow feed it with trust or something like that. That's how I would interpret it. Is that right?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, you talked about ownership. I think that's really important. Um, and it's not just about doing the tasks that are assigned to you, Right. It's about thinking outside and figuring out, okay, what else do I need to know, what else do I need to do? And then taking ownership over those relationships. Right? So if a stakeholder comes to you and asks you something and you don't get back to them and they like ask you again, you don't get back to them, they like raise it to your manager. Like, that's not good. So, um, really thinking about, okay, how do I maintain these relationships? Um, I can at least get back to somebody and say, like, hey, um, thank you for suggestion. I heard it. Let me get back to you. Instead of just, you know, ghosting them and not replying. So I think ownership is taking ownership over your product and what else might need to be involved and thinking about, oh, we're going to have to launch this at some point, who needs to be involved with that? But also taking ownership over these relationships with your stakeholders and maintaining them.

Speaker B: And of course, you know, like, if you, if you speak to a friend and you, you tell, you stop, do something, right? You do it, or you, you know, like, inform those people.

Speaker C: If you tell somebody you're going to do something, you do it, right? And setting those expectations in advance is, is helpful. Knowing what your own capacity is, is helpful. Um, uh, we go into the book a little bit about like, estimating things. And you know, engineers are asked to estimate things all the time. Uh, but product managers should also have a sense of how much work they can do. Um, you know, under promise and over deliver. Um, think about building in buffers. Think about what you can handle. If you've got like, requests from stakeholders coming in from everywhere, you may need to actually create a process to collect, collect those and, and think through them, right? Some sort of intake process. Um, you might also want to think about how you, how you handle those and what those constant requests mean. Maybe you need to build a closer relationship with the head of that department is keep asking you for things to say like, okay, before we even create the roadmap, like I want to know what you guys need so that we don't have all this stuff coming in afterwards. Let's, let's settle this at the beginning and figure out what, what the team needs. And if we need a better process for collecting that information, let's do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. I mean there's a lot of, you know, um, tips in the book. How you can actually make your, you know, world day to day world more efficient by uh, you know, structuring the requests or something like that. Really loved that. And is the roadmap at the end of the day the thing you align the stakeholders the most about? Or like what's the role of the roadmap here?

Speaker C: I think the roadmap is a representation of what it is that you've aligned on. So a lot of people get confused between roadmap and delivery plan, right? A delivery plan is like, here's some features, here's some dates, here's what we're going to produce. A roadmap is more of a communication tool, a documentation tool. It should be based on what problems we're trying to solve, what outcomes we're looking for. And I think that can represent the things that you've aligned with your stakeholders on. Right? You have your vision, you have your objectives or okrs, you have the problems you're trying to solve for people. You may have the, the value that you're looking to get out of solving that problem. And those are the kinds of things that you align on and those are the kinds of things that you represent in the roadmap.

Speaker B: So is that the central tool? Do you use that for the alignment process? I mean, do you use like half baked roadmap and you know, discuss it with just, you know, like to have something to discuss or how do you use or utilize the roadmap?

Speaker C: Well, I think there's, there's a roadmap, but there's also like okrs, right? That's a representation of what you've aligned on. These are the goals we're going after. There's also decisions, right? You can document individual decisions and say, hey, you know, we've gone, we've, we've met a few times, here's what we've decided in the end. And this is what we're going to do going forward and you document that decision. So I think the roadmap is one of the tools to represent what you've aligned on. But they're, they're are also some others. Um, and you can start the alignment process. You should start the alignment process potentially before you have a roadmap. I know if you're in the existing company doing existing thing, there is a roadmap that just kind of continues. Um, but it's something where if you're struggling with stakeholder management, if you're going into a new company, you can kind of restart the process, um, and take a fresh look at it. And I think that a lot of times, you know, um, people will have a roadmap and everybody's like, I don't understand or like this isn't what we're doing or we never meet our deadlines. So you can say, okay, let's take a step back. Let's figure out what it is that we really want to do. Let's align on our goals, let's align on the problems that we're trying to solve for people. And let's write that down so that it's clear, so that we make sure we're building the right things.

Speaker B: So that's uh, basically, you know, backdoor, you create a little bit the strategy or you know, like inference strategy with that as well.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I think that the strategy is, is all tied in with that. The strategy of how we're going to achieve our goals. Right. So if you have objectives and key results, then you say, okay, well we, we think that solving these customer problems, um, or these business problems are going to achieve those results for us. So our strategy is that we're going to achieve those results by solving these problems.

Speaker B: And that way you automatically level up in the organization, I guess with, you know, your stakeholders, isn't it?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean bringing the roadmap up to a slightly higher level and making sure that it relates to the business goals will allow you to have that higher level conversation with those stakeholders instead of being thought of just as somebody who helps the engineers execute on stop.

Speaker B: Interesting. So basically that's then roadmap is one of the output or decision, um, or documentation of what's the strategy or something like that. Um, tell me, what do you do when it gets hard? So if you, if you like, you know, alignment sounds always good but you know, like, if you really have like different pictures of the future.

Speaker C: Yeah, right.

Speaker B: When you can't find alignment that easy.

Speaker C: Yeah. So That's a good question. Right. And I don't think that everybody walks into a perfect situation when people are like, oh yeah, let's, let's all do it. It's nice and roses and things. Um, so I think that goes back to who are the decision makers, who are the influencers, and trying to figure out, okay, how do we, sometimes you even need to get alignment on the process of aligning? You know, like we're, we're not just going to go with this thing, we're going to talk about it and you have to get alignment on talking about it. So I think if, if your stakeholders all have different ideas of what's going on, sometimes you have to be a mediator. And it's not like you're lending your opinion, but you say, okay, we can't be confident that we are delivering something of value to the market unless we first agree on what our objectives are. And that's, things like that are a little bit hard to argue with. You know, like, we don't want to start building something until we've proven that it's going to be valuable, that people are going to buy it. Um, until we've shown that there is a value on the market to doing this, it would be a waste of money to do it. So we need to sort of go back to basics and make sure that we're all agreed on the outcomes we're trying to get to. And I think if you get in a room with a bunch of people and they're like, oh, we don't agree. I think people see that as a problem, that maybe they haven't talked about it before or maybe they thought they agreed, but they're actually talking about two different things that they didn't realize it. So part of being a good product manager, a product leader, is speaking all of these different languages and being a liaison and bringing people together and making sure that everybody is speaking the same language and that we're actually aligned on something and not just talking in different directions.

Speaker B: It's harder though for product manager than for product leaders, I guess, right?

Speaker C: Mhm. Yeah.

Speaker B: So what's the difference? What's your tips and tricks for product managers?

Speaker C: You know, I, I think that you can start to practice these things in your scope of influence. So maybe you're an individual contributor, junior product manager, and you're working with an engineering lead who's really difficult to get along with. How do you build a better relationship with them? How do you get some trust? How do you, um, align on a process that you're going to use. How do you define your roles and responsibilities? And I think that if you start where you are, then you might say, oh, actually, we've begun to work really well together. We've created this process. Maybe other teams can use this process. I'm going to share what we've learned with everybody else. And so that starts to give you a little more credibility and it starts to broaden your internal network. So I think that an individual contributor, product manager at a company of a thousand people doesn't need to be speaking with the CEO. It's great if you can, but you don't need to do that in order to, um, get alignment with the people you need to be working with.

Speaker B: Love that. So you practice basically in your realm, wherever you are, on which level, it doesn't matter, you know, like, whether you, um.

Speaker C: I mean, there's always a team. There's always a group of people that you need to work with and you need to be on the same page and moving forward. And I think that, uh, a lot of people, they might say, oh, I've discovered that the reason I'm having problems is because of this problem. Farther up than me. You can talk with your manager. You can say, like, hey, I'm seeing this problem. Here's a possible solution. Can you help me figure out if this might work? Can you use your influence to try to broaden or fix a problem? Uh, and then you start to, um, establish yourself as somebody who's got some good ideas.

Speaker B: Finding alignment seems to be so much easier in a small company than in a big corporation because, you know, like, like there's the saying, like, okay, um, a lot of cooks. How do you say in English, well, So how do you deal with that? Like, what's the receipt for that?

Speaker C: So I think definitely in a smaller company, you might have fewer people that you need to get alignment with versus a bigger company. But sometimes a bigger company already has some processes in place that you can work with. Um, I think it can be difficult, more difficult in a bigger company, but at the same time, you can find difficult stakeholders anywhere. With big company, little company, right. There are some people that are just hard to work with. And at a bigger company, maybe you can, like, switch departments or something and avoid it, but you're still going to find those people anywhere. So, um, a great book that I read in, um, preparing for this book was called Getting along by Amy Gallo. Great book. She goes over, um, a number of different archetypes of difficult people and talks about the psychology of why they're so difficult and what speaks to them, um, and gives you some tips on how to deal with them. Um, highly recommended.

Speaker B: Yeah, I read this section as well. Yeah, super interesting. Uh, nice interesting. What did we miss? What's, what's, what's important?

Speaker C: Um, good question. Let's see. I mean I think that, I think

Speaker B: for me really, you know, like the real. For me, you know, like reflecting on, on what you wrote, it's like really building relationships is the core of alignment.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker B: And it was really, I mean, did I know it?

Speaker A: Maybe.

Speaker B: But it was not so present and it was not so. So. And that brings me back to um, my conversation with a client yesterday. He said like, okay, I'm not sure if you can, if, if one book is uh, you know, if you can write such a huge book to um, to cover that topic. And I think that's just reflected and it's a lot psychology and human to human connection.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, we also have in the book and some people may or may not like these kinds of books, but we have a storyline that accompanies the tips and frameworks and the different topics. Uh, as Bruce and I were writing the book, we were thinking, oh, we could give a whole bunch of examples. There are some examples that are a little more sensitive. We're like, should we anonymize people? Um, and then we decided that actually a through line narrative might be even better. Because with stakeholder management you really get to know people and you get to know and you try different things and um, uh, you build these relationships over time. So part of the book is a throughline narrative with a director of product management named Iri. And she is coming into a new company and she makes mistakes like any of us, but she learns over time how to do stakeholder management better and you really get to know the characters. Um, you get to know her sort of nemesis, uh, stakeholder named Sparks. And uh, throughout the book you see her struggles and you see how she deals with things. And I think it's really helpful to give at least one example of how these things change over time. And people can use different parts of it in their relationships. They might find pieces of the story that resonate and see how the characters deal with different problems. So I think that that also helps tell the story of how to build these relationships.

Speaker B: Yeah, really compliment was really super nice to read. I like that you have like once the story but then explain the background and stuff like that. It's super nice illustrated. Congrats on that. I even liked the font I thought, okay, this is really, um, interesting because sometimes you. I don't know, small details. Um, I really liked it. Yeah. So highly recommended.

Speaker C: Yeah. Michael Conrad, book, um, illustrator, um, book designer.

Speaker B: And he.

Speaker C: He's fabulous.

Speaker B: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the schedule. When do you release it? Um, and also, like, how can people connect, you know, like if they have questions, questions independent from the book and want to approach you.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, um, we're going through a final proofreading now. Um, it should be available in about a month, end, um, of June, beginning of July. Uh, pre orders, will ship when it's ready. We're also going to be doing kind of a little speaking tour, um, trying to set those things up now. Uh, and you can always ping me on LinkedIn if you have any questions, questions if you want to connect. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, perfect.

Speaker C: Um, we also have a website which isn't quite up yet, so I won't say the. But embarrass myself. But, um, there's a website that we list in the book which I will share on LinkedIn when it's kind of up and running for downloadable.

Speaker B: Let's make it easy. Just follow Melissa on LinkedIn and you will get all information about the book release. Well, congratulations. I mean, um, I saw it and really great. It was fun to read through and, um, it certainly helped me, you know, structure the thinking about, um, stakeholder management and what's important. Um, super nice. Ah, and of course, and of course, thank you to spending the time with us, you know, answering all these questions and uh, yeah, give us so much information, um, here on LinkedIn for free, uh, and, you know, spend your time, your, Your energy. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Speaker C: Um, thank you.

Speaker B: Well, the Last words. Last Words is always the guest. You know, get something if you want to bring out a message, uh, to, to the people listening.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, hopefully people will find what I said interesting and will be interested in reading the book. Um, and, uh, yeah, I also do product coaching with, uh, productculture.com. uh, if you're struggling with product with stakeholder management or other product management issues, uh, please reach out.

Speaker B: All right, perfect. Melissa, thank you very much and thanks for being here. Bye. Bye. Ciao, everybody.

Speaker A: Thanks for tuning into the Product Master Class Class podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe and leave us a review. It really helps us reach more product people like you. If you have questions or topics you'd love to hear about, reach out to us on LinkedIn, YouTube or visit product masterclass dot com.