AMA: Atlassian Director of Product Management (Confluence), Paresh Vakhariya on Product Roadmap & Prioritization

Here are some ways to collaborate with Sales teams: 1. Ongoing communication of the product strategy, vision and roadmap. Explain the importance of balancing sales needs, customer needs, market trends, metrics impact and technical development. 2. Clarify your prioritization process so that Sales team is bought into your roadmap and what you will ship. 3. Document all Sales feedback to ensure they feel they are being heard 4. Get ongoing feedback and input from Sales teams. Regularly communicate updates on the roadmap, share user feedback, and demonstrate the progress made on previously prioritized features. This continuous engagement can help build trust and demonstrate the value of an autonomous prioritization process. 5. Attend customer calls/visits. This helps reinforce Sales teams trust in you as the PM to help prioritize their needs. Remember that achieving complete autonomy may not always be feasible in highly sales-driven environments. However, by employing these strategies, you can work towards a collaborative approach that balances the needs and priorities of sales with the long-term success of the product.

Generally the process I follow to prioritize features is: * Aggregating feedback: from customers, users, and stakeholders through various avenues * Review User metrics to help identify pain points, feature requests etc. * Align feature prioritization with long term Vision/Strategy (This needs to be defined ahead of the prioritization exercise) * Assess the potential impact and value of each feature using factors such as customer metrics, market trends, competitive analysis, and alignment with company goals/OKR's/metrics. * Evaluate the effort required to develop each feature, considering factors such as development time, complexity, dependencies, and resource availability. * Prioritize using frameworks such as RICE prioritization framework (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to rank and prioritize features based on their importance, urgency, and potential impact. * Identify any dependencies between features and evaluate the implications of implementing them in a specific order. * Get feedback from key stakeholders on your prioritization * Continuously review and reassess the feature priorities based on all of the above.

The stakeholders who typically have input into a roadmap can be: 1. Customers and Users: 2. Product Managers on other teams (that have a dependency) 3. Development Team 4. Executives and Leadership team 5. Sales, Customer Success, Support and Marketing Teams Some tactics to balancing influence vs. control: * Regular communication and feedback from all stakeholders * Regular communication of the product vision, strategic goals and OKR's/metrics * Sharing customer and end user usage data * Defining clear roles and responsibilities (RACI) for each stakeholder to ensure their expertise is valued Ongoing conversations to gather feedback on features will ensure a balance.

It is tricky but important to handle exec input. Here are some tips: 1. Get a good understanding of the company objectives, priorities, OKR's and exec interest in your area. 2. Articulate your product strategy and how it aligns with the overall business objectives. Explain how your roadmap supports the broader objective. 3. Bring metrics data and customer to support your views. Also any competitive data as applicable. 4. Clearly show all blockers, tradeoffs, and gaps. Ask for any resourcing or funding you may need. 5. Show all alternatives you have considered. Seek input on alternative suggestions they might have. In summary: seek exec input and make active changes to your strategy and roadmap accordingly.

New ideas can come from various sources: * Customer and end User feedback * Metrics and usage data. Metrics movers: ideas that will make a dent on you metrics * Market research, competitive analysis and trends: * Stakeholders such as other teams that are dependent on you * Engineering efficiency and improvements Please see my other response on how to decide what to build. Broadly speaking the decision for what to build depends upon: 1. User problems that the features will help resolve 2. Impact: what is the end customer or business metrics it will move 3. Long term strategy and roadmap alignment -> continue to build features incrementally for a long term benefit 4. Engineering effort needed to build

Making your roadmap publicly available can be a good idea when: * Sharing your roadmap publicly can build trust with your customers to show that you value their input and are committed to delivering features that align with their needs. * You can set clear expectations regarding the features, bugs and enhancements that are in progress or planned. * It can be an attractive selling point for potential customers. * Customers can provide feedback, suggest enhancements, and even participate in discussions about upcoming features. This engagement helps create a sense of community and strengthens the relationship between your organization and its users. Always carefully consider the pros and cons of making your roadmap public.