Question Page

Let's say sales is making requests directly to engineering, how would you deal with that situation?

Ibrahim Bashir
Ibrahim Bashir
Amplitude Vice President, Product ManagementJuly 8

This does happen, and it's usually the result of a communication / execution dysfunction. To start with, no salesperson wakes up and says let me go around and undermine the PM - they usually have trying to follow a process that doesn't work and eventually take matters into their own hands becuase they are accountable to the business for real revenue. Some of the things I'd diagnose if faced with this situation:

  • is there a documented process for sales to make product requests?
  • does any follow up with sales to confirm receipt of requests?
  • is sales pulled into research / design around the requests?
  • is there a way for sales to see progress against the request?
  • is there a way to categorize requests by urgency / importance?
  • is something going in sales where product requests vs the existing produxt are more important to closing / renewing deals?
...Read More
784 Views
Top Product Management Mentors
Poorvi Shrivastav
Poorvi Shrivastav
Meta Senior Director of Product Management
Anton Kravchenko
Anton Kravchenko
Carta Sr. Director of Product Management
Krishna Panicker
Krishna Panicker
Airbase VP Product
Natalia Baryshnikova
Natalia Baryshnikova
Atlassian Head of Product, Enterprise Agility
Marion Nammack
Marion Nammack
Braze Director of Product Management
Ajay Waghray
Ajay Waghray
Udemy Director of Product Management, Consumer Marketplace
Tom Alterman
Tom Alterman
Notable Head of Product
Lizzy Masotta
Lizzy Masotta
Shopify Senior Product Lead
Boris Logvinsky
Boris Logvinsky
Vanta VP Product
Jacqueline Porter
Jacqueline Porter
GitLab Director of Product Management