Comments on: Managing stakeholder expectations via Product Council

By: HCG Levels in Early Pregnancy

HCG Levels in Early Pregnancy — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 08:30:17 +0000

HCG Levels in Early Pregnancy Thanks for writing this, it was very handy and helped me quite a bit…

Thanks for writing this, it was very handy and helped me quite a bit…

By: Prachi

Prachi — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 05:31:44 +0000

Hi Gopal

I’m interested in knowing if and how an MBA education helps one get from a engineering degree and software delivery (in product delivery) work experience to a product manager. That is almost crossing over from the person taking product specs to execute, to a person who defines and handles portfolios. Does a MBA education help in a considerable way?

A post on this would be very useful.

By: Don Sedota

Don Sedota — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:32:36 +0000

Great article Gopal. I’m a big proponent of Product Council meetings and have found them to be very effective (and great stress relievers as you mention). Per your third to last paragraph, from my experience it has been much more efficient to present the priorities that the product team has come up with (given the logic, market, data, etc.) and ask for objections to those priorities during the meeting as opposed to trying to go through a prioritization exercise with all attendees at the meeting. That way, your providing much more guidance and you’ll get through many more decisions in a short amount of time. I once made the mistake of going with the latter strategy and you end up with a lot of debate and not a lot of consensus at the end. I’m sure this varies from company to company as well.

By: Bill Cohn

Bill Cohn — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:35:48 +0000

I used a similar concept at my last company — we called it a “Product Cabinet”. It was a regular meeting of the functional group heads — generally director-level, but not VP-level — and it was intended both for communication of activities as well as joint strategic thinking. The key to making this work was for me (the PM) to engage all participants in the process so they were invested in the outcomes. It also made it easier to delegate tasks, as the cabinet members held responsibility for completing tasks assigned to their functional group. You could say this is just like any core team, but it was product not project-oriented.

Again, the key to its success was an openness to the conversation. While I would generally do a lot of the talking, I made conscious efforts to engage all members and to push them to contribute to the strategy, even for questions outside of their area of focus. As a result, most of the time we left the meeting energized, better informed, and more committed to our now-shared direction.

- Bill Cohn

Ipswitch, Inc.

By: Nitesh Gandhi

Nitesh Gandhi — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:37:22 +0000

Very well written. HAving a product council and involving the management is a good approach. The trickle up effect is a nice and soft approach to get the message communicated.

Personally I also communicate at every opportunity available with the various teams whose team heads are involved in the Product council. This helps in building up the awareness and leads to a more result oriented meeting.

Keep writing.
Nitesh

By: Jim Holland

Jim Holland — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:43:10 +0000

Gopal – great insights. I agree with the product councils. When led by product management and participated by the executive team, it keeps strategy, alignment and communications in sync. I have experienced several different approaches similar to those used by you.

My favorite is the “Trickle Up” effect. Starting at the product/product line level, their was a product advisory team that met regularly (more than monthly) and representation from development, sales, sales engineering, support, QA, etc was required to be there. Who mandated the attendance? The VP of Development had a big influence. The goal was to allow product management to “lead” the team and occasionally have VP-level stakeholders there to listen and afterwards provide input.

This “trickled up” to a Product Management and Marketing council where we reviewed product strategy and the roadmap that provided guidance to marketing and its execution.

The final phase was as you mentioned. We held quarterly product council-type meetings where the E-team was present and the Product Management leader conveyed an update. They were supported by all the stakeholders and it was an instant success that built stronger relationships, kept sales in check and supported the executive team with valuable information.