To get buy-in from skeptical, business-focused stakeholders, avoid jargon about user needs. Instead, frame discovery as a method to protect the company's investment in the product team, ensuring you don't build things nobody uses and burn money. This aligns product work with financial prudence.
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Not all design impact can be quantified with metrics. When data is unavailable, frame your value by highlighting contributions to competitive parity, internal team efficiency, or bug reduction. This holistic view of business health resonates with leadership beyond just product managers.
Bupa's Head of Product Teresa Wang requires her team to explain their work and its value to non-technical people within three minutes. This forces clarity, brevity, and a focus on the 'why' and 'so what' rather than the technical 'how,' ensuring stakeholders immediately grasp the concept and its importance.
To get buy-in for developer experience initiatives, don't use generic metrics. First, identify leadership's primary concerns—be it market share, profit margin, or velocity. Then, frame your measurements and impact using that specific language to ensure your work resonates.
Stakeholders will ask "so what?" if you only talk about developer efficiency. This is a weak argument that can get your funding cut. Instead, connect your platform's work directly to downstream business metrics like customer retention or product uptake that your developer-users are targeting.
To get product management buy-in for technical initiatives like refactoring or scaling, engineering leadership is responsible for translating the work into clear business or customer value. Instead of just stating the technical need, explain how it enables faster feature development or access to a larger customer base.
When pitching a long-term strategic fix, regional leaders prioritized immediate revenue goals. The product team gained traction not by dismissing these concerns, but by acknowledging their validity. This respect builds the trust necessary to balance short-term needs with long-term investment.
When pursuing a long-term strategic solution, dedicate product management time to high-level discovery and partner alignment first. This doesn't consume engineering resources, allowing the dev team to remain focused on mitigating the immediate, more visceral aspects of the problem.
Creating products customers love is only half the battle. Product leaders must also demonstrate and clearly communicate the product's business impact. This ability to speak to financial outcomes is crucial for getting project approval and necessary budget.
Instead of debating individual features, establish a clear "perspective" for your product. Artist's perspective as a "push-based product for quick insights" makes it easy to reject requests that don't align, like building an in-house video hosting tool. This aligns the entire organization and simplifies the roadmap.
The misconception that discovery slows down delivery is dangerous. Like stretching before a race prevents injury, proper, time-boxed discovery prevents building the wrong thing. This avoids costly code rewrites and iterative launches that miss the mark, ultimately speeding up the delivery of a successful product.
