Main takeaways: - Pick effective feedback gathering methodologies and sources - Get good at prioritizing sources based on measurable business outcomes - Build a self-sustaining loop and manage up

1. www.productschool.com
Prioritization for High Growth B2B
Products Splunk Director PM

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6. T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R
Alok Bhide

7. Prioritization for high
growth B2B products
Alok Bhide - Director of Product Management, Splunk
Product School - February, 2020

9. About me
Software
Engineer
Product Manager, Director of Product
Launched one of the fastest
growing products in one of the
fastest growing multi product
companies, from ideation to
product market fit to revenue
generation
Confused
Grad
Student
Confused
Undergrad
Chief
Product
Officer

10. What you will get from this talk
Win the battle of feature prioritization before it happens
Main takeaways:
● Pick effective feedback gathering methodologies and sources
● Get good at prioritizing sources based on measurable business outcomes
● Industrialize your processes and manage stakeholders
Not covering prioritization frameworks (you can google those)

11. Challenges with high growth
Budget constraints
across competing
products or
functions
Expectations are sky
high, everything is a
priority

12. Challenges specific to B2B products
Still an incomplete
picture and opinions
rule
Too many sources of
qualitative feedback,
hard to standardize
High calorie
input/feedback
gathering

13. A process for
effective
prioritization

14. Process for effective prioritization
Identify
and align
on Phase
and
Business
outcomes

15. Phase and business outcomes
Change the business
Innovate beyond competition
Major customer enhancement
Rapid new customer acquisition
Run the business
Customer enhancements
Maintenance
Customer expansion / retention
Revenue generation

16. Identify the phase you are in and business
outcomes
New Development Early Adoption Mainstream Sustaining / Refresh
Sustain
Refresh
C R C R C R
C R
C R
NOTE: breakdowns are rough approximations

17. Process for effective prioritization
Define and
Align on
success
metrics
Phase
and
Business
outcomes

18. Defining and aligning on success metrics
Divide them into
leading and lagging
and avoid vanity
metrics
Detailed team
exercise, with sizeable
review period
Metrics should go
across functions and
go deep. Customer
success metrics too

19. Why do this and common mistakes
Why is this useful:
● Helps align on monthly/quarterly/yearly end states
● Makes different functions dig deeper and provides transparency
● Reduces future opinions
Common mistakes:
● Shallow definition of metrics
● Picking unmeasurable metrics
● Selecting vanity metrics

20. Process for effective prioritization
Cultivate
and
prioritize
recurring
feedback
sources
Phase
and
Business
outcomes
success
metrics

21. Cultivate and prioritize input sources
Industrialize your
feedback gathering
process. Qualitative
to Quantitative
Define all external and
internal personas you
need feedback from and
create forums.. rotate
Not all are equal and
depending on phase,
business goals and
metrics rank them

22. Why do this and common mistakes
Why is this useful:
● Provides clear structure to what type of feedback you are getting
● Saves you time in taking everyone equally seriously
● Enables you to set expectations
Common mistakes:
● Listening to all sources of input as gospel
● Just following your exec’s desires

23. Process for effective prioritization
Align with
stake-
holders
Phase
and
Business
outcomes
success
metrics
prioritize
feedback
sources

24. Align with stakeholders, often
Listen, incorporate
updates and close the
loop, and record for
other stakeholders
Get in front of your
stakeholders often, no
less than monthly,
reuse forums
Communicate at
different levels of the
backlog/roadmap
based on persona, for
mgmt, tie to metrics

25. Why do this and common mistakes
Why is this useful:
● Provides justification and transparency
● Builds confidence and trust
● Rapid course correction
Common mistakes:
● Focusing on only a few stakeholders
● Showing only a single level of the backlog/roadmap
● Assuming they ‘get it’
● Not aligning on metrics

26. Process for effective prioritization
Prioritize
Phase
and
Business
outcomes
success
metrics
prioritize
feedback
sources
Align
with
stake-
holders

27. Triage weekly,
and prioritize
backlog monthly

28. Books/Concepts I found useful

29. www.productschool.com
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