Storytelling: Building Trust as a Product Ldr by Klaviyo Sr PM
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This document discusses the importance of storytelling for product leaders to build trust and influence. It emphasizes that trust comes from being proactive in communication, planning communications carefully, and tailoring stories to different stakeholders. The speaker argues that product managers should craft consistent messaging about goals and progress, engage stakeholders early about challenges, and understand what information each group needs to feel informed and aligned. By delivering consistent results and keeping stakeholders apprised through the appropriate channels, product managers can build the baseline trust required for influence.
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Storytelling: Building Trust as a Product Ldr by Klaviyo Sr PM
- 1. www.productschool.com Storytelling: Building Trust as a Product Ldr by Klaviyo Sr PM
- 2. Join 40,000+ Product Managers on Free Resources Discover great job opportunities Job Portal prdct.school/PSJobPortalprdct.school/events-slack
- 3. CERTIFICATES Your Product Management Certificate Path Product Leadership Certificate™ Full Stack Product Management Certificate™ Product Management Certificate™ 20 HOURS40 HOURS40 HOURS
- 4. Corporate Training Level up your team’s Product Management skills
- 5. Alexandra Edelstein T O N I G H T ’ S S P E A K E R
- 6. “All the responsibility, no true authority.”
- 9. As a product manager, your real power lies in the trust you build with your team and across stakeholder groups. With trust comes influence.
- 12. Image from: Brandon Chu, VP Product & Shopify, “The First Principles of Product Management” (2018) How do you bring the rest of the company along for the ride?
- 13. Agenda The power of good storytelling: 1 Be proactive 2 Planning makes perfect 3 Stories are personal 4 Q&A
- 14. > Be Proactive You are not setup for success here.
- 15. Craft your story. Reinforce it often. > Be Proactive Your story is how you talk about your goals, your roadmap, as well as how things are going.
- 16. When meeting with senior stakeholders, only sharing the good — and hiding the bad and the ugly — can backfire. > Be Proactive When scope changes, or timeline shifts may be required, engaging the right stakeholders at the earliest opportunity can often lead to unexpected resolutions.
- 17. ● Reenforce the Success Metrics you’re working to move ● Share progress on committed work ● Highlight what’s going well ● Frame challenges by being solutions-oriented ● Strive for informed + aligned > Be Proactive
- 18. Be known as a proactive communicator. ● In the hallway ● During lunch ● On way from a meeting ● On the elevator ● Over Slack ● In an email > Be Proactive
- 20. The only thing worse than being caught off guard when it comes to reporting the status of a project… ...is not having anything valuable to share when it happens. > Planning Makes Perfect
- 21. > Planning Makes Perfect Don’t. Wing it.
- 22. Business Needs Customer Expectations Technical Feasibility Product Management > Planning Makes Perfect
- 23. ● Clearly define business focus and product vision Outcomes vs. Outputs ● Don’t be afraid to plant certain features more firmly on the roadmap ● Prioritize features to achieve clear outcomes, and talk about it! > Planning Makes Perfect
- 24. > Planning Makes Perfect In any good story, themes and motifs are used by the storyteller as tools to keep an audience engaged and connected to the story as it evolves. This takes careful planning.
- 25. “A habit of an effective leader is to ensure your plans are known, understood, and aligned with all the key stakeholders... — Julie Zhuo, Product Design VP at Facebook …be extra vigilant if you sense hesitation about your plan.” > Planning Makes Perfect
- 27. Building trust through communication, and harnessing the power of good storytelling, requires first identifying your target audience. > Stories are personal
- 28. Consider which stakeholder groups care most about, or are most impacted by, the product development process. Are they all looped in? Is there a gap? > Stories are personal
- 29. > Stories are personal What does this process look like? How should I be involved?
- 30. Evaluate the level of detail that each person, or collective group, will need and expect from you, as well as the level of engagement you can anticipate in response. > Stories are personal
- 31. ● Decisions around of technical approach ● Technical roadblocks or icebergs ● Scale or reliability issues ● Scope creep & timeline shifts VP of Engineering ● Alignment with business goals ● Competitive positioning ● Release plan & timeline ● Decisions around Product Marketing approach Head of Marketing > Stories are personal
- 32. Know what each stakeholder expects from you and deliver on it. — without them even needing to ask. > Stories are personal
- 34. ● Start building a baseline of trust by consistently delivering. ● Organize the proper channels that will keep stakeholders informed. ● Communicate proactively so others understand your work & feel confident relying on you.
- 35. Your strategic narrative is what ties together the what, the why, and the how. Increased Team Accountability & Velocity
- 36. Lenny Rachitsky, Former Growth PM Lead @ Airbnb
- 37. Questions? Alexandra Edelstein Sr. Product Manager, Klaviyo @lexa_faye
- 38. www.productschool.com Part-time Product Management Training Courses and Corporate Training
Editor's Notes
- If you’re interested to connect with other Product Managers, aspiring PMs, or those within tech, join our Slack community of over 40,000 professionals. It’s a great place to network and to find interesting content. We host a weekly AMA through our Slack channel on Tuesdays from 11:15am - 12pm PST. We have also recently launched the Job Portal where you can find the latest Product Management opportunities! As members of the Product School community, we'd like to provide you with these resources at your disposal.
- Product School’s Product Management Certificate Path comprises of 3 part-time courses for professionals with strong technical or business background who want to further explore Product Management at software-based companies. During Product Management Training you will first learn Product Management fundamentals to understand the software product lifecycle and what it takes to successfully transition into a product management role. You’ll then be trained to retrieve data, understand its value and make impactful decisions with SQL, data visualization and Tableau. Learn to understand your users to deliver exceptional UX/UI design and develop a robust digital marketing plan. During the Full Stack Product Management Training, you will deep dive into the technical knowledge to enhance your ability to work with agile teams. Finally, Product Leadership Training will elevate your product knowledge to become an effective Product Leader. You'll do an in-depth analysis on how to implement best PM practices on a strategic level to significantly impact your company’s portfolio and revenue. Learn the soft skills to manage product teams and manage stakeholders to deliver performing products.
- As well as individual courses we provide corporate training across the world! If you’d like to upskill your product team this is the best option for you. We have trained employees from multiple companies such as Deloitte, Salesforce, JP Morgan, Bank of America amongst many other companies across all industries.
- Tonight's talk is “ [TITLE] ” with [NAME]. Welcome, [NAME].
- You have all the responsibility, but no true authority over most of the things needed to make your product successful. This can seem like a paradox at times, especially when many look up to you as a leader.
- While this may seem tough, the best managers don’t really manage, they lead. And the most effective leaders rely on earned influence and not on their authority.
- Product planning typically feels more like this. You’re on a rocketship, and you don’t know exactly where you’re heading, but you’re constantly listening to your environment so you can detect, anticipate and course correct your path. Bringing the rest of the company along for the ride is hard.
- I believe the answer in part relies on a Product Manager becoming a master storyteller.
- PMs are not typically set up for success here — stakeholder management, in the context of product development, is often reduced to formal point-in-time status updates. This puts you at risk of getting caught off guard by misalignment on what you’re actually doing.
- Having confidence in your own process & planning isn’t good enough — stakeholders across the company must also have confidence in how you work & make decisions. Your story is how you talk about your goals, your roadmap, as well as how things are going. Your story is often what people will remember, and will add color to your achievements good or bad.
- While it may be more natural to be proactive when things are going well. When scope changes or timeline shifts may be required, engaging the right stakeholders at the earliest opportunity can often lead to unexpected resolutions (e.g. more resources getting added to speed things up). At worst, if you’re strategic about when and how you share these updates, you’ll end up with groups that may not be pleased but are ultimately informed and aligned.
- When scope changes or timeline shifts may be required, engaging the right stakeholders at the earliest opportunity can often lead to unexpected resolutions (e.g. more resources getting added to speed things up). At worst, if you’re strategic about when and how you share these updates, you’ll end up with groups that may not be pleased but are ultimately informed and aligned.
- Every time you meet with a stakeholder about your work is an opportunity to reinforce the narrative you’re shaping about the product and your progress.
- From John Cutler, "Product manager tip...have a 30s response for each of these questions ready at all times.... Strive for coherence." When it comes to stakeholder management, it can be tempting to wing it. You know what’s going on, right? If anyone asks, you got this.
- Because PMs sit at the intersection of business needs, customer expectations, and technical feasibility, they must be able to rapidly respond to change as the balance of these three elements can shift at a moment’s notice. None of these elements are in your control, but you’re still responsible for the direction of that rocket ship.
- How can you plan for change? Focusing generally on outcomes you’re trying to achieve, and not the specific outputs, helps. As a product manager, I am able to ground my team’s roadmap in these goals. I am also able to leverage these themes in my strategic storytelling about our roadmap. When I prioritize features against these themes, I make sure it is an inclusive process so key stakeholders are not only informed but many are involved.
- In any good story, themes and motifs are used by the storyteller as tools to keep an audience engaged and connected to the story as it evolves. Story themes also help an audience access a deeper meaning within the narrative that transcends the inevitable ups and downs. Product leaders can plan ahead and leverage this storytelling technique to tackle the inherent challenges in keeping stakeholders engaged and aligned in an environment of rapid change. You need to bring your audience along for the ride .
- Position yourself as a proactive advocate for your work, your team, and yourself.
- Consider which stakeholder groups care most about, or are most impacted by, the product development process. If there are certain groups that you know are impacted by how the product organization operates, but aren’t often looped in, recognize the need as a PM to start closing this gap.
- Don’t take for granted that many people (yes, even those at the leadership level) may not understand how development teams truly operate at your company. of engagement you can anticipate in response.
- Call out the role each stakeholder expects play when it comes to both contributions and approvals. At Klaviyo, we like to use the DACI model.
- Shifts in feature functionality — that will impact how the feature works and is talked about — are likely of interest to many stakeholder groups, but why each one cares is different and thus how they’re told needs to be tailored to meet their needs.
- Reenforce the Success Metrics you’re striving to move, how priorities may have shifted, and how committed work is progressing. Highlight what is going well, and frame challenges in the context of what you’re doing to navigate and solve for them.
- You may find that you don’t yet have the chance to own the way you communicate. Others will demand what they think they need, or you may have no choice but to report up to your manager the way he/she requests. PMs may encounter this reporting up the ladder, but even Directors or VPs could experience this frustration when reporting up to a demanding CEO. When this happens, you may be left with a feeling of resentment or inadequacy, which can lead to lapses in productive communication altogether.
- Start building a baseline of trust by putting in the work required to deliver results and optimize for outcomes. Do your best to organize the proper channels and communication patterns that will keep stakeholders informed to the extent they need to be. Start to focus on the stories that will help stakeholders start to understand your work and feel confident relying on you.
- A commitment to good storytelling also means that PMs and development teams are held more accountable when it comes to shaping their roadmap around a strategic narrative. This strategic narrative is what ties together the what, the why, and the how. When product planning is grounded in a deep understanding of the what, the why, and the how, executing gets a lot easier and velocity gains follow
- Feel free to speak with me and I can point you in the right direction (explain where to apply). Or you can visit www.productschool.com Have a good night!