Buy-in: Something you earn
I’m proud of how well my teams and I use data and conversations with our users to drive decision-making. But it’s equally important to bring cross-functional colleagues and leaders along on the journey—both to ensure our decisions are also great for the business, as well as to promote trust and support. This ensures minimal friction (and a lot more fun) to achieving an outcome. Here’s how:
Ladder up to business goals
Achieving buy-in is easier when the work we’re doing is fueled by the objectives and strategy shared across our organization. I lead by sharing an outcome driven roadmap where product research and development are designed for business impact. No company-wide goals, yet? I can help with that, too.
Stay true to the product vision
It’s easy to got lost in the woods (or a “feature factory”) when we can’t picture the future state of the product we want to achieve. I make sure we’re aligned on a vision so that we can more quickly agree on which opportunities are no-go vs. no-brainer, and inspire ourselves to keep pushing.
Stay agile
Okay yes, let’s adapt agile processes to work for our org. But what this really means is that we should keep cost and time low when learning and iterating. With curiosity and a growth mindset, “failure” is a win that leads to achieving our desired outcome. Did I mention Design Thinking is my love language?
Collaborate with internal experts
Our product is likely being used, sold, or managed by our colleagues. Depending on the size and risk of the project, I proactively recruit cross-functional experts to participate in product discovery, definition, or even delivery so that we build trust and rapport while enabling smarter decisions.
Communicate proactively
My goal is that nobody is surprised when a release goes out containing XYZ feature. We can prevent HIPPOs from creating last minute changes, enable our CS and Sales teams to make use of the new feature(s), and nurture respect for our approach by reporting out on learnings and decisions along the way.
Show the numbers
KPIs! Trends! Dashboards! We can’t build trust that we’re impacting business goals and meeting user needs if we can’t prove it. Similarly, by socializing our interview findings, data trends, etc on an ongoing basis, we might influence what business goals are created in a glorious feedback loop.