Key Stakeholders PMs Work With

As a Product Manager, you don’t work alone. Successful product development relies on collaboration with various stakeholders from different departments, teams, and sometimes even external partners. Understanding the key stakeholders and their roles helps a Product Manager align priorities, manage expectations, and drive product success.

• Definition: Stakeholders are individuals or groups who have a vested interest in the product’s success or failure. These stakeholders can either impact the product’s development or be impacted by it.
• Importance: Engaging and managing stakeholders effectively is critical for ensuring alignment and securing the necessary resources and support to deliver a successful product.

Executive Team

Internal stakeholders are individuals or teams within the organization that the Product Manager works closely with. Here are some of the most common internal stakeholders:

• Role: The leadership team (C-suite) often provides the strategic direction and high-level goals for the product.
• Responsibilities: Approving product roadmaps, ensuring alignment with company goals, and allocating resources.
• PM’s Focus: Product Managers need to communicate the product vision clearly, align it with business goals, and report on product performance and outcomes.

• Role: Engineers (Software Engineers, Developers) are responsible for the technical implementation of the product.
• Responsibilities: Building the product, addressing technical challenges, and ensuring feasibility of features.
• PM’s Focus: Collaborating closely with engineers to define product requirements, ensuring technical feasibility, and balancing feature requests with technical limitations.

• Role: Designers are responsible for the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design of the product.
• Responsibilities: Designing intuitive and engaging interfaces that meet user needs.
• PM’s Focus: Working with designers to create wireframes, mockups, and prototypes that align with the product vision and user needs. Ensuring a seamless handoff between product design and development.

• Role: The marketing team is responsible for creating and executing the go-to-market strategy.
• Responsibilities: Developing product messaging, positioning, marketing campaigns, and customer communications.
• PM’s Focus: Collaborating with marketing to define the product’s value proposition, target audience, and positioning. Ensuring that marketing materials align with the product’s vision and goals.

• Role: Salespeople are the frontline in acquiring new customers and upselling to existing ones.
• Responsibilities: Promoting and selling the product to customers.
• PM’s Focus: Providing sales teams with the tools, resources, and training they need to sell the product effectively. Gathering feedback from the sales team about customer pain points and objections to improve the product.

• Role: Customer support provides direct assistance to users facing issues with the product.
• Responsibilities: Handling customer queries, issues, and complaints.
• PM’s Focus: Product Managers must listen to customer feedback through support tickets and ensure that the product is continually improved based on this real-world feedback.

• Role: The operations team focuses on maintaining the product’s smooth operation in real-world environments.
• Responsibilities: Managing the product’s deployment, infrastructure, and performance in production environments.
• PM’s Focus: Collaborating with the operations team to ensure the product is scalable and reliable. Monitoring post-launch performance and resolving operational challenges.

3. External Stakeholders

While internal stakeholders are critical, Product Managers also work with external stakeholders such as customers, partners, and vendors.

• Role: The end-users of the product.
• Responsibilities: Providing feedback, reporting bugs, and using the product.
• PM’s Focus: Understanding customer needs, collecting feedback, and using it to improve the product. Building relationships through user testing, surveys, and customer interviews.

• Role: External companies or individuals with whom the product collaborates.
• Responsibilities: Contributing technology, services, or market access to the product.
• PM’s Focus: Building and maintaining relationships with external partners, ensuring alignment with the product’s strategic goals, and negotiating mutually beneficial terms.

• Role: External companies that provide tools, services, or software that support product development.
• Responsibilities: Supplying services, technology, or components needed for the product.
• PM’s Focus: Coordinating with vendors to ensure timely delivery of necessary components or services. Managing contracts and vendor relationships.

A Product Manager must be an effective communicator and collaborator to manage relationships with various stakeholders. Key communication strategies include:

• Regular Check-ins: Regular meetings and updates to ensure alignment.
• Clear Documentation: Ensuring that product requirements, updates, and roadmaps are well-documented and easily accessible.
• Conflict Resolution: Managing conflicts between stakeholders and ensuring that the product stays on track.

By maintaining strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders and ensuring open lines of communication, Product Managers can navigate challenges, gather necessary feedback, and drive the product’s success.

The ability to manage stakeholders effectively is crucial for the success of any product. Product Managers must engage with a diverse group of individuals, balancing different needs and priorities to ensure that the product meets business goals, customer expectations, and operational requirements. Building strong relationships with both internal and external stakeholders is key to delivering a product that creates value for the company and users.