In SaaS, eCommerce or web application product development, being able to align your product roadmap with the organizational goals is critical to success. But it’s a tough job as you constantly try to balance knowing and delivering what users actually need against what key stakeholders want to build.

In a recent The Product Perspective podcast, Userback CEO Jon Tobin spoke with product development specialist Casey Brown about overcoming the challenges of gaining organizational buy-in, aligning project objectives with stakeholder expectations and reducing stress in high pressure situations.

This video is an extract from the full interview during which Casey highlights how to overcome internal resistance to the introduction of new technology during the product development lifecycle.

Casey Brown - Product Development Specialist

Key takeouts

Pre-engage senior stakeholders so that they know what is going on and how their expectations are going to be met… or not met.
Make sure each stakeholder’s needs and agendas are addressed, such as sales, customer service, data security, and so on. Most importantly be honest! Don’t pretend that their needs will be met if they are not… and be sure to be able to justify why not.
Use the roadmap to show stakeholders how their individual needs come together to fulfil the organizational needs and objectives.
Work towards at least a quarterly plan with day-to-day activities and know what you will deliver in that quarter so if the business requires something additional or different, then you are able to explain the potential impact of changing the plan.
For the following quarters you can bucket stuff up. Where possible, learn from the previous quarters in terms of understanding the effort and time required to get stuff done.
Be sure to communicate potential slippage up front so no one is surprised should things fall behind.
If things do not go according to plan you can create a real-world or virtual war room to get all the best minds working on solving a critical problem.

How Userback can help you align product roadmap with business goals during product development

Userback is a market-leading user feedback platform helping 20,000+ software teams to understand what users need so they can build better web applications, faster.

Get the evidence to make and defend decisions

Impactful product roadmaps are built around actual user need, rather than stakeholder assumptions or the loudest voice. With Userback’s Feature Portal you can collect, assess and share user insights, opinions and suggestions to create a user-centric roadmap and to keep it on track.

Align internal teams with a consistent product roadmap

Instantly see trending, top voted features, merge and consolidate related product suggestions and more in a single, consistent view your whole team can get behind. Quiet the noise and build roadmap based on data.

Let users track progress with ease

Demonstrate your willingness to incorporate user needs into your roadmap with public (or privately) accessibly feature portal. Track feature status across the development lifecycle and communicate with active users on progress to build advocacy, create brand champions, and drive feature adoption sky high.