To get your product funded and staffed, to get your team and your stakeholders aligned, to keep your customers and your executive sponsors engaged — for your plan to have a chance, you have got to become the consummate leader. In this workshop, Bruce McCarthy walks you through his process for gaining and maintaining alignment within your team, among your stakeholders, and across your organization.
Successful product leaders are:
Persuader – someone who understands their audience and homes in on the most relevant factors to influence a certain direction/decision
Translator – someone who speaks the languages of the customer, the business, and technology
Diplomat – someone who helps people see their own interest in collaboration
Cheerleader – someone who make everyone feel important and involved
Negotiator – someone who helps reconcile the irreconcilable
Therapist – someone who listens with a genuine desire to help
Poet – someone who paints a vivid picture of a future where we all benefit
Bruce breaks down the science, so you can practice the art.
You will learn about and practice core skills for managing stakeholders:
How to conduct stakeholder interviews
How to facilitate a group decision
How to lead teams of engineers, designers, data scientists and others toward a common goal
How to conduct a stakeholder review session
How to communicate with stakeholders between meetings
How to understand your audience and anticipate their most important questions
How to gather input (even from your CEO) without giving away decision rights
How to identify the real power players in your organization
How to tell the difference between consensus and alignment (hint: one of these is impossible)
How to get alignment in 3.5 minutes
How to get people to convince themselves
How to say no while enhancing trust
How to disagree without challenging authority
How to leverage input without voting or design by committee
How to publish a plan without making promises you can not keep
The Workshop
Each module has structured peer practice for key skills
Helpful videos that you can keep
And a Stakeholder Template to make you a wizard
About the Speaker
Bruce McCarthy helps growing organizations achieve their product visions through consulting, workshops, coaching, and speaking at events around the world. Bruce co-wrote Product Roadmaps Relaunched: How to Set Direction while Embracing Uncertainty and opines regularly at his website ProductCulture.org.