“Your guide to building exceptional stakeholder relationships.”
—Lenny Rachitsky, author of Lenny’s Newsletter

Alignment is the difference between success and failure

Even the best product is doomed without buy-in from the team that sells, delivers, and supports it.

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Learn how to…

Leverage curiosity, preparation, and expectation setting

Sustain alignment over time

Minimize roadmap derailment and guesswork

Map your organization and identify Power Players

Have stakeholders appreciate and support your “no”

Build rapport and trust with stakeholders

Manage particularly difficult stakeholders

Create focus to deliver real customer value

What is alignment?

Alignment doesn’t mean everyone agrees or gets what they want. It does mean they commit to working together to make the product successful.

Product management incorporates empathy, business sense, and thinking outside the box in pursuit of successful products. But how often do you apply those same skills to your relationships with people in your company? By breaking stakeholder management into simple lessons and frameworks, this practical book shows product managers and product leaders how to manage the crucial relationships that will help you make an impact and advance your career.

The Authors

Bruce McCarthy is the founder of Product Culture and helps companies like NewStore, Camunda, hyperexponential, Socure, and Toast achieve their product visions through advising, coaching, and workshops.

Melissa Appel coaches product management leaders, helping them build and manage effective teams and improve stakeholder relationships. She previously spent 20 years as a practitioner at companies of various sizes and stages.

We help product teams succeed through skill building, coaching, and organizational design.

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Tools

Stakeholder Canvas

Consolidating what you’re learning about your organization and individual stakeholders can prevent it from becoming overwhelming. The “Stakeholder Canvas” is a simple worksheet that organizes key stakeholder insights for quick reference, such as their Power/Alignment category*.

Available in these formats: Miro, Excel, Google Sheets

Stakeholder Interview Questions

A stakeholder discovery interview is about learning. It’s not about alignment (yet), or pitching your idea, or establishing rank. It’s about listening more than talking so that you will have a basis for having productive conversations about specific decisions or issues later.

Google Doc

Tools for Consolidating Stakeholder Ideas

If you or your team are fielding constant requests from all directions, it can be overwhelming. Using an intake process to consolidate and periodically review those requests can dramatically reduce the context switching, constant messages, and distractions that can slow down your team’s day-to-day work.

Google Doc