Stakeholder management, product vision & roadmap

The first step in the development of any successful product is to have a powerful vision that drives the organization, team and the product itself, on the path to success. Stakeholders hold the key to this vision and play a critical role. So, Texavi puts a lot of emphasis on the stakeholder management and defining vision and roadmap for the product.

Who are stakeholders

In the context of product engineering, stakeholders could mean the persons who have an influence on or get influenced by the product. These could be internal to the organization or external. On a generic level, the key internal stakeholders for the product are the engineering and support teams and senior management. From an external perspective partners, vendors, customers and end-users for the product are the potential stakeholders.

What are stakeholder interactions

The discussions with the key stakeholders related to the product under discussion can be referred to as stakeholder interactions. These give us insights into their objectives, challenges and expectations from each stakeholder.

Why Stakeholder interactions

People with different roles and profiles have different needs, expectations and views about the product, its vision and features. Stakeholder interactions help us understand these and bring out the common themes and differences in views, among the various stakeholders.

• Business : strategy, vision and goals for the organization, competitors
• Technology : current and proposed technology stacks, platforms and constraints
• Customers & end users : Customer & user profiles, usage context and behavior
• Operations : Internal processes, people, support activities and challenges
• Product : Roadmap, engineering activities, opportunities and features

How do we conduct stakeholder interactions

• Personal one-on-interactions
• Restriction of session to a maximum of 1 hour
• Moderated by trained and experienced specialists
• Deploy interviewing techniques to extract the required information smartly
• Allows for individual and unbiased views as opposed to group behaviors

When are the stakeholder interviews conducted

These are conducted primarily during the initial stages of a product development. However, they need to be conducted periodically to ensure the alignment of product's roadmap and features with the stakeholders' vision, expectations and organization's goals. They can also be initiated when there is a significant change in the organization's structure, policies, strategic goals or senior management team structure.