1. Strategic Alignment: Use Hoshin Kanri to translate long-term goals into actionable, measurable objectives, ensuring that both sales needs and product development are in harmony with the company's broader vision. 2. Catchball Process: Facilitate a continuous dialogue between sales, product development, and leadership through the "catchball" process. This ensures that insights from all stakeholders inform decision-making, enabling a balanced prioritization. 3. Priority Mapping: Hoshin Kanri's X-Matrix tool can help assess trade-offs, ensuring that critical roadmap changes support both short-term sales initiatives and long-term strategic goals, minimizing conflict.

Got your back! Here's a simple framework to help you prioritize like a pro: 1. Sync up with your company's overall vision. 2. Grab coffee with your sales team and figure out what they need to hit their numbers. 3. Imagine the future - what's your product's wildest dream? 4. Use a prioritization framework (MoSCoW or Kano work great) to sort features and focus on the essentials. 5. Share your priorities with everyone (and get ready to negotiate - it's all part of the game)! 6. Stay flexible - things change fast, so be ready to pivot when needed. Feel free to add!

Product managers often find themselves caught between the immediate demands of the sales team and the long-term vision outlined in the product roadmap. While both are crucial for a product's success, striking the right balance can be challenging. Understanding the Sales Team's Perspective Sales teams are often under pressure to meet quarterly or annual revenue targets. This can lead them to request features or changes that might not align with the product's overall strategy. These requests may be driven by short-term wins or customer feedback, but they might not consider the long-term implications for the product's direction.

n my experience, balancing the roadmap with sales demands requires constant prioritization and communication. On one occasion, sales urgently pushed for a feature that wasn’t part of our initial plan. To handle this, I assessed the potential business impact and weighed it against our long-term goals. By collaborating with both sales and the engineering team, we found a solution that addressed immediate needs without compromising the overall roadmap. Regular communication with all stakeholders ensured alignment, allowing us to adapt while keeping our core objectives in focus. Balancing short-term sales pressures with long-term strategy is key to success.

It's essential to understand the short-term versus long-term impact. Prioritization should consider which features will drive immediate revenue, satisfy critical customers, and support long-term product goals. Aligning with both sales and product vision means collaboration is key, where both teams understand how their objectives feed into overall business growth. Setting clear expectations, defining non-negotiables, and maintaining transparent communication can ensure that neither the roadmap nor sales goals are compromised in the process.