Suppose a stakeholder wants you to add a new feature to your roadmap and you think that it should not be implemented. How would you convince them to drop it?

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Suppose a stakeholder wants you to add a new feature to your roadmap and you think that it should not be implemented. How would you convince them to drop it?

Asked at Uber over a year ago

3.4k views

Asked at

3.4k views

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Devi Devalapally · Answer 1 · 2023-04-03T20:09:41+0000

While I was a Product Manager on one of the frontline applications, one of the stakeholders reached out to me with a business idea to be implemented in my application. While I was not completely convinced about implementing it into our Product, I asked several clarifying quesitons to understand the busniess value the feature would deliver.

Next, I went back and did my due diligence on the impacts of implementing this feature. As I got clarity into the solution I was able to make more impact analysis and was able to come to the decision backed by my research.

I communicated back to the stakeholder about the impacts and the revenue metrics that I arrived at, by implementing this feature into our application. Although it would yield a positive ROI with this feature, the ROI metric was a meagre positive figure and I suggested that this amount could be invested in a better project/product that would yield a higher ROI.

Also, after coming to a conclusion that this feature will not be implemented in our application, the feature was not added to the product backlog.

JYH · Answer 2 · 2021-03-13T20:30:41+0000

Here's my answer:

As a PM, I would take your suggestion but I will need to perform my due diligence to validate several things:

1 - Does it address a customer need or gap in the product currently?

2 - I would need to do some research, and validate that while the customers may not have provided the feature as a need or a gap in their feedback, that there is an opportunity backed up by data

3 - If it's based on the current product, I would also check the product analytics to validate the suggestion is backed up by numbers

The last thing I would do is balasnce against all other items on my roadmap right now, so if the impact is high and effort is low it will make sense to prioritize it higher up the list.