If you want your roadmap approved, don’t ask for approval.
Just plant a seed.
Then wait.
Like a patient, manipulative gardener.
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I heard that joke recently and had to chuckle. Because even though I don’t recommend becoming a manipulative gardener to get your roadmaps approved, sometimes the key to stakeholder approval is planting the seed before the big roadmap meeting.
It’s really about leveraging the IKEA Effect — which is the bias where people value something more simply because they helped make it.
Roadmaps work the same way. If stakeholders feel like you handed them a finished plan, they’ll debate it. If they feel like they helped build it, they’ll back it.
Here’s how you can use it for your next roadmap planning session:
First, meet with key stakeholders 1:1 before the big roadmap meeting to get their input.
Then, use their insight to shape your thinking (and theirs!) for the creation of the final roadmap. By the time you get to the big roadmap session, they’re already bought in and will champion it as their plan.
Want a more in-depth look on how you can do this in your company? I outline it in detail in Chapter 5 of my book, Aligned: Stakeholder Management for Product Leaders.
LEGO to Leadership
I joined Paul Banks on his podcast Marketpulse, chatting about how creativity becomes strategy, and how mindset becomes culture, among other things. Did I ever tell you my love of building products is what attracted my wife to me?
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