Today, I’m traveling to San Francisco for a 30 minute presentation to the Sr. VP and GM for my BU.
This is the first time in the last 3 years that he wants to pay attention to what we are doing. I’m hoping that it is a good thing 🙂
While I’m really well prepared, I am concerned if he want to review our work or he wants to tell us what to work on. I know what’s important to him and have enough data to show that what we are doing will help him meet his goals. But.. like most execs, he is working on a 3 year vision of where we need to go and aligning the organization behind this vision. So.. will what I show him resonate with him? I’ll find out soon enough.
This happens a lot in product management. As a product manager, you are thinking 2 years out.. while tradeshow demos show feature you worked on 6 months ago. These demos, while exciting to customers look stale to you already. You have seen early and fully developed designs for what you plan to build in the next 12 months already. This is further amplified at the executive level as they are solving much larger problem with much longer gestation cycles. So.. just like what’s presented in tradeshows for your product looks old to you, your latest thinking looks old to your exec. So.. focusing on making it relevant for him and the problems he or she is trying to solve is they key to a positive strategy review experience.