In listening to Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast with Sanchan Saxena (linked here), Sanchan briefly touches upon the perils of consensus-driven decision making in the context of building great products. He describes how closely listening to all of the relevant internal stakeholders and then working to please them by incorporating their feedback into the product or feature can result in some form of the lowest common denominator being implemented. By definition, the most broadly appealing version of the feature turns out to also be the least broadly offensive.

In connecting a hypothetical feature back to the customer outcome, it’s easy to imagine how this lowest common denominator version may not provide the customer enough value to justify adoption. Whereas, a version that was more weighted to a particular view or insight perhaps could have moved the needle for the customer.  

This discussion stood out because many PM’s discuss the importance of building alignment cross-functionally. It’s a constant process to engage and align stakeholders to achieve the intended customer and business outcomes.

These concepts are not in conflict, though, as much as they’re complementary. PM’s absolutely need the support of their engineers and designers to build the feature and of their go-to-market and support teams to drive customer and business outcomes. And, amazing ideas can come from anywhere in the organization, so PM’s should not be shy in listening. While all of these groups may have ideas about the scope of the feature, the PM must exercise judgment to determine (what they believe will be) the most impactful version of the feature given their constraints.    

Something to keep in mind: cross-functional partners will naturally provide a wide variety of input. Some of that input will be related to slightly (and/or completely) different problems than a given feature is meant to address. Deep focus on the specific problem can be a guiding force for PM’s.

As the scope of a feature is firmed up, some stakeholders will likely be disappointed that some or all of their input was excluded. This is where the PM’s ability to influence can shine. Transparency and rationale go a long way. By clearly explaining to stakeholders why certain elements were included or excluded, everyone can feel heard and come together to launch and support the feature appropriately. Avoiding an overly consensus-driven mindset can result in better product decisions without sacrificing stakeholder alignment.