Internal communication - an important product activity that should not be overlooked

While every Product Manager is clear about the need for communicating their product features externally, the need for internal communication is often glossed over or given lip service. Clear internal stakeholder communication, in my opinion, is as important as external communication in the journey to building a successful product. You may be building the best product in the world, however, unless the value proposition and path are clearly laid out in front of internal stakeholders and there is alignment around the problem space and the solution space, it is likely that you will face many impediments along the way.

Identifying the key stakeholders

Identifying the key internal stakeholders for communicating to is an important task. Apart from the usual suspects, such as the Head of Products and the Head of Engineering, there can be other important people that can be top influencers in the organization to carve out a smooth path for your product. These could be members of QA, sales, other Product Management teams, Professional Services, etc. Try to prepare a curated list of internal stakeholders, that are going to matter most to your product and who are going to be directly or indirectly involved at some point with the product, and can benefit from prior knowledge about its goals and vision. At the same time, it is not very useful to involve a very large group of people in the discussion, as it will not help in converging on a single direction.

What do you communicate?

Note that you may have the whole product journey laid out clearly in your head. However, the stakeholders, who have spent much lesser time in analyzing the market, have only a sketchy idea about the goals of the product or feature.

You need to start with the clear and concise picture of your problem and solution space. It starts with laying out the key artifacts created during Product Discovery and continues with laying out the salient features of your solution design. So, you must set out the User Journey map, a key artefact of the design phase communication, clearly laying out the user journey, the touchpoints with the system and the problems faced. Next, you must also share the solution ideation artifacts, how you are going to solve those problems and in the process build value for the company in a sustainable manner. you can start adding low-fi user experience prototypes, functional flow-charts, as needed.

This communication has to happen even before the first line of code is written (the low-fi's can come later, once the stakeholders have aligned with the user journey map). It will typically take 3-6 months to prepare this user journey map, the solutioning aspects, and writing the corresponding epics, even before you start coding

Make it clear and accessible

It is important to lay out a clear communication cadence for the stakeholders. This could be through internal social platforms, such as confluence, where it is accessible to all stakeholders, as well as through regular scheduled meetings, once a fortnight or once a month.

Make sure people align to the story

Apart from the above communications channels, have regular one on one sessions, webinars, town halls, and Sprint demos with stakeholders. Never lose out on the opportunity to communicate about your product. And make sure people see your vision of the product and align to it. Clarify where necessary, and take inputs for your roadmap with a clear, open mind.

By following the above strategy, you will find that you have champions for your product within the company, and your product journey will be a lot smoother.