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When I asked my readers what they struggle with most, stakeholder alignment came up again and again.
Not surprising really.
Alignment isn’t optional for you as a product manager:
It determines whether your product succeeds.
It shapes your credibility.
It directly affects your career.
This is true whether you work at a startup or a Fortune 100.
Unfortunately, none of these stakeholders report to you.
You can’t tell them what to do. And yet, they all expect you to point the ship in one direction.
They also come with annoying things like opinions, incentives, history, and agendas.
But the stakes are so high that misalignment leads to:
Confused priorities
Missed commitments
Slow execution
Frustrated teams
Lost trust in product
And eventually…
“What value is product management actually bringing?”
What You’ll Learn Today
Why Frameworks Don’t Align Stakeholders.
What To Treat Alignment as a Human Problem, Not a Math Problem.
Using “Shuttle Diplomacy” To Build Buy-in.
Making Trade-Offs Explicit So Decisions Hold.
A Practical Approach To Align Goals, Strategy, and Priorities.
Frameworks Don’t Help
Early in my PM career, I found what I thought was the answer:
A prioritization scorecard.
You’ve probably seen it:
Define 3–7 criteria
Weight each one
Score initiatives from 1–5
Add it all up
Boom. A ranked backlog.
As a former engineer with an MBA, I loved it.
It was logical. Rational. Fair. Defensible.
And it completely failed.
Stakeholders challenged:
The criteria
The weights
The scores
Or they ignored it entirely.
I heard things like:
“Customer X is a massive account. This must be top priority.”
“We told the board we're doing it this year. Where is it?”
“This ignores technical debt. That's reckless.”
“Customer Z has been waiting three months and is up for renewal.”
My mistake, it turned out, was simple:
I had treated stakeholder alignment like a math problem.
Instead of a human problem.
Stakeholder Alignment Is a Human Problem
Product managers are trained to be rational.
You analyze. You reason. You optimize. You’re rewarded for your critical thinking.
So it’s natural to think:
“If I just find the right framework, I'll crack this.”
You won’t.
Frameworks don’t solve human problems.
What does is:
Psychology
EQ
Communication
Leadership
The good news is product managers already use these skills with customers.
So, you just need to use the same skills internally.
Let’s talk about how.
6 Things You Can Do This Week to Align Stakeholders on Priorities
1. Get Clear On The Product Objectives.
Start with the company’s business goals:
OKRs
KPIs
Revenue targets
Strategic bets
Make sure you understand them first.
Then draft product goals that clearly support those objectives.
Example:
At one company, growth depended on expanding existing accounts. That led to product goals like:
Supporting new use cases
Building revenue-unlocking integrations
Improving product quality and UX
Then we defined metrics to measure these. These metrics were directly linked to the business goals.
The point isn’t perfection. The point is clarity:
→ Product goals that ladder directly to business outcomes
→ Metrics to measure progress
First individually. Then collectively.
In other words, talk to stakeholders one-on-one first. Then confirm alignment as a group.
This is called shuttle diplomacy.
This small-to-big approach works because:
Stakeholders feel heard and involved
Feedback surfaces early
Fewer surprises in group settings
Going straight to a big meeting increases the risk of:
Public disagreement
Loud voices dominating
Lost credibility
If one-on-ones aren’t practical, meet in small clusters.
When you have these conversations:
Emphasize that goals can evolve
Capture feedback
Use a clear tie-breaker when needed (VP Product, CEO, etc.)
Publish the decision in a shared space and communicate it
Transparency builds trust.
3. Map Initiatives To The Agreed-Upon Goals.
With goals aligned, look at your major initiatives — not individual tickets.
Ask:
Which initiatives best support the goals?
What are the trade-offs?
Which ones don't fit?
Think in themes.
Example:
At one company, instead of scoring 50 UX issues and 25 support tickets, we created initiatives like:
“Improved User Experience”
“Platform Stability”
Sure, not the most clever names. But very effective.
We then stress-tested their alignment against the goals and strategy.
We were able to share a strategy map that looked something like this:
This approach:
Simplifies prioritization
Sets you up naturally for a roadmap
Creates space for TBDs that invite collaboration
Use shuttle diplomacy again.
At this stage, you are not:
Committing to dates
Locking scope
Assigning resources
You are aligning on the initiatives most likely to achieve the goals.
Once stakeholders agree on what matters most, you can move on to how.
5. Partner With Engineering On Feasibility.
Now bring in engineering.
You’re not asking for:
Detailed estimates
Full specs
Delivery dates
You’re asking for directional effort.
T-shirt sizing or rough order of magnitude is enough.
The goal:
Understand feasibility
Draw a clear “line”
Identify what’s realistically worth pursuing
I often use a simple 2×2 matrix (value vs. effort) to make this visible at a glance.
There are other approaches. Use whatever tool works in your context.
The intent here is to get to a final set of proposed priorities for your roadmap that you believe will help achieve the agreed-upon goals.
6. Review Proposed Priorities, Make Trade-offs Explicit.
Present the proposed priorities clearly tied to goals.
Then discuss trade-offs.
If a stakeholder pushes for something below the line, ask:
“What should we deprioritize instead?”
Frame choices in economic terms:
“We could prioritize the new reporting tool. Engineering estimates it will consume ~25% of quarterly capacity. That puts initiatives Delta and Gamma at risk, pushing out $1.1M in realized ARR. Is that a trade-off you want to make?”
This shifts the conversation from opinion to consequence.
The Payoff
When stakeholders help shape the roadmap:
Alignment increases
Derailment risk drops
Buy-in comes faster
Using a collaborative process provides transparent visibility into how and why you’re prioritizing your roadmap.
This makes it more likely to gain buy-in on your proposals and avoid derailing your roadmap.
After all, it’s harder for someone to argue against something they helped create!
Give this a try this week and let me know how the conversation changes.
That’s all for this week.
Have a joyful week, and, if you can, make it joyful for someone else too.
cheers,
shardul
Here are 4 ways I can help you today:
Strategy Design Workshop: Transform scattered priorities into clear, actionable direction. I’ll facilitate your team through a customized workshop to align stakeholders and create strategies that actually get executed instead of forgotten. Book a call.
Product Management Audit: Get a clear picture of what’s working and what’s holding your team back. Through a systematic analysis, I’ll evaluate your strategy, processes, roles, metrics, and culture. You’ll walk away a practical set of findings and actionable recommendations to strengthen your product organization. Book a call.
Corporate Training: Elevate your entire product organization. I’ll teach your team how to think and act strategically, craft outcome-driven roadmaps, and dramatically improve how they deliver measurable results that matter to your business. Book a call.
Improv Based Team Building Workshop: Boost creativity, trust, and collaboration through improv. Your team will problem-solve faster and work better together. Book a call.
Shardul Mehta
I ❤️ product managers.