Introduction

Managing up is a critical skill for Product Managers (PMs) to ensure alignment, support, and buy-in from senior leadership throughout the product lifecycle. Effectively managing up can significantly impact a product's success, maintain trust in the PM's ability to deliver value, and positively influence career trajectory. This guide outlines key strategies and best practices for managing up effectively.

What leaders expect from Product Managers

Effective upward management involves understanding and meeting leadership's expectations. Senior management seeks clarity on the product vision, progress, risks, and outcomes. Specifically, they want to:

• Get a clear, strategic vision for the product: understanding the market need and long-term goals.
• Keep track of overall portfolio health: monitoring progress and implications of changes across initiatives.
• Achieve planned outcomes on time: ensuring milestones are met as scheduled.
• Anticipate potential issues: being informed about risks in advance to enable timely course correction.
• Make informed decisions during crises: prioritizing, managing resources, and adjusting scope effectively.

Understanding these expectations is the first step in effectively managing up.

Common challenges Product Managers face when managing up

Traditionally, PMs manage up through periodic status meetings, roadmaps, reports, and ad-hoc updates. While these methods provide some visibility, they often lack the depth and foresight needed to preemptively address concerns:

• Lack of engagement: static documents can be overwhelming and fail to capture leadership's attention.
• Outdated information: roadmaps quickly become obsolete.
• Inconsistent communication: lack of real-time updates on blockers and changes prevents timely interventions, leading to surprises and loss of trust.
• Non-standardized reporting: different teams may use varying standards, making it difficult to maintain a uniform view.
• Delayed updates: team members often prioritize deliverables over reporting, resulting in slow information dissemination.

PMs also use various tools to keep leadership informed and engaged:

• Project management tools (e.g., Jira, Trello, Asana): these provide detailed task-level information but can be too granular for leadership, leading to confusion and wasted time.
• Communication platforms (e.g., Slack, Microsoft Teams, email): these can create noise, with important information getting lost among numerous channels.
• Dashboards and reporting tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI, Google Data Studio): while useful for data visualization, these tools may not facilitate proactive real-time risk and change identification.

As a result, PMs often spend excessive time and effort consolidating information from different tools, producing manual reports and presentations for leadership. Consequently, projects frequently get delayed due to:

1. Slow decision-making.
2. Low awareness of potential and current issues.
3. Inability to change course effectively.

Effective communication strategies for Product Managers

Key principles

• Clarity and conciseness: distill complex information into clear, actionable insights. Avoid jargon and focus on what matters most to leadership..
• Focus on outcomes, not outputs: highlight the impact of your work by tying product progress to broader business objectives, rather than just listing completed tasks.
• Data-driven insights: use metrics and KPIs to support your arguments and decisions, ensuring your points are backed by solid evidence.
• Proactive problem-solving: present solutions along with problems. Handle issues within your scope, and seek leadership's influence for problems requiring their intervention.
• Transparency and honesty: build trust by being open about challenges and setbacks. Own up to mistakes quickly and outline your plan to rectify them.
• Tailored communication: adapt your communication style to each stakeholder's preferences. Consider whether they prefer written emails, verbal discussions, structured meetings, or informal chats.
• Consistency: provide regular updates to build a reliable communication channel, ensuring leadership is always informed.
• Specific requests: clearly articulate your needs, whether they involve funding, resources, or other assistance. Explain why you need it and the consequences of not receiving it.
• Present options: offer alternatives and outline the consequences of each, providing facts to support your recommendations. This helps leadership make informed decisions.
• Anticipate and address concerns: be prepared to address common leadership concerns such as ROI, market positioning, technical feasibility, resource allocation, and compliance issues.

Key data points for Product Managers to share with leadership

Planning stage

• Product vision and roadmap:
  • Share a high-level view of the product vision, objectives, and roadmap.
  • Use simple, visual formats like Gantt charts or roadmaps.
  • Highlight key milestones and dependencies.
  • Relate the roadmap to strategic goals.
• Value proposition:
  • Clearly articulate the value proposition of the product.
  • Explain how it addresses customer pain points and contributes to the organization's strategic objectives.
• Resource allocation:
  • Detail the required resources (budget, team members, tools) and their allocation.
  • Highlight any potential resource constraints or gaps.

Development stage

• Progress and metrics:
  • Update on progress against plans and key metrics.
  • Highlight key changes vs plans (eg launch date) with the rationale.
  • Celebrate milestones and communicate wins.
• Challenges and risks:
  • Highlight ongoing challenges, risks, and mitigation strategies.
  • Propose solutions or ask for specific support when needed.

Launch stage

• Readiness status:
  • Provide an overview of the product's readiness for launch.
  • Highlight any final testing, quality assurance checks, and pending approvals.
• Go-to-Market Strategy:
  • Outline the marketing, sales, and distribution strategies.
  • Include key dates and activities for the launch campaign.
• Risk management:
  • Reiterate any launch-specific risks and mitigation plans.
  • Ensure leadership is aware of contingency plans.

Post-launch stage

• Performance metrics:
  • Share initial performance metrics, such as user adoption rates, customer satisfaction scores, and revenue impact.
  • Compare actual performance against projected targets.
• Customer feedback and iteration:
  • Present feedback from users and customers.
  • Discuss plans for product improvements and iterations based on this feedback.
• Continuous improvement:
  • Highlight ongoing efforts for product optimization and new feature development.
  • Share long-term strategic plans for the product's evolution.

How Luna makes a difference

Luna establishes a shared language among stakeholders, including leadership, empowering them with real-time visibility into overall progress. This enables them to:

• Keep track of overall portfolio health, without having to ask PMs for constant reports.
• Identify issues early and proactively address risks and support teams.
• Ensure OKRs remain on track, aligning efforts with organizational objectives.
• Standardize launch processes, ensuring consistency and reliability.

By leveraging Luna, PMs can enhance their ability to manage up, ensuring that senior leadership is well-informed, engaged, and supportive throughout the product lifecycle.

Conclusion

Mastering the art of managing up is crucial for Product Managers to effectively align with senior leadership and drive product success. By understanding leadership's expectations, leveraging clear and concise communication, and utilizing tools for real-time visibility and standardized processes, PMs can ensure strategic alignment, proactive risk management, and continuous support throughout the product lifecycle. 

Resources

Books on Managing Up:

1. HBR Guide to Managing Up and Across (HBR Guide Series) by Harvard Business School Press.
2. Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up by John Baldoni.
3. Managing Up: 59 Ways to Build a Career-Advancing Relationship with Your Boss by Michael S. Dobson.
4. Managing Up: How to Forge an Effective Relationship With Those Above You by Rosanne Badowski.
5. Throwing the Elephant: Zen and the Art of Managing Up by Stanley Bing.