PM Quest · Practice cases · Learning resources

Influencing a Senior Executive with Data

Behavioral · advanced

Tell me about a time you successfully pushed back on a senior executive's pet project or preferred feature direction, explaining your reasoning and the ultimate outcome.

Write your approach on PM Quest

Community approaches

Pavlo’s approach

I worked on a project when two key stakeholders where pulling the product in two opposite directions. Despite a few planning sessions I organized with them they were continue pushing their vision. I couldn't say no to any of them, but I could refer to the team workload and explain what they can do and when. So, to manage the situation, I tried to combine their vision into one solution and find the compromise. I created a roadmap with proposed features and split the workload proportionally. After that I presented the plan to both of them and explain, that in case of synchronised vision we could move quicker an be more efficient. But they decided to go with the proposed plan, which was successfully implemented.