{"id":6059,"date":"2019-02-25T18:26:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T18:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=6059"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:27:13","slug":"new-product-features","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/new-product-features\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Ways to Communicate New Product Features to Business Facing Teams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Communicating new product features to business facing teams is crucial to any company\u2019s success. It\u2019s easy to fall into a trap of not being transparent if you don\u2019t take the time to talk to others!

This failure to talk to business-facing teams can be telling of three problems:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Your company isn\u2019t set up in a way that encourages collaboration between multiple departments<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. You are relying too much on your development team and not enough on your business facing teams<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. You are building features without getting feedback from other team members (particularly those outside of your direct product\/dev teams)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    It\u2019s also a symptom that the product team is feature-driven rather than customer-centric. Remember that business-facing teams speak to customers all day, so they\u2019re in the right position to give you information you need, like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Potential customers to speak to<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Potential beta testers\/user testers<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Unique insight based on conversations they\u2019ve had<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      If you\u2019re currently suffering from these problems – good news – they can be solved!

      Here are a few actions you can take to get your internal communication moving in the right direction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      1. Get your teams involved in discussing potential ideas (and solutions)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Talk about the problem, see if anyone has insight. You are there to ask questions, not to find all the solutions on your own. Rely on your team members, especially those who are directly exposed to customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      2. Make sure business objectives and product objectives are in line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      I\u2019d love to say this isn’t a mistake people make, but it is. I\u2019ve seen it time and time again. Make sure you have a North Star objective – a long-term, high-level goal that you and your team use as motivation – to work towards and that everyone understands what your roadmap looks like and why.

      Marketing and sales can\u2019t talk about things that don\u2019t exist, just like you can\u2019t build something just because they decided to talk about it. Communicate!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      3. Have bi-weekly presentations of upcoming features<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      Encourage communication by having developers show off what they\u2019re working on. This gives your team the opportunity to be exposed to new features, to ask questions, gather feedback, and share progress. It also puts a face to who\u2019s behind building things, and gives your dev team a nice boost!

      It also forces your team to communicate New Features and show off whatever you have at that point, even if it\u2019s not perfect. People often get held up because they don’t schedule the time to show off a feature until they have something to show for it… but that’s usually way later than expected (lol at sticking to timelines) and it usually means the person waits until the feature is in a more complete state. Showing off items early on helps you to get feedback to iterate accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      4. Be transparent about progress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      I don\u2019t mean share a timeline or promise a release date. Share your progress – literally. Speak about what you\u2019ve achieved so far, why the feature is helpful to users, and what you hope to achieve in the coming weeks. It\u2019s also important to note that marketing doesn\u2019t need to have something ready the day the item goes live, so don\u2019t pressure them into doing so. Give yourself leeway to test the feature properly, and once you\u2019re confident, let your teams go wild! Sound the bells and whistles, scream things as loudly as you can – at this point, it\u2019s already passed user testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      5. Play the Product Tree Game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      The Product Tree Game<\/a> is a great exercise for any product team. We use it quite a bit! The game encourages everyone to get involved, ask questions, and understand upcoming priorities. You can get a copy of the game on our blog.<\/p>\n\n\n

      \n
      \"Communicate<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

      Takeaways<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      At the end of the day, most of these issues come down to poor communication. Whether it is through meetings, emails, or over a coffee – make sure that you find the time to sit down and talk to those around you. Don\u2019t let the everyday hustle get in the way of a good chat!<\/p>\n\n\n

      \n
      \"Free<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Communicating new product features to business facing teams is crucial to any company\u2019s success. It\u2019s easy to fall into a trap of not being transparent if you don\u2019t take the time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[40,585],"pp_uni_tag":[],"class_list":["post-6059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-leadership","tag-communication","tag-internal-transparency"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFive Ways to Communicate New Product Features<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Communicating new product features to business teams\u00a0is crucial to company success, but It\u2019s easy to not be transparent.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/new-product-features\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Ways to Communicate New Features to Business Facing Teams\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A product manager\u2019s quick guide to improving communication with business-facing teams with 5 simple tips and tricks. 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