Resolving Conflicting Stakeholder Views on a Product Decision

When stakeholders hold conflicting opinions about a product decision, what is your go-to approach for working through it? Walk through the steps and back them with an example. ```hint Find the level of the disagreement People can disagree about the goal, about the facts, or about how to judge the same facts. Think about how you work out which of these you are facing, because each needs a different move. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Are the stakeholders peers you have no authority over, such as engineering, design, sales and legal, or senior leaders above you? - Should I describe the general approach, or one disagreement I worked through from start to finish? - Is the disagreement about long-term roadmap priorities, or about a specific launch decision with a deadline? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - How the candidate learns each stakeholder's goals and incentives before the group discussion. - Agreeing on a shared objective and decision criteria before arguing over options. - Presenting options with their trade-offs and reversibility, and making clear who owns the final call. - How dissent is recorded, how people who disagreed are brought along after the decision, and when the decision gets revisited. - A concrete example with the outcome and the state of the working relationships afterwards. ### Follow-up Questions - Tell me about a time you could not reach agreement and had to escalate. How did you frame the escalation? - What do you do when a stakeholder agrees in the meeting and then works against the decision? - How does your approach change when the person you disagree with is more senior than you?