Recommendations Management

Your idea isn’t the problem. How you communicate it is. Early in my career, I’d make recommendations to my boss... and get met with either no decision, or endless back-and-forth. The problem wasn’t my ideas — it was my delivery. Over time, I figured out what separates recommendations that stall, from ones met with a quick decision. I've turned it into a simple framework, and I now ask every leader on my team to use it when presenting ideas to me. I want to share it with you. 🌀 SPIRAL 🌀 ▪️ Situation → You need to provide context. Your boss may not be as close to the details as you. Keep it clear. Keep it concise. ▪️ Problem → First, make sure you have a real problem. It's your job to decipher between "volume vs volume". Meaning is this problem you're solving for happening often, indicating you have a systemic issue? Or do you just a squeaky wheel? Provide at least two, real examples! ▪️ Impact → Be data-backed. How does this problem impact outcomes you care about? Avoid subjective terms like "often, big". Be specific. ▪️ Recommendation → This is where you demonstrate your ability to be solution oriented. Also, all change recommendations have pros and cons. List those out, so your boss doesn't feel like their walking into a trap. Where possible, include ways to mitigate the risks. ▪️ Ask → Be explicit. What needs to change, how, and when? ▪️ Last Line, First → Never burry the headline! In one succinct sentence, what are you recommending? Make this the first line in your slack, or the first words out of your mouth in your meeting. Save this. Use this. And I promise... You'll stand out from your peers. Your recommendations will be met with quicker decisions.

When you’re sharing your research recommendations, skip the “How Might We’s.” When I started out as a UXR, I thought my role was to conduct the study and share the facts. Anything more was overstepping. I’ve since learned that my role as a researcher is to take the insights from the study and turn them into action. Stakeholders request research when they don’t know which way to go or the next step to take. It’s not valuable to conduct all this work and then leave the team with more questions like “how might we resolve this?” Wasn’t that the point of the research? I’m not suggesting that researchers just hand out solutions, but it’s important to have a point of view on your work and what happens next. If all participants struggled to discover a key element on the page, skip the recommendation of “how might we improve discoverability of feature X” and cut to the chase — “Introduce feature X where users are most likely to discover it, such as place A, B, or C.” A couple tricks I like to use when framing my recommendations: 💡If I was the PM or primary decision maker on this project, what decisions would I make based on the findings from the research? How confident would I be in those decisions? The most confident decisions become your recommendations. 💡(Counterintuitively) Start with 'How Might We' or 'Consider...' in recommendations, then later remove them and revise for clarity and strength. This turns “How Might We improve the comprehension of the value prop” into “Improve the comprehension of the value prop…” You can fine tune the language, but now your recommendation feels much stronger, something the team should action on and not just “consider.” Not every recommendation may have a high degree of confidence or clear next steps (sometimes the recommendation is to do more research, because we still don’t know what to do). But for those that you’re confident in, your recommendations should sound like it.

Most Enterprise Business Reviews miss the mark. They bore with endless slides, random usage metrics, and lack both context and strategy. 🥱 It's no surprise executives don't show up to them. CSMs often complain that they need better data for these presentations. But the issue I see over and over again isn't a lack of data... It's that CSMs are: → narrating facts and data points → not forming opinions about the customer's performance → not crafting a story that connects to the customer's goals How do you change that? As a senior leader, I deliver A LOT of presentations. After delivering hundreds of strategic presentations, I learned a framework that always works to make strategy presentations compelling and actionable. Here's the framework: 🕰 HINDSIGHT What actually happened: Results vs. original goals and the product usage that drove outcomes. 🔍 INSIGHT What the data really means: An honest and opinionated performance assessment with benchmarks to help contextualise the results. 🚀 FORESIGHT Concrete next steps: New performance opportunities and Strategic recommendations. The moment you shift from "here's what happened" to "here's how we'll win" - everything changes. Sounds simple... But to create this narrative you'll need to spend time with the data, interpreting the results and contextualising it for the customer. And you'll need to arrive at your own conclusions to make strong recommendations. It takes time to do that. But that's ok. Because it's worth it. An EBR shouldn't be a number to hit. It should be an outcome to achieve with the customer. Something that delivers value. - Want to transform your next EBR? Join 12.5k CS professionals changing the game (sign up to my newsletter below). #customersuccess #revops #csm #cx #SaaS

The crucial difference between a good Product Manager and a great one lies in the ability to draw meaningful conclusions from data — essentially pulling out the “so what” from the pile of numbers and charts. Extracting the “So What” Problem Identification: A good Product Manager identifies anomalies or trends in the data. A great one asks, “So what does this mean for our customers, or for our business?” Hypothesis Testing: Once you identify a potential insight, test it. Whether it’s A/B testing, customer interviews, or market analysis, the aim is to validate or refute your hypotheses. Impact Analysis: Evaluate the potential effects of acting on your insights. Consider both short-term and long-term impacts, weighing them against the risks and the required resources. Crafting Actionable Recommendations Prioritization: Use frameworks like ICE (Impact, Confidence, Ease) or RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) to prioritize your findings based on their potential for meaningful change. Solution Mapping: Develop potential solutions to address the insights you’ve uncovered. These should be actionable, specific, and aligned with your product strategy and organizational goals. Stakeholder Presentation: Convert your insights and solutions into a compelling narrative. Supplement this with data and case studies, presenting it to stakeholders to garner support. Implementation Plan: Develop a step-by-step plan, complete with milestones, responsible parties, and KPIs for measuring success. Real-world Recommendations Example 1: If data shows that user retention drops significantly after seven days, the “so what” could be that the onboarding process is not engaging enough. Your actionable recommendation could be to redesign the onboarding experience, broken down into specific steps like user interviews, design mock-ups, A/B tests, and metrics for measuring success. Example 2: If customer feedback indicates dissatisfaction with customer service, the “so what” could point to a strained customer relations department. Actionable recommendations might include hiring more staff, retraining existing staff, or implementing a new CRM system, again backed by metrics and a timeline for evaluation. Have you ever worked with PMs and leader who present a lot of data and never extract clear "So What's" with actionable recommendations? What was the impact of this on the organization and success of the product? #ProductManagent #PM #ProductManager #Dataanalysis #sowhat #Leadership

Executives don’t want the full story. They want the "get to the point and tell me why it matters" version. I learned this the hard way in my early days in corporate strategy. I once walked a GM through a 23 slide deck, only for him to ask: "So what decision are you recommending?" Brutal. 🤯 Here’s a simple 4-step framework I teach corporate teams to make sure execs actually listen: 𝟭. 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲. Literally, open with the answer. Say: 'We recommend X because of Y.' Let them stop you if they want context. But don’t bury your point on slide 15. 𝟮. 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲. If your exec thinks in quarters, don’t talk in days. Match their level of detail. Don’t make them reframe your data into something that actually matters at their level. 𝟯. 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘅𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗰𝘁. One or two charts with powerful takeaways can often be more effective than a detailed slide deck with 28 charts and no points. You can always drop additional details in an appendix. 𝟰. 𝗙𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮. Executives don’t want non-committal reporting. They want recommendations. Don't just give them the data, give them your perspective: 'There are 2 options: A and B. We recommend B because it’s 30% faster with less risk.' Find this tip useful? Please give this a like 👍 or repost ♻️ to help others and follow me Daniel Galletta for more tips like these.

Is there too much talking and not enough decision-making in your meetings? Try this at your next meeting: 1. Ask people to create recommendations. I always ask people to give me a headline and 3-4 bullet points to explain what it is or how it works. (I recommend 4x6 post it notes) 2. Give folks 90 seconds to explain their recommendation. 3. Put all recommendations on a flip chart and ask people to dot vote for the recommendation that best solves the problem. (Look up how to conduct a dot vote) 4. Present the recommendations in rank order. Narrow your conversation to reviewing the trade-offs of the top two recommendations. 5. Make a choice - When the discussion is winding down, try to summarize by saying, "So the choice we are making is ...?" 6. Write the choice in an email and send it out after the meeting. This is the approach I took with Nebraska Cancer Specialists, and one person commented, "This would have taken us forever to reach a consensus. You managed to do it in three hours." I'd like to thank Danielle Geiger and the team for inviting me to facilitate their annual planning workshop. Outstanding work, team!