A PM’s guide to influence

Jules Walter, a product leader at Google formerly of YouTube and Slack, lays out five tactics for building influence as a PM: gathering intel on how stakeholders decide, framing proposals from their point of view, preparing detractors and champions before meetings, making people feel heard, and managing meeting time. The core argument is that alignment is built deliberately before and during decision meetings, not left to chance.

01Key takeaways

• Interview key stakeholders and their teams to learn their goals, decision process, and likely objections before pitching.
• Frame your proposal around what the decision-maker cares about, not around your own team's goal.
• Meet detractors early to understand their concerns, and steelman their argument so you can respond to it.
• Reflect people's points back in your own words so they feel heard, and build progressive alignment during the meeting.
• State a concrete desired outcome at the start of a meeting and steer back to it to get a decision in the time available.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.