The Importance of the Product Sponsor: a (Non)Fundamental Role

I had recently changed from one airline's digital product to a brand new one to start from scratch while the other continued in the hands of a second team. This new product had never been done before in this country but was very popular in another. It had gone through the Portfolio Planning Process (a.k.a. PPP) and it had been prioritized for the revenue opportunity it meant. The problem? There were also other opportunities with higher revenue potential that had been previously prioritized and were already in progress. The second problem? They all had the same sponsor behind them. Why was this an issue? Let me explain from the beginning.

My team and I were really excited to start fresh a new product, the challenge it represented and being able to experience once again the whole product life cycle. We did our due diligence in discovery -some of us even got to travel for research to the country where this product was a huge success- and prepared for the upcoming product inception with stakeholders. I, as Product Manager, was very clear of the situation: this product’s main KPI was its potential annual income in terms of ancillary revenue -but so it was the reality for all other products and at least five with higher possibilities that had the same sponsor from the sales area-. So the product’s true differentiator from the others was the customer engagement lever it represented as there were no other airlines in the country with this feature; it was a novelty. Did this matter? Not really.

The company was facing -as many do at some point of their existence- a revenue crisis due to its recent joint venture which had impacted their brand, processes and systems. The highest priority all over was anything that produced money. User experience therefore became a “nice to have'' attribute instead of first priority, and so was anything that moved those KPIs, including my product. So at the end of the day, there was only a list of products ranked by one KPI: revenue. My product was 10th in this ranking but, as stated before, it shared the sponsor with the number one product among others. Long story short, we were fighting for business resources with nine other products that came before us. We were never going to accomplish our goals if we didn’t have the support we needed from our counterparts. This was something more than relevant that we presented as a risk in the inception we held with all of our stakeholders that, luckily enough, were able to squeeze us in their agendas.?

During the inception, stakeholders -especially from the sales area- came clean their focus was mainly in the other products higher in the revenue ranking. Although this product was important to them, they didn’t have the time nor the capacity to dedicate enough attention to this initiative. Of course, as anticipated, this statement raised lots of questions among all the present audience and to my team in particular, it caused lots of anxiety as to what was going to happen with us and the product itself. Let’s remember briefly that we had “given up” to another team our previous product for this one. There was uncertainty all around, we couldn’t believe our leaders and the whole process. Hadn't this been thought earlier during the PPP? Why bring it up now? Why waste our time? Or better yet, what other opportunity with higher potential should we focus on instead of this one? We hadn’t been part of the selection process. As told earlier, this planning wasn’t in a start-up operated manner. “What should we do now?” was the resounding question at the end.

As the stakeholders were leaving the room, I’ll never forget there was one in particular that approached me and said to me: “You should find yourself a sponsor” and walked away. I was stunned for a minute. I couldn’t believe what she had just told me. Wasn’t she aware of the company’s context and way of working? It wasn’t that I personally wanted to build this product so badly that I needed to get sponsorship in order to do so. What had I missed here? Of course that I immediately escalated this risk -that had already turned into an issue- with my direct leaders. They all reassured me this product was in the top 10 priorities of the company -yes, sure, but number 10- , that there wasn't at the time another different one with higher potential than this one, and that I should keep going no matter what, that in fact they would act as sponsors if needed. Clearly there was some lack of alignment in the speech I was receiving. I reluctantly accepted this answer because it didn’t solve the main problem: we still needed a true business sponsor.?

When you have your own company or belong to a start-up, you not only decide what product you want to build/sell but also pretty much have to obtain your sponsors yourself in order to do so, whether it is for money investment, marketing support or any other objectives you have to succeed -like in Shark Tank TV show-. However, when you work at a large corporation where there’s a “sense of empowerment” -at least when prioritizing in the development stage-, those who call the shots in what products are built are actually leaders above your pay-grade. So when a product that was prioritized to be developed suddenly becomes sponsor-less, what do you think should happen?

In spite of having had certain ups and downs during the definition part of the process because many times we discovered new requirements along the way, my team and I somehow made it work. There were times we had to be patient with late responses from the sales area -understandable- but they finally came. We responded quickly to change -isn’t that what agile is all about anyways?- and asked for feedback every time we could with working software so that if we failed, we did it cheap and fast. We even incorporated innovation in the artifacts we were implementing as no other team had done them before -i.e. app gadget- which required to build not only the business rules but also certain intelligence in the product itself of whether it should show or not. But not to deviate from the main trunk of the story, we were able to power through an “sponsor-less” position into a successful product with engaged stakeholders by keeping them informed and showing results release after release as promised in the MVPs planned over inception.

In conclusion, after this experience of shifting from having a sponsor to not having one to having whoever, l learned that successful products do not depend on this particular role. It was important for us to know the person behind the initiative we were building and why it was a priority so as to guarantee we were meeting the right expectations. However, ultimately, our most important stakeholder is the client. So as long as we complied with the imposed airline business rules, the rest of the verdict to our success corresponded to the product users. After all, no role is more significant than the vision of a team and making it a reality. I’ll admit it gave me a lot to think about what I should have done differently or if I should have demanded vehemently the role we were missing or even have behaved as a start-up and have proposed something completely different, maybe an opportunity no one had ever considered. Then again, flexibility and adaptation prevailed and this whole story became another lesson to teach other Product Managers about how to manage difficult situations, speak out and also know when to stop pushing stakeholders. Besides, let’s not forget, we are still accountable to show them the money!

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