Stakeholder management is an underrated determinant of product outcomes: once the hard, technical mechanics of building a product are in place (roadmapping, process, delivery), the soft, relational work of managing stakeholders is what actually determines whether the product succeeds. McCarthy and Appel call this "the secret lubricant behind success" — the topic "nobody talks about" relative to its actual leverage.
This reframes Disagree and Commit and The Matrix: Mapping Real (Informal) Power vs. the Org Chart: technical correctness is necessary but not sufficient — an organization that is not aligned around a decision will not execute it well even if the decision is right.
One of the authors had, by his own account, genuine product-market fit for an idea that later became — in essence — Vista Print, a company eventually worth roughly $2 billion, once someone else executed the same idea with organizational alignment behind them. "I invented Vista Print before Vista Print." The point isn't the missed opportunity; it's that being right about the idea produced nothing on its own — alignment behind the idea is what turned it into a company. From Bruce McCarthy and Melissa Appel's Align.
Из тем: Stakeholder Power and Trust