In the realm of dynamic inter-departmental collaboration, and to continue our cross-functional meeting agenda series, the spotlight now falls on the convergence of Community and Product teams. This alliance serves as a linchpin for not only nurturing a thriving community but also fueling product excellence through community member-driven insights. In this article, we will delve into the sample meeting agendas when Community and Product teams convene, emphasizing the synergy of discussing community-driven ideas, roadmap priorities, recent successes, and upcoming product engagement opportunities.
The significance of scheduled meetings
These cross-collaborative meetings harness the collective wisdom of community insights and product prowess, allowing for better communication between end users and the people who build the product. Regular meetings propel a shared sense of purpose, eradicating duplicative efforts, and seamlessly channeling community contributions into product functions. These interactions further incubate innovation through iterative feedback loops, birthing avenues like webinars, product feedback opportunities, and external/internal alignment with regards to the product roadmap.
Meeting agendas
The structure of meeting agendas evolves as the collaboration between Community and Product teams matures. Below are the agenda elements tailored to different stages of collaboration.
Early stage collaboration
At the nascent stage of collaboration, the focus lies in establishing a foundation to amplify community-driven product enhancements.
- Introductions: Each team member introduces themselves and outlines their roles and responsibilities.
- Current Workflows: Deliberate over the existing product elements within the community, including product ideation, events calendar, and areas for community members to get facetime with product team members. Product team can discuss their prioritization process and how best to incorporate community ideas into the roadmap.
- Goals Alignment: Both teams present their objectives, seeking intersections and shared goals to strive for.
- Reporting Insights: Exchange of data insights and metrics that hold relevance for both teams, cultivating a data-driven perspective.
- Ongoing relationship management: Discuss logistics for the future like meeting cadence, ownership of items (a RACI chart could help with this), and best way to communicate across teams between meetings (e.g. Slack, email, other messaging tool).
Mid Stage Collaboration
As collaboration deepens, the meeting agenda evolves to encompass proactive strategies for community-driven product enhancement.
- Product Ideation & Product Team Enablement: Discuss new or trending ideas in the community, triage process, and how product team members are engaging in the community and responding to product ideas in the community.
- Roadmap Visibility: Product team can share upcoming features in the product roadmap, connecting them to ideas in the community. Teams can discuss how to foster better product adoption and enablement for upcoming features and changes to the product.
- Additional Enablement & Feedback: Discuss event or content opportunities to facilitate additional product adoption and enablement. This could include product feedback roundtables, product manager Ask Me Anything’s (AMAs), beta test opportunities, early access opportunities, and more.
- Performance Metrics: Scrutinize idea triage/response times in the community, idea fulfillment rates, product adoption rates for community members vs. non-members, etc.
Advanced Stage Collaboration
In the zenith of collaboration, Community and Product teams operate as a harmonized entity, consistently propelling feedback and communication loops between the two teams. In addition to everything in the mid-stage collaboration meeting agenda, there are a few additional things the teams can discuss at this advanced level of collaboration.
- Super Users and Advocates: Discuss community members or users who are super users of the product and see how to recognize them in the community and give them bonus opportunities for participating in developing the product and giving feedback.
- Joint Initiatives: Engage in co-crafted projects like webinars or an event series.
- Sustainability and Growth: Brainstorm expansion strategies, anticipate challenges, and champion continuous enhancement.
- Collaborative Insights: Develop shared dashboards spotlighting pertinent data and advancement towards collective goals.
- Unified Strategy: Map out holistic strategies that foster synergy across short, medium, and long-term timeframes.
Conclusion
Through collaboration, communication, transparency, and working together, Community and Product teams have a huge opportunity to build the product based off of the customers’ wants and needs, preventing building the product in a silo without user input. The strategic rhythm of their meetings culminates in a symphony of customer-centric excellence, where ideas flourish, products evolve, and the community thrives.
August 29, 2023
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