Dear Product Manager,
I’m a senior PM at a mid-sized SaaS company, and honestly, I’m struggling. At the start of the year, we went over company goals and talked about being more strategic with our roadmap. But since then, every time I start to prep tickets and get things lined up for engineering, leadership swoops in with a new “urgent” priority we suddenly need to pursue.
Engineering is frustrated—they keep asking when the tickets will be ready, or they come back with a million questions when I do send something over. And I get it! I want to be able to give them clarity, but I feel like I’m constantly context-switching and reworking things. I don’t even know what the roadmap is anymore.
How do I push for stability without sounding like I’m resistant to change?
—Spinning My Wheels
Dear Spinning My Wheels,
What you’re describing is tough—and honestly, really common. A lot of teams hit a point where priorities keep shifting, there’s no clear roadmap, and product managers are left trying to make progress while everything feels like it’s in flux. You’re not alone in this.
When that happens, your job shifts from shipping features to helping create clarity. Here are a few ways to do that—even if leadership isn’t offering much structure:
- Reframe the conversation around outcomes
If priorities are changing weekly, try asking: What do we think is most important right now, and why? You want to know what outcome leadership is trying to drive—not just which feature to build. This helps ground decisions in goals, and gives you a way to keep bringing the conversation back when things drift. - Clarify the problem, not just the request
It’s not always clear whether you're being handed a solution or a problem. So ask: What problem are we trying to solve, and how will we know if we’ve solved it? This gives you—and engineering—something solid to work from, even when the direction is shifting. - Make the cost of change visible
You’re probably reworking specs, shifting priorities mid-sprint, and fielding a lot of “what happened to that thing we started?” questions. Try keeping a simple log of what's changed and what it impacted. Even something like, “We deprioritized X this week, which pauses Y work and resets estimates for Z” can help others see the tradeoffs—and maybe slow the churn. - Put your best guess on the table
If no one’s offering a roadmap, sketch out what you think it might be based on what you’re hearing. It doesn’t need to be perfect—it just gives people something concrete to react to, and shows you’re thinking proactively.
You're in a messy situation, but asking these kinds of questions is exactly what strong product leadership looks like. Keep at it—your team needs someone willing to ask why, not just what’s next.
—The Product Manager
