Collaboration is a foundational and fundamental skill for any product marketer, so on May 6th, Sprinklr's Director of Product Marketing, Holly Watson, will be on hand to all your collaboration Qs.

Communication is key. Outside of weekly to bi-weekly team calls, I'll use a few different items to ensure teams stay informed and engaged. With GTMs I use a gantt chart to showcase the full project plan. This plan is shared with the team involved in the launch and is regularly updated. Smartsheets is a great tool for this, but if you can also easily use Excel. Furthermore, I create an executive report - usually a PowerPoint side - with a high level summary of the status, next steps, blockers, wins, and any available resources are linked. 

I can understand how this is frustrating, but it's great that your PMM team is already good at reporting your goals and results. Keep that going! 

Sprinklr uses a system called W2HMO (What, Why, How, Metrics, Obstacles) that address the goals of each department. These are written statements/goals presented in a slide deck. The first team to provide their W2HMO is our Executive leadership - so it starts at the top. With Executive alignment, every department all the way to the individual will write and own their W2HMO goals. Each quarter all W2HMO plans are reviewed, updated, and adjusted as the year progresses. 

To more directly answer your question, plans are updated quarterly and yes, it is a two-way street. In fact, the W2HMOs forces a cross-functional conversation so resources are optimized and any obstacles are discussed and collaboratively worked on to remove. 

@Millie Davis ^ To answer your q on GTM communication management. 

YES! Great question. We face the same challenge, but have made decent progress on evangelizing approved collateral, messaging, and communication across the organization. This takes some 'Change Management' effort, but it can be done. 

For background, Sprinklr is a global SaaS organization with over 1500 employees that focuses our solution for the enterprise. The need for tight communication and collaboration is key.  

To ensure each department was getting what they needed, a Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) program was created. A representative from each department was assigned and aligned to one of our Products. This begins to shape a 'matrix org' but only in the terms of cross-departmental collaboration vs. management. Each SME team is lead by the PMM through weekly calls, slack channels, and shared Google Drives. Sprinklr does use Highspot for asset management and publication of final/approved assets.  

I've attached a screenshot of a slide I use to better articulate each SMEs responsibilities by project/discussion topic. Week over week our call topic changes based on what's at hand for the business. Having this matrix has helped clarify roles, expectations, and communication. 

@Carla Dobronauteanu ^ regarding my "SME" program response to your question about sharing material. 

Hi Millie - great question Ryan asked the same question above! See my comments there for my recommendations. I'll try to @mention you in the thread. 

Thanks, Fergus, this is such a great question as we all navigate this unpredictable environment. In general, I'm finding success with trying to maintain some semblance of a regular schedule, but I do find myself missing those water cooler chats too. 

Sprinklr has adopted some new ways of working such as having each team schedule daily 15min check-ins. Engineers will refer to this as a daily stand-up, but during these 15min our conversations are generally whimsical and not always work related. It's nice to have these on the calendar for a chance to break the solitude with some levity. I'd recommend scheduling this with co-works or cross-functional teams you work with regularly. 

Additionally, we've always used collaborative tools such as Slack, Google Hangouts, and Google Drive. Team calls have now widely become video calls and many people are comfortable turning their videos on. This has been great because so much of that non-verbal communication is infused back into team meetings.

Another more general tip is to remind yourself that it's ok to take 5mins to yourself. Stand-up, stretch your legs, if you can safely do so - take a moment outside. These breaks are necessary and a good way to reset yourself for the next project. I'd even say to check out the PMM slack channel for a brief moment as this community is here for each other. 

This can be a challenge. Most recently, Sprinklr has adopted Highspot. This tool has been very helpful in sharing assets and resources while keeping it all organized and measurable. Highspot has an integration with Salesforce that our team is exploring now. The intention behind the integration is to increase the adoption and tracking of our material. 

When new assets are available, we highlight them through a few different channels:

• Marketing has a weekly, company wide email that shares updates and available resources coming from the department. PMM has a specific section in this internal newsletter that we populate with new Highspot links
• Highspot allows teams to have what they call "Spots". This is essentially a mini-landing page/web page within Highspot where we as a team have organized our material by product. It's helped teams navigate here to find PMM approved resources. 
• SME program I mentioned above (I'll @mention you in the thread) is helpful too as we can lean on our SME leads to share content when ready. 
• Joining monthly team calls and sharing resources is a great way to promote work, answer user questions, and encourage adoption. 

@Kerry Wheeler ^ some additional ideas for communications that PMM will own and/or collaborate with the wider Marketing department. 

The number of different channels available can definitely be challenging. Sprinklr does a pretty good job in keeping to a main set of collaboration tools. Some that I've mentioned in the above qs include:

• Slack
• Google Drive
• Highspot

Sprinklr is also a keen adopter of our own platform, so we do use Sprinklr to manage our workflows, campaigns, and much more. In terms of creating a feedback loop, we've found success in leaning into our SME program. I've mentioned this a few times now, but it really is a great way for a representative of each department to be able to voice concerns and gather feedback from other departments. Our SMEs meet weekly with Product Management and Product Marketing. Call topics rotate, see example in above thread, depending on what's a priority for the business at a given point in time. 

Our PM team and PMM team is very collaborative. In terms of managing comms, we have a few different methods we use. (I've tagged you above where a similar q was asked earlier.)

A good example where the communication is possible more owned by the PMs is our release process for internal/employee on-boarding. Sprinklr manages quarterly releases. Before pushing updates to production, or our client environments, we have an internal environment for employees to test, train, and get hands-on experience with the updates. To manage this, the PMs will host a series of calls we've named "Product Deep Dives". Each call is company wide, recorded, and hosted in Highspot for later reference. The PMs own this call, though PMM will assist in reviewing the content to ensure value messaging is infused, hosting dry-runs for practice and story arch development, and content check in terms of brand guidelines. The PMs own the deck creation, ensuring the demo environment is configured/ready, and presenting the material. 

Along the same theme, PMM will coordinate with our Marketing Demand Gen and events team to communicate updates to customers and prospects are appropriate. For larger product launches, the GTM is heavily owned by PMMs. 

Hi Andrew - you're welcome. Happy to be here and to open the conversation about the PMM role! 

In terms of how the role might vary by size of an organization, this can depend heavily on a few different factors. All in all, though, smaller organizations often require the PMM to be a jack-of-all trades and wear multiple hats. In other terms, a smaller organization might require that their PMM team own everything from competitive intel, messaging and positioning, sales enablement, promotion/content strategy, asset creation, events, etc. 

Larger organizations might have more capital to hire specialist that can focus on specific areas such a CI (Competitive Insights) team, a Training team, or agency/design resources who have dedicated focuses on those respective parts of the business. 

Depending on where you are in your career, both small and large organizations provide a great chance to learn and develop necessary skills and talents to add to your toolbox. 

Hi Krisia - thanks for asking. Competitive Intelligence is part of our roles, but we do have a small, dedicated team for CI. Like most conversations I've seen, CI is a role that everyone needs to incorporate into their roles - no matter if you're in Sales, Success, or Marketing. 

In terms of your more specific qs, let me try to address:

1. Approach: Ask questions to your Sales team. What are they hearing from their customers? What other solutions do prospects bring up? What common challenges are customer asking you to answer? 
2. How is the responsibility organized: We do have the dedicated CI team, but we also leverage a Competitive Insights Spot on Highspot. This is a dedicated landing page where PMM and CI team can both contribute and share insights. Our Sales Enablement team will also take this content and host regular continuing education training sessions to keep our field teams up to date. 
3. Tools: I tend to default to google searches and use reputable resources like Forrester, Gartner, eMarketer, Forbes, etc.  
4. Communication: See above where I mention the regular CE courses and Highspot 'Spot'. Another source, again managed by the CI team, is a weekly newsletter. We call it "5 Things". It's a weekly recap of the top 5 updates and competitive insights the CI team curates and publishes weekly to the entire company. 

I love this question! There have been a couple sessions at the PMA conferences where individuals have stated "Product Marketing has a Branding Problem". This resonates - and probably why we all find ourselves here in the community! The function of a PMM is still evolving. This means we, as early adopters, need to over communicate what we do and what value we bring to the table. Find what channels work to promote work, highlight new resources, and communicate to your sellers - regularly. 

In terms of collaboration, I've found it best to never really say "no". You might have to say "Yes, and...[xyz] initiative might be postponed" in order to manage bandwidth and team priorities, but allow yourself and team the time to work on cross-functional projects. Jump into projects, sales deals, and product development cycles and find areas you can add value. This helps build partners and advocates in other areas of the organization that can help promote the role of PMM. While working on these projects, you're able to infuse various processes that are more traditional to a PMM like a GTM process. 

Finally, allow yourself and your teammates to iterate but still publish. Don't hold your work back because it's not "perfect". Frankly, it never will be. Iterating quickly allows you to gain momentum and see adoption of material. As you gather feedback, work to incorporate that feedback and re-publish.