Nexthink Leadership & Management

How do product leaders translate company strategy into actionable goals for their teams?

When we build the roadmap at Nexthink, I find it useful to split the work into three categories.

The first is our key strategic bets: the three to five things that will make the biggest difference over the next six to 12 months. We work together to clarify the outcome we want and sketch a first rough concept of the product that will get us there. The goal becomes the combination of the two, agreed by everyone — giving teams something far more actionable than a single number to hit.

The second is the work you simply have to do: security, compliance, privacy and tech debt. You agree on the standard once, and from there every team operates independently. 

The third is everything else, where teams have the most autonomy. They know their products and customers best, so they're best placed to decide. Measurable outcomes help, but with a caveat: Targets work well only if you keep re-evaluating them against changing conditions.

What does collaboration between product, engineering and design look like at Nexthink?

I see product, engineering and design as three parts of a single team — the way a band works. Nobody asks whether the drummer or the guitarist wrote the song; what matters is what they produce together.

In practice, PMs spend most of their time with customers and prospects, figuring out what will genuinely make a difference. Designers turn desired outcomes into product concepts, and engineers bring them to life. But what’s changed over the past two years, largely driven by AI, is how much these roles now overlap. PMs vibe-code interactive prototypes to illustrate their thinking. Designers push PRs to improve the UX in production. Engineers can experiment ten times faster than before, which earns them a much bigger seat at the table when deciding what to build.

The best teams I’ve worked with don’t apply a textbook definition of each role. They’ve found an equilibrium across each member’s strengths and weaknesses, complementing each other to the point where you stop caring about who does what because you know the team will deliver.

How do you maintain alignment and creativity while scaling or launching new initiatives?

I spend one hour each week with each of my groups. We use that time to brainstorm new ideas and align on what’s coming next. I dislike status updates and one-way presentations, so we stay away from those. Outside these sessions, most of our alignment happens through quick, small async exchanges over chat.

We’ve also moved away from long PRDs to debate direction. Working prototypes are now so cheap to build that there’s no reason to spend weeks imagining what a product could look like when you can have a working version in a few hours.

The critical part is being clear about boundaries. Some things must be agreed upfront, but once that’s done, teams can and should be as creative as possible. This matters most at the start of something new, where we force ourselves into an exploration phase. No project starts with a single option on the table. Every proposal comes with two or three alternatives, and the more different they are, the better. We naturally fall in love with our first good idea; that’s human nature, and something you have to actively fight against. For that to work, you need an environment of trust where people feel safe proposing things that look different.