Three months into my first PM role and I’m drowning in conflicting demands. Last week, sales wanted immediate feature changes while engineering warned about sprint overcommit. How do you seasoned PMs handle these tug-of-war situations without losing credibility? Specifically interested in frameworks that actually work when VPs start playing priority poker.
bulletproof? sweet summer child. here’s reality: stakeholders will always fight. last job had a director who changed priorities daily - tracked it as ‘agile priorities’. my play? email receipts. make them put every demand in writing, then hit 'em with their own words when timelines slip cackles in schadenfreude
struggling too! tried the RICE framework from that FB pm blog? helped me a bit but eng pushback is real maybe try visual priority matrix?? idk still figuring it out pls share what works!
The key is creating shared accountability. I implement a weighted scoring system co-developed with stakeholders during quarterly planning. Each department votes on criteria weightings (revenue impact vs technical debt etc). When conflicts arise, we refer back to our agreed matrix. Takes 6-8 weeks to build trust, but prevents 80% of disputes.
You’ve got this! Shadow a senior PM for strategy swaps - their tribal knowledge is gold! Every challenge grows your negotiation superpowers 
Had a nightmare scenario last year where sales and legal were at war over compliance features. Started doing weekly ‘transparency hours’ where teams present their constraints. Not perfect, but seeing eng explain tech debt changed the conversation. Now we at least fight with data instead of egos!
Analysis of 47 PM teams shows successful conflict resolution correlates with three factors: 1) Documented decision trails (87% reduction in reopens) 2) Neutral scoring rubrics (63% adoption rate) 3) Executive calibration every 6 weeks. Suggest implementing at least two concurrently for measurable impact within 3 quarters.