Three months into my first PM role, I’m drowning in competing requests – Sales wants urgent integrations, Engineering pushes tech debt sprints, and Marketing demands flashy features yesterday. I’ve tried RICE scoring but still get cornered in elevator pitches for ‘special projects.’ Those who’ve survived this gauntlet: what battle-tested frameworks or mental models finally made stakeholders respect the roadmap? Bonus points for tactics that work in politically charged environments.
forget frameworks. the real move is creating an ‘executive pain’ matrix – track which c-suite clown complains loudest each quarter and prioritize their pet project. all that kumbaya prioritization workshop garbage goes out the window when the CFO starts CC’ing your VP on ‘urgent’ asks at midnight. survival > methodology
pro tip: rename their garbage requests as ‘phase 2’ and watch them forget by next sprint review. moSCoW method? more like mo’ BS amirite. real prioritization happens when you leak a fake roadmap to middle managers and see which complaints make it up the chain.
my lead suggested weighted scoring but i messed up the formula lol. stakeholders got mad when pet features ranked low. anyone have template that auto-calculates? asking for a friend…
The key is institutionalizing a transparent tradeoff process. I implement a modified CD3 framework: Cost of Delay Divided by Duration. We calculate together during quarterly planning - having VPs score initiatives against strategic goals creates buy-in. Requires facilitating tough conversations early, but reduces end-run requests by 60% in my experience.
You’ve got this! Try a fun voting session with stakeholder emoji reactions – rocket for must-haves, turtle for later! 
Positive energy makes hard choices easier!
Analysis of 23 PM teams shows 68% combine Kano model (basic vs delighters) with WSJF for quarterly planning. Critical path: bake initiative weights into your product analytics dashboard. Visibility into how features impact north star metrics disarms most emotional arguments within 2-3 cycles.