Stakeholder Alignment
Getting explicit sign-off from every party that will be affected by the feature.
Why
A PRD that engineering builds but sales wasn't consulted on becomes a feature that sales can't sell and support can't support. Stakeholder alignment is the process of showing the PRD to each affected party — eng, design, QA, sales, support, legal — and getting explicit 'I have read this and my concerns are addressed' sign-off before build starts. The cost of alignment is a few hours of meetings; the cost of misalignment is a feature that ships and immediately generates support tickets and sales complaints because nobody agreed on what 'done' meant.
When
After PRD review passes, before sprint planning. Takes 1-2 hours of meetings over 2-3 days. Skip only for changes affecting one team.
How
1. List all stakeholders whose work changes if this ships:
- Eng (builds it), Design (UX), QA (tests it), Support (fields tickets),
Sales (sells it), Legal (compliance), Ops (runs it)
2. Send the PRD to each with a 2-day review window and a specific ask:
"What in this PRD would make your job harder if it shipped as written?"
3. Hold a 30-min alignment meeting to resolve conflicts
4. Capture each stakeholder's sign-off (name + date) in the PRD
5. Any unresolved objection blocks the sprint — escalate, don't overrideExample
PRD: "auto-generate release notes" Stakeholders & sign-off: - Eng (Alice): ✓ 03-18 — "estimate 5 days, feasible" - Support (Bob): ✓ 03-18 — "add a 'report wrong note' link, else tickets" - Sales (Carla): ⚠ 03-19 — "customers ask for custom templates; is that v2?" → Resolution: custom templates explicitly out-of-scope (already in PRD); Carla ✓ - Legal (Dan): ✓ 03-19 — "no PII in commit messages? confirm with eng" → confirmed All sign-offs captured → sprint unblocked.
Common Problems
- ⚠Treating silence as agreement — a stakeholder who didn't respond hasn't aligned; require explicit sign-off, not lack of objection.
Best Practices
- ✓Ask 'what would make your job harder' instead of 'any concerns?' — the former surfaces real objections, the latter gets 'looks fine'.
- ✓Record sign-offs in the PRD itself, not a separate doc, so the approval trail travels with the spec.