How Product Managers Deal With a Meddling CEO

Oh boy. The CEO is back from a weeklong trip. After meeting with customers and sales leaders in the field — now back in the office with a vengeance. You know what is coming next. A slew of emails and new feature requests scribbled hastily on a whiteboard. Sure, there are some good ideas up there. But the one thing that is lacking? A stable product strategy behind it all.

It is exhausting fielding requests from a CEO who is deeply invested in the product yet has no clear vision of where it sho...