Run Heuristic Audits On Your Stakeholders

If you are a product owner or in CRO/Experimentation, understanding how your stakeholders think and what makes them tick is often time far more important than driving results...

Author

Shiva Manjunath
June 27, 2025

Problematic stakeholders could be convinced if they... just got data. Right?

Nope. Sometimes it's deeper than that. You gotta understand what makes them tick. Is it data? Is it optics? Maybe you should be running heuristic audits on your stakeholders instead of your website...

In the second time EVER, someone else has changed my mind on something. Leave it to "Kingpin" Finn McKenty (https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnmckenty/), who's apparently gone from Punk Rock MBA to Finn McKenty PhD, to change my mind.

We got into:

- How YouTubers are more data driven than your own CEO (lol)

- Why you should be running heuristic audits not JUST on your website, but on the stakeholders you interact with (and tips to do so effectively)

- Finn gives some general life advice on learning to let go (important when many product and CROs don't have autonomy to actually impact anything)

Run Heuristic Audits on YOUR Stakeholders ft. Finn McKenty

From A to B · Episode

open.spotify.com/episode/3PZEdvBjvAWXbjRmMm4ZEr?si=pci9oNmmQK2MBAsTSOsbjA

Latest Skit

Oh, roadmaps. Roadmaps, roadmaps, roadmaps. The thing which you think will get you From A to B (see what I did there?!), when in reality, it can be a farce, You actually need to have full control in order to hit those goals.

Even then, business happens. Things change. And a good product owner shifts based on insights and learnings.

Or, you’re in a business which, let’s just say, is guided by shiny objects and not data.

Make sure 'y’all are following the homie Gertrud (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gertrudvahtra/)

Latest Meme

Sometimes the only way you get buy in is stalking people when they go to the bathroom to educate them about experimentation.

I publicly advocate for this.

I’m not saying you should do this at your job.... | Shiva Manjunath

I'm not saying you should do this at your job.... But I'm saying something LIKE this can actually be valuable lol. Having more and more people talk about #CRO and optimization only further increases your reach and interest in it - which keeps spinning that cycle of getting more people interested in it! …

www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7287809731958648832

Thing on my mind

I don’t have much on my mind. (Hopefully) big life announcement coming soon, so in lieu of that, go buy Talia Wolf’s amazing book. It’s on Amazon and she wrote it in SUCH a readable format, I finished it in like a day.

Emotional Targeting: Win hearts. Boost sales. Own the market.: Wolf, Talia: 9789659325115: Amazon.com: Books

Emotional Targeting: Win hearts. Boost sales. Own the market. [Wolf, Talia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Emotional Targeting: Win hearts. Boost sales. Own the market.

www.amazon.com/Emotional-Targeting-hearts-sales-market/dp/9659325118

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