How to Manage a Product in the Context of Rapidly Changing Requirements

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, managing a product is no longer just about executing a well-defined roadmap – it’s about adapting to constant change while maintaining strategic direction. Rapidly shifting requirements can stem from evolving market conditions, customer feedback, regulatory updates, or technological advancements. The key challenge for product managers is balancing agility with long-term vision while ensuring alignment across teams and stakeholders.

In this interview, Natalia Drazhnik, Product Owner at YCH Blue Digital Limited will share insights from her experience managing complex products in dynamic environments. One example is building a remote hiring system at MTS Group during COVID-19, where the sudden shift to remote work forced them to redefine priorities and launch a solution rapidly. Another is adapting a CRM solution for global sales teams, balancing regional differences while ensuring scalability.

She’ll also highlight cases where evolving business needs led to significant product pivots. For instance, in the Social Media Monitoring and Analysis Platform, the focus had to expand from basic data collection to predictive analytics and reputational risk assessments. Similarly, while developing the Chatbot at MTS Group, what began as a simple FAQ automation tool evolved into an AI-driven personalized interaction system based on customer behavior.

By exploring these real-world examples, she’ll discuss how to navigate uncertainty, keep teams aligned, and ensure the product remains valuable despite shifting requirements.

1. The Context – The Challenge of BigTech

Every now and then, companies are exposed to competitive markets both internally and externally. Drawing from your expertise, how do changes in the marketplace and customer expectations impact the product life cycle? Why is this particularly hard in a global environment?

The ability to adapt to fluctuations is not a competitive advantage—it’s a fundamental necessity in today’s fast-paced product landscape. Markets evolve rapidly, customer expectations shift, and technological advancements continuously reshape industries. A product team that cannot pivot efficiently risks falling behind, no matter how strong its initial strategy is. Adaptability is no longer a differentiator but a baseline requirement for survival. The true advantage lies in how quickly and effectively a company can respond to change while maintaining focus, ensuring alignment, and delivering consistent value to users.

Consider how businesses such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams had to adapt very quickly during the pandemic in a race to stay competitive. The market became packaged and fast-paced, and adapting became crucial in sustaining business. But using an agile decision-making business model helped many balance the overwhelming pressure of the pandemic. By integrating from the use of real-time analysis of user and customer feedback, these companies were able to adapt to user demands quite well. These practices allowed Zoom and Teams to innovate at an unprecedented rate which put them at a unique advantage. 

Though these shifts were effective proactive measures and decision making, such strategies could be quite hard to implement on the international level. Local strategy collaboration is immensely needed since the expectations of customers are varied from the ones in APAC and North America, with the former expecting heavy customization whereas the latter using it for simplicity and speed. Aligning global strategies with local feedback and flexibility makes managing the ever evolving market conditions all the more easy.

My example: 

In my role as a Product Owner working on a CRM solution, I faced the challenge of adapting our product for diverse global markets: In some regions, regulatory requirements dictated that customers undergo stricter KYC checks, while in others, these were less stringent. This required us to design a modular system where compliance settings could be tailored for each region.

Customer expectations: Sales teams in different countries had distinct workflows. For example: In Europe, sales teams demanded tools for granular client segmentation and communication personalisation.In Asia, the focus was on speed and simplicity to handle high client volumes.

Localisation needs: I introduced a multi-language feature in our CRM, starting with key interfaces. This was crucial because language differences were a barrier for sales and support teams globally.

Another example is remote hiring system for MTS Group

Challenge: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the marketplace underwent a massive shift. The traditional, in-office hiring process was no longer feasible due to lockdowns and social distancing measures. Additionally, customer expectations (in this case, internal users like recruiters and managers, as well as candidates) evolved quickly. Employees and candidates wanted a seamless, fully digital experience for hiring, onboarding, and document handling.

Impact on Product life cycle:

Development Stage:

Changing requirements: We needed to act quickly to create a system that allowed the entire hiring process—from offer acceptance to onboarding—to be done remotely. This required integrating digital tools like e-signature, approval workflows, and automated document management.

For instance, electronic document signing was integrated via MTS DocFlow, allowing both candidates and HR teams to sign contracts remotely.

Flexible Architecture: We had to ensure the system could handle various internal ERP systems (like 1C and Oracle) and provide a unified experience. This added technical complexity to the development phase.

Launch Stage:

Accelerated Timeline: Due to the urgency of the pandemic, we had to shorten the development cycle and launch the MVP quickly. This required prioritizing essential features like candidate profile creation, automated security checks, and equipment ordering for remote employees.

Growth Stage:

Scaling Adoption: Once launched, the system’s adoption grew rapidly as all recruitment shifted online. To support this, we rolled out features like manager approval workflows, notifications for document signing deadlines, and a dashboard to track onboarding progress.

Maturity Stage:

Adaptation: As the pandemic eased, the system’s relevance shifted from being a necessity to being a competitive advantage. It became a core tool for hybrid and remote hiring practices. 

Continuous Improvement:

While the initial COVID-driven demand waned, the system evolved into a long-term solution for efficient remote hiring. It required updates to remain relevant in a post-pandemic world, such as integrating with newer platforms and adjusting to hybrid work environments.

Competitive & Customer Influence Matrix

Why This Matrix is Useful for Product Managers:

• Helps prioritize where to invest resources—whether in innovation, compliance, customer-driven enhancements, or retention strategies.
• Provides a structured decision-making framework when faced with external disruptions or internal stakeholder demands.
• Ensures product strategy remains aligned with both market realities and evolving user needs, reducing the risk of misalignment.

This model can be used as a guiding tool for strategic planning, ensuring that product managers respond effectively to different types of changes while maintaining business goals.

2. Balancing Vision and Agility

While formulating a product vision is important, what is more critical is the responsiveness to changes. Achieving these two often competing objectives is always a problem for businesses. Please provide us with a particular example where this balance was paramount for achieving product success.

A combination of a long-term vision and the necessity for the progress of agility is a well-known problem in the field of product management. The solution is to have a “north star” vision and plan the execution in a manner that allows adaptability. A classic case is that of Ericsson, which undertook a company-wide agile transformation in order to develop a new XaaS platform. At the beginning, the firm had a strong vision on what the platform would accomplish and how it was positioned in the market. However, during the first stages of product development, it became evident that changing market conditions and client feedback meant product features, as well as the delivery schedule, needed to change. What Ericsson did was to keep the defining vision over what they wanted to accomplish but at the same time apply agile practices to accommodate these changing circumstances. That level of responsiveness to shifts while still holding on to their tactical direction is what powered them.

Here, strategic alignment was obtained with the aid of leadership meetings and inter-departmental cooperation. This was useful as there was a constant effort to ensure pivots or changes that were being discussed were aligned with the company’s strategies, and all parties were kept in the loop and participated in the changes.

The impact of this balanced approach was significant. This allowed Ericsson to sharpen their global competitive edge. They were able to adopt EUP and significantly reduce the development time for the new platform as well as enhance their responsiveness to market needs and therefore improve customer satisfaction.

This example highlights that it is possible to successfully manage product development including the latter phases of changes and adjustments if an organisation takes advantage of agile methodologies and collaborates appropriately with leadership to achieve desired outcomes in a timely fashion.

Achieving the right balance between staying true to a product vision and adapting to change is one of the biggest challenges in product management. While a clear vision provides direction, rapidly evolving market conditions, customer needs, or business priorities often require quick shifts. Successfully managing this balance means knowing when to hold onto the long-term strategy and when to pivot to meet new realities without derailing progress. 

A perfect example from my experience is the development of the Remote Hiring System at MTS Group during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project illustrates how balancing a strong product vision with responsiveness to change was critical for success.

The Product Vision: 

Our initial product vision was clear: create a system that enables fully remote hiring, from offer acceptance to onboarding, addressing the logistical challenges posed by lockdowns. This included:

• Digitalizing the entire hiring process.
• Integrating with existing ERP systems (1C, Oracle).
• Automating workflows, such as document signing and equipment ordering.
• Enhancing the experience for both recruiters and candidates.

The vision was to build a robust, scalable solution to simplify hiring across the entire MTS Group, ensuring a seamless and efficient remote process.

The Need for Responsiveness:

As the pandemic unfolded, new challenges and evolving expectations emerged, requiring us to remain flexible and responsive:

• Urgent Market Changes: Lockdowns created an immediate need for a remote hiring solution. We had to deliver an MVP quickly, prioritizing critical features like digital document signing (via MTS DocFlow) and security checks, even if some less essential functionalities were postponed.
• For example, while the product vision included customizable onboarding workflows, we focused first on solving urgent bottlenecks like automating login distribution and enabling electronic signatures.
• Stakeholder Feedback: As we rolled out the MVP, recruiters and managers began providing real-time feedback. They emphasized the need for quicker equipment delivery tracking and a simplified interface for manager approvals. These inputs required rapid iteration and reprioritization of features.
• Regional Adaptation: Compliance requirements varied across regions, such as differences in document signing laws or data protection regulations. We had to adapt the system to these variations, ensuring local needs were met without compromising the overall vision.
• Cultural Shift: Employees and candidates initially hesitated to embrace fully remote hiring. We addressed this by adding transparent communication and guidance into the system to build trust and confidence.

Balancing Vision and Responsiveness

• Maintaining the Vision: Despite the fast-paced changes, we never lost sight of the end goal: a scalable and efficient remote hiring solution that could outlast the pandemic. All short-term adjustments aligned with this overarching goal, ensuring we didn’t derail the product’s long-term value.
• Embracing Responsiveness: By delivering features incrementally and incorporating feedback at each stage, we ensured the product stayed relevant and effective. For instance, we reprioritized equipment delivery automation due to its immediate importance during lockdowns, even though it wasn’t part of the original MVP.

Outcome

By balancing vision and responsiveness we delivered a functional MVP within weeks, enabling MTS to continue hiring remotely during the pandemic.

Post-MVP,  we added features such as dashboard analytics, customizable workflows, and multi-ERP compatibility, solidifying the product’s value.

The system became a long-term asset, transitioning from a crisis response tool to a strategic advantage for hybrid work environments.

3. The Power of Prioritisation

When a change in requirements happens, a choice or decision considering the existing challenge becomes paramount. What methods or models can companies use to determine what should be built, what features should be put on hold, and which ideas should be shelved completely? Is there a way to communicate these choices to the teams and other parties interested in the project? 

Given the changing parameters and the level of detail that is available, identifying the right order of priority is one of the most complex tasks that a product manager has to undertake. The ability to decide what features to make, what to push back on, and what to take out all together can determine whether the product will succeed or fail. At these times, a very clear decision making outline becomes essential not only to arrive at the right decision but also to ensure the members of the team and all stakeholders are working from the same page.

One model that seems to be used by many of the BigTech companies is the RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) model. Consider, for example, an e-commerce company that had an exponential number of features to be able to fulfill during a product launch. This prompted the product group to channel all of their attention on one major goal. A structured method was developed where the features were assessed based on the number of customers they aimed to serve, the goals of the company, the accuracy of the data provided, and the work required to enact the feature. This strategy helped maximise the number of active users while providing the highest cost efficiency. This ensured that the resources were used effectively and in accordance with the company’s long term goals.

Nonetheless, prioritization is not a ‘one glove fits all’. It is imperative to use frameworks such as RICE within the larger context of the product strategy. It is easier to make prioritization decisions with a defined product strategy as deployment means to an end. For example, RICE was used to balance client needs and business needs like compliance, security, etc., during the deployment of a new mobile application for a financial Services Company. These issues had to be addressed at a more strategic level than the implementation of a feature’s support.

One of the most important elements while prioritizing a project is to ensure that the entire team is on board with the idea. If it is not properly managed, the entire process can devolve into a series of top-down decisions where your team is not involved. Their contribution is very important. Their contribution prevents the prioritization framework from being made in a vacuum which does not address customer and technological constraints. For example, in a project about improving AI recommendation engines, while the marketing team assessed the expected customer acquisition, the engineering team actively participated in setting realistic short-term technical constraints.

Decision-making on prioritisation must be well communicated to the stakeholders to enable effective implementation. These stakeholders can grasp the logic before outlines decisions if regular and countable updates, such as softmatic alignment meetings once every two weeks, are conducted alongside a product roadmap showing how decisions fully integrate with other business objectives. This enhances trust in the execution of the vision. This allows the group as members of the team and actively assists the illusions in making and justifying importance rankings.

In my experience, prioritisation frameworks like MoSCoW (Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, Won’t-have) and RICE (Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort) are highly effective for handling changes in requirements. These methods help companies evaluate features based on business value, impact, and feasibility, ensuring that resources are focused on what matters most.

For example, during the development of the Remote Hiring System at MTS Group, COVID-19 created urgent new requirements. Using a prioritization approach, we focused on must-haves like e-signatures and equipment ordering, which were essential for launching the MVP. Less critical features, such as customisable workflows, were temporarily shelved.

To communicate these decisions, we used structured meetings, shared a transparent roadmap with stakeholders, and documented priorities in a project management tool. Regular updates ensured alignment across teams and stakeholders, reducing friction and maintaining focus on the project’s goals.

RICE (example)

4. Keeping the Team Aligned

Frequent alterations can lead to confusion or even discord between stakeholders and team members. What plans have product experts crafted to keep everyone focused and aligned whenever the direction of the product changes drastically? 

Frequent alterations require clear communication and alignment strategies to maintain focus and prevent confusion. One effective approach is implementing a Change Management Plan that includes structured communication, updated documentation, and transparent prioritization. Regular stakeholder meetings and team syncs are also crucial.

For instance, during the Social Media Monitoring and Analysis System project at Sber, we faced drastic changes in direction due to evolving business needs. Initially, the focus was on basic social media data collection, but mid-project, stakeholders required advanced features like reputational risk calculations in monetary terms and real-time media analysis.

To manage this:

• We introduced weekly alignment meetings with stakeholders to clarify the new direction.
• Updated the product roadmap and shared it with all teams to reflect the new priorities.
• Used Jira dashboards to track progress and ensure transparency.
• Created a centralised knowledge base for updated requirements, reducing confusion.
• Demo sessions and workshops for alignment.

Another example from my experience was during the development of the Social Media Monitoring and Analysis Platform, where shifting requirements created alignment challenges across multiple stakeholders and teams. I had three main stakeholders, each with distinct needs:

• Marketing team needed a tool to manage external communications efficiently.
• Analysts team required a system to analyze social media data and generate insights.
• Management sought a platform to monitor and manage brand reputation, including crisis detection and response.

Keeping Everyone Focused and Aligned Amid Rapid Changes

To balance these competing needs while adapting to changing business priorities, I implemented a structured communication and alignment strategy:

1. Daily Stand-ups & Weekly Strategy Syncs:
   • As the project evolved from basic data collection to predictive analytics and reputational risk modeling, alignment became critical.
   • Daily stand-ups helped address immediate blockers, while weekly syncs ensured long-term objectives—such as integrating sentiment analysis—remained on track for all stakeholders.
2. A Unified Source of Truth:
   • I centralized all updates and priorities in Jira dashboards and Confluence, ensuring that Marketing, Analysts, and Management had full visibility into evolving requirements.
   • This reduced confusion, avoided duplicated efforts, and helped teams quickly adapt when new priorities emerged.
3. Workshops with Stakeholders & Buy-in Sessions:
   • When new requirements surfaced—such as Management requesting reputational risk assessment in monetary terms—we held alignment workshops.
   • By framing discussions around “what matters most” to each stakeholder group, we reduced resistance and built a shared vision.
4. Risk Mitigation & Scenario Planning:
   • Understanding that pivots were inevitable, I introduced scenario planning to proactively anticipate shifts in market trends, regulations, and internal business needs.
   • This ensured we could adjust strategy without disrupting development.
5. Focusing on the ‘Why’:
   • Instead of just communicating what was changing, I ensured all stakeholders understood why—linking decisions back to business impact, competitive advantage, and user needs.
   • This transparency kept morale high and engagement strong, ensuring buy-in from all teams.

Outcome

By embedding these structured communication and alignment strategies, we successfully navigated shifting priorities while keeping all three stakeholder groups engaged. This approach transformed change from a disruption into a driver of innovation, ensuring that Marketing, Analysts, and Management all received a solution tailored to their needs.

Stakeholder Alignment Map: Who Needs to Be Informed?

When managing a product in a rapidly changing environment, clear communication with stakeholders is essential to ensure alignment and minimize resistance. However, not all stakeholders need the same level of engagement. A Stakeholder Alignment Map helps product managers determine how frequently and deeply each group should be involved based on their influence and interest in the product.

5. Using Technology for A Competitive Advantage

AI-assisted analytics, predictive modelling, and agile software development tools are often mentioned as a way to solve complex issues. In what ways product managers can apply technology and what challenges or problems they can face? 

Absolutely! Today, it’s critical for product specialists using advanced technologies like AI-driven analytics, predictive modeling, and agile development platforms. We all can agree that with these tools, teams have the capability to sift through enormous quantities of data, extract useful insights, and respond to market changes swiftly. No need to spend weeks to analyse data and structure it. Consider, for example, how AI can track and analyse the interactions and purchasing behaviors of customers to pinpoint potential markets and aid in strategy formulation. Also, increased predictive modeling capabilities allow for the business to shift proactively by forecasting future trends. Lastly, agile software tools help teams operate flexibly and collaboratively to foster faster product development in alignment with rapidly evolving needs.

Nevertheless, we need to understand that these innovations pose challenges and threats that need to be considered. Both AI and predictive models rely on user inputs. For example, data that is biased or missing can lead to wrong outputs, which can adversely affect the decisions made. Moreover, more sophisticated models tend to overfit historical data as they try to reduce the variability in the data, and this tends to diminish their performance in new situations. Furthermore, the lack of clarity in some AI systems can also contribute to distrust among participants since they are not sure how some decisions are arrived at.

Embedding these strategies within already existing workflows may pose even more problems. It is not unusual for advanced systems to require a revision of the entire workflow, which means some group members will need additional training. Ethical questions such as those of privacy and the potential of algorithmic bias are even harder to consider. Noncompliance could result in inappropriate data usage or the creation of policies that are deemed discriminatory, making the legal side of the problem difficult to tackle.

Product specialists must focus on the integrity of the data they incorporate, that involves scrubbing the data and making sure that no biases exist in the dataset. Models and systems which facilitate accountability and explicit writing assist in earning the confidence of other parties. An integration plan can be designed in a way that is less annoying, more effective and comes along with sufficient training on the tools that are new and needs to be integrated. AI ethics also come into innovation, and teams have to pay attention to new changeы so that they can use more responsible means associated with AI technologies.

And product specialists can all augment their reach and powers and advance at the same time by incorporating AI powered analytics, predictive modeling and agile platforms while keeping in mind the opportunities and risks that come along with it. There is no denying that these technologies have risks associated with them, but if a plan to deal with these risks is formulated then their use can be both effective and long lasting.

How Product Managers Can Apply Technology:

1. AI-Assisted Analytics & Predictive Modeling
   • Application: AI can analyze customer behavior, predict trends, and personalize user experiences.
   • Example from my experience: While building the Social Media Monitoring Platform, we introduced AI-driven sentiment analysis to help analysts detect crises early and measure reputational risks.
2. Automation & Chatbots
   • Application: Chatbots enhance customer support and reduce manual effort.
   • Example from my experience: At MTS, I worked on a customer service chatbot that started as a simple FAQ tool but evolved into an AI-driven assistant, personalizing responses based on user behavior.
3. Agile Development Tools & Data-Driven Prioritization
   • Application: Tools like Jira, Confluence, and A/B testing frameworks help teams prioritize based on real-time data.
   • Example from my experience: In the MTS Remote Hiring System, we used data to optimize the onboarding flow, ensuring a seamless experience for HR teams and candidates.

6. Understanding Achievement Within Disorder

In cases where objectives shift rapidly, classic success measures may not be useful. How do you redefine and track success and how do you guarantee that amidst all the chaos, the team is able to feel some level of achievement?

In scenarios where requirements change rapidly, traditional success metrics tend to struggle with the multifaceted nature of product development. Evolution is key among agile environments where once defined goals, success milestones, and outcome metrics tend to shift based on the product’s life cycle stage. Initially, acquisition windows such as downloads or registrations tend to provide an okay level of traction, however, once a product has matured, attention focuses more on retention, active usage, and customer lifetime value. Altering these metrics of success also means looking at how responsive and effective the product is in addressing challenges through feature adoption, time-to-market, and user pain point resolution. This isn’t a micromanagement scenario; criteria for success need to be continuously adjusted to integrate new tactical goals while maintaining a cohesive strategic approach. Tools like OKRs allow for this flexibility by shifting focus across defined targets to maintain goal alignment, while still enabling teams to achieve their operational objectives.

Equally important is ensuring that there is a sense of direction and movement for teams within the disorder. Motivation is sustained by small successes—obtaining a sprint goal, reaching a short-term adoption objective, or providing a solution to a significant user issue all serve as motivational factors. Progress is also supported through clear communication, which can be enhanced by tools like live dashboards or regular project updates. Aside from the metrics, people’s narratives such as a user telling how the product met a basic need can dramatically impact how the team perceives their contribution. After all, success is not just numbers on a dashboard, it is finding a balance between delivering value to users and keeping the teams motivated and focused on the goal even when the environment is constantly changing.

In situations where objectives shift rapidly, redefining success involves setting short-term, actionable goals that align with the new direction while ensuring the team stays motivated. This approach was particularly crucial during the development of the Remote Hiring System at MTS Group when COVID-19 forced us to pivot quickly.

Redefining and Tracking Success:

1. Breaking Down the Vision: When the objective shifted to creating a fully remote hiring process due to the pandemic, I redefined success into smaller milestones:

• Delivering an MVP with critical features like e-signatures and equipment ordering within a tight timeline.
• Ensuring compliance with regional regulations for digital workflows.
• Achieving internal adoption by recruiters and hiring managers.

2. Defining New Metrics: Traditional long-term KPIs (e.g., system scalability or user adoption over a year) were replaced with immediate, trackable metrics:

• Time to onboard new employees remotely.
• Number of hiring processes successfully completed using the MVP.
• Feedback scores from recruiters and candidates on ease of use.

3. Frequent Progress Reviews: I implemented weekly progress reviews to celebrate incremental achievements, such as successfully integrating MTS DocFlow or automating approval workflows. These quick wins reinforced the team’s confidence and focus.

Keeping the Team Motivated Amidst Chaos:

1. Transparent Communication: I ensured the team understood why objectives had shifted and how their work was critical for business continuity during a global crisis. This gave a sense of purpose to their efforts.
2. Acknowledging Milestones: We celebrated every small achievement, such as the successful rollout of the MVP or hitting user adoption targets. This helped the team see tangible progress even in the face of uncertainty.
3. Providing Clear Priorities: By breaking down tasks and ensuring everyone knew their role, the team avoided feeling overwhelmed. Agile tools like Jira were essential for maintaining clarity and alignment.