If you have worked in product management long enough, you know that not every conversation ends in full agreement. Priorities shift, pressure comes from different directions, and decisions don’t always fit easily into the plan. Every Product Owner should understand BATNA - the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement.
Explained by Roger Fisher and William Ury in their book Getting to Yes, BATNA is a negotiation concept. It can be applied to product management like it is to international diplomacy. This technique is not about threats or hard stances. It’s about being prepared. Knowing what you’ll do if you can’t reach a deal helps you stay calm, focused, and outcome-driven when conversations get difficult.
Here is a real world example:
You’re a Product Owner at a company building a digital solution for clinics—let’s say it’s an app that helps manage patient scheduling, appointments, and wait times. Your team is focused on improving the in-clinic experience, especially around reducing patient no-shows. You’re working on a new reminder flow that sends personalized appointment reminders based on patient behavior—something that came directly from user research and is tied clearly to your current Product Goal.
Then the sales team knocks on your door.
They’ve got an opportunity with a large private clinic group, and they want a new dashboard that shows appointment activity across all their locations in real-time. It’s not on the roadmap. The ask is urgent. You can feel a lot of pressure from this stakeholder. The team’s already at full capacity, and reordering would mean putting the reminder flow on hold—delaying value for all your current customers.
BATNA
You’ve anticipated this kind of scenario. You’ve worked with your team ahead of time to explore options. You already know that while you can’t commit to building the new dashboard right now, your existing analytics tools can cover 70% of what the client needs. With a bit of configuration support, it’s a reasonable temporary solution.
So instead of saying “yes” and letting the roadmap drift, or saying “no” and shutting down the conversation, you offer the alternative:
"We can’t deliver a full custom dashboard this quarter without delaying valuable outcomes for our current customers (you should be prepared with concrete data!). But, we can help configure our existing reporting tools to support the clinic group’s needs during the pilot. If it proves valuable, we can revisit it next quarter once we’ve delivered on the current Product Goal."
Or, for example:
"Right now, our priority is finishing the reminder feature, which directly impacts patient attendance across all clinics (show data!). That work is already in progress and supports the Product Goal. If the dashboard is critical to the partner, we can explore a limited version—perhaps a simple daily report with the key data points they need. It won’t be real-time, but it could meet their needs for the pilot. Then, once we’ve delivered on the current Product Goal, we can assess what a long-term solution would look like."
That’s BATNA in practice. You’re prepared. You’re not reacting—you’re guiding
Now, come back to your reality. Think about conversations in which you could have applied BATNA. Then, consider the upcoming conversations in which you might use BATNA.
BATNA Matters
Product Owners often deal with competing needs like delivering value, supporting stakeholders, and focusing on the strategy. Negotiation is daily work, not only reserved for formal meetings with stakeholders. And BATNA is a quiet but powerful skill that helps you do it well.
It helps you:
- Think ahead before conversations get tough.
- Have options (your backup) when things don’t go to plan.
- Maintain confidence. Stay steady and make thoughtful decisions under pressure.
BATNA doesn’t mean you always get your way. But it helps you avoid reactive decisions, maximize/optimize long-term value, and stay calm in the middle of tough conversations.
I recommend building this habit: Before every high-stakes conversation, ask yourself, "What’s my BATNA?"
You might not need it. But when you do, you’ll be glad it’s there.
If you want to go deeper into other negotiation techniques and principles, you can watch our webinar.
Also, another way to explore negotiating is to visit this website.