Getting the government to help with your product strategy

There will always be finite resources that will often lead to potentially impactful product initiatives getting deprioritized. Fortunately, you can leverage government programs to mitigate investment risk associated with your product strategy. As a product manager, it's beneficial to stay aware of these offerings because they can be the difference-maker on whether your product strategy gets the go-ahead or gets shelved.

Some long-standing ones include the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), which provides funds to enable you to hire people for your initiatives. Another option is the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program, which can help offset the costs of hiring people to develop new products through the use of tax credits.

If you're not leveraging funding programs available to your organization, you could be short-changing your product roadmap.