First Days On the Job
So, you just become a P.M. Congrats! Now, what does that mean to you?
Well, if you’ve never been a P.M. before, hopefully your manager knows what it’s all about, or is a P.M. in the company themselves. If they don’t, you’re going to have to work doubly hard to make sure they know - and they are clear on what kinda value you deliver.
So, what are the steps? Well, first stop freaking out. It may seem like you have about a million things to do, but life just ain’t that bad. Seriously. Take some deep breathes and grab a coffee with your manager and have him or her step you through all that’s going on. It’s never as daunting as it seems.
The first realization of being a P.M. is, your time management has to be very good. You have to know when to say “yes” and, more importantly, when to say “no” to something. For example, if you have an active sales force at your organization (and hopefully you do), you can very easily slip into the role of demo boy / girl. Know your boundaries, and know your limits.
If you find you are having a hard time staying out of all those sales meetings, seek guidance on how to handle that, or just getting some help.
Are you still remembering to breathe? OK, good. Moving on…
Let’s look at a couple of items that a new P.M. can work through to get their bearings. Steve Johnson posted a great P.M. triage article a while back, but from my point of view, it’s a lot simpler than this. You’ll see some overlap here, because he’s Steve Johnson, and he’s forgotten more about shipping products than I’ll ever know.
Step 1. What is your product(s)?
The first step is to really define the products your managing. Maybe you have a jump-start on this process, or maybe not. It isn’t difficult, and the Party of Four model works to get yourself and everyone else on the same page with what you are thinking. It’s simple and to the point, and the content can continue to be iterated on once you have the first pass.
If you have multiple products in your assigned portfolio, prioritize their importance with our manager to ensure you are giving TLC to the right ones. Remember, there are folks at the company more immersed in the technology and the products at this point than you - and that’s a plus and minus. Definitely leverage your unique, fresh perspective to question why things are they “way they are.”
Step 2. Understand Corporate
The wastepaper basket should not be a special filing cabinet for things from corporate. (Sorry, big fan of the Office). Make sure you clearly understand the high-level before proceeding into the trenches. If you don’t know the high-level strategy / reasons why your product(s) exists, it’s going to be hard to make sure they are at the top of their game.
Step 3. Understand the Tech - but Don’t be Silly
In tech, as a P.M., if you can’t actively and effectively converse with development, you are in trouble. You don’t need to know HOW “code A is pre-loaded into the buffer at memory allocation Y for 5.3 nanoseconds….” but you must understand the WHY. If you can’t articulate how the technology behind the products works, you’re not going to gain much credibility with development, making it hard for them to take you seriously when you start handing them requirements for the next version of your product.
Remember: you are the proxy to the market. If you aren’t running engineering, you aren’t running engineering - leave that up to the people who’s job it is to care about the “how.”
Step 4. Understand the Roadmap and Market Research
You need to understand what, if any, roadmap exists for your products. In addition, what data was used and how / who was it gathered from to make those roadmap decisions? Once you can get immersed in your product’s market segments, the problem that’s being solved (see point 1), and what data is being used / gathered now to serve them, the more of a chance you will have to take that management to the next level.
Step 5. Look for the Wins
To me, one of the primary functions of a tech P.M. is to actually ship product. Whether it’s a v1.0, a major rev, a minor rev, etc…. you need to get that under your belt if you haven’t. It will be stressful, but if you’re prepared and have good folks around you, it should be pretty smooth sailing.
At the end of the day, there’s plenty of things you can and can’t do - but most of it is common sense. If you are a new P.M., and are stepping into an established P.M. organization, expect some hard work. Your manager will want you (hopefully!) to succeed with flying colours, so make mistakes and ask. You wouldn’t be in the position if they didn’t think you will blow the doors off of it.
You’re there to ship some product - so, figure out what you’re shipping, and get it out in the market. If it breaks down and doesn’t do what it should, plan your iteration accordingly and ship again.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Adam — Great suggestions! There’s a lot of resources out there about product management, but not too many about how to start out in product management. There are some great first steps here.
A few other resources to suggest:
I presented a webinar entitled Ten Tips For New Product Managers that covered some of the things you discussed here, plus some other things I did when I started out (or things I wish I had done). The PowerPoint slides (2MB) are available for download too.
brainmates had a great series of posts on their blog, all focusing on the theme of “So You’re a New Product Manager…”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
On Product Management offered tips on How To Be A Great Product Manager
Of course, I try to cover a lot of this on my blog, How to be a Good Product Manager, though you’ve touched on some points that I haven’t covered yet — good fodder for future posts!
November 6th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Thanks for the note, Jeff! Your blog posts are fantastic and I appreciate you logging in some additional links with your comment as well.
Figuring out what a P.M. is was one of the hardest things I had to do when I started; simply because I didn’t have anyone to guide me a long.
I figure, the more resources there are to help those that are faced with the same scenario, the better.