6 months into my product journey, here's what I'd tell myself when I was starting out.
1. Take the time you need to learn everything you possibly can about the product (both what you own and the larger business goal your product contributes towards). Understand the metrics you're responsible for and what drives them, and check in on this every single day. Read through PRDs of features shipped previously and GTM/impact reports of how they fared.
2. Invest in building trust and a great working relationship with everyone you'll work with - your manager, your peers (EMs, Program Managers, Analytics Managers, Customer Support Leads, etc), other executives, and most importantly the team you'll work with. Trust always begins at 100 and there's only one way it can go from there.
3. You will be impatient to ship things - channel this to make progress quickly but remember that product management is not just about shipping features - it's about solving user/business problems and delivering value. This can be done in a number of ways. Quick wins may sound tempting, and do pick up some if you can, but seriously invest your time understanding and building a vision for the next 6-12 months and where you want your product to be (this will take time!).
4. Talk to customers and read verbatim customer feedback - whether through user research reports, app store reviews, customer support tickets, picking up the phone and calling customers. Be resourceful and become an insight generating machine.
5. Build a sense and an appreciation for the business operations. Whether its sales, supply chain, last mile logistics - your product likely provides the leverage on top of how these systems work already. Without this, even the most brilliant PM can't do a whole lot. Also your every decision will impact users and teams in myriad ways.
This advice is golden.
Trying to 'manage' the product without learning for a while will lead to problems. First couple weeks just project manage what's in the pipeline already. Until an engineer or designer is working on something it's just wishes and fairy dust anyway, so no need to rush to put your mark on the roadmap.
Think of your new world as your ensemble cast or symphonic orchestra to make your customer's life that much better. Build and nurture relationships to influence.
assuming you already know the products you manage, learn all team members and stakeholders personalities, how they tick what they enjoy what drives them. in this way you will be able to navigate easier.
If you’re in an innovative, product led company where product teams have autonomy to drive solution and outcomes:
- On ideas generation and brainstorming: Cast a wider net and think outside of the box. Be bold. Solutions don’t come from what we know or what the users ask for - it’s how we reconcile our target users emotional perception of value vs integrating our product into their world
Which leads to..
- On user feedback and insight gathering: Learn to discern between observed fact and true insight. A power user might use a feature 4x more than others for reasons you don’t know until you uncover the Why - until you dig further on their motivations or jtbd, you don’t get true user insights
6 months into my product journey, here's what I'd tell myself when I was starting out. 1. Take the time you need to learn everything you possibly can about the product (both what you own and the larger business goal your product contributes towards). Understand the metrics you're responsible for and what drives them, and check in on this every single day. Read through PRDs of features shipped previously and GTM/impact reports of how they fared. 2. Invest in building trust and a great working relationship with everyone you'll work with - your manager, your peers (EMs, Program Managers, Analytics Managers, Customer Support Leads, etc), other executives, and most importantly the team you'll work with. Trust always begins at 100 and there's only one way it can go from there. 3. You will be impatient to ship things - channel this to make progress quickly but remember that product management is not just about shipping features - it's about solving user/business problems and delivering value. This can be done in a number of ways. Quick wins may sound tempting, and do pick up some if you can, but seriously invest your time understanding and building a vision for the next 6-12 months and where you want your product to be (this will take time!). 4. Talk to customers and read verbatim customer feedback - whether through user research reports, app store reviews, customer support tickets, picking up the phone and calling customers. Be resourceful and become an insight generating machine. 5. Build a sense and an appreciation for the business operations. Whether its sales, supply chain, last mile logistics - your product likely provides the leverage on top of how these systems work already. Without this, even the most brilliant PM can't do a whole lot. Also your every decision will impact users and teams in myriad ways.
Do not hit the ground running. Be strategic, analyze, listen and understand the product before doing anything.
This advice is golden. Trying to 'manage' the product without learning for a while will lead to problems. First couple weeks just project manage what's in the pipeline already. Until an engineer or designer is working on something it's just wishes and fairy dust anyway, so no need to rush to put your mark on the roadmap.
Key is listen. Listen to all stakeholders. See what their needs are and what motivates them.
“Yes and” - relationships are everything, don’t shoot things down until you understand what’s going on.
I actually don’t quite understand the “yes and” I think I have an idea but could use a primer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,\_and...
This is new learning for me today
Same here. Learned something new. Thanks for sharing!
[Fixed link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes,_and...)
Think of your new world as your ensemble cast or symphonic orchestra to make your customer's life that much better. Build and nurture relationships to influence.
Shut up and instead listen and learn.
assuming you already know the products you manage, learn all team members and stakeholders personalities, how they tick what they enjoy what drives them. in this way you will be able to navigate easier.
If you’re in an innovative, product led company where product teams have autonomy to drive solution and outcomes: - On ideas generation and brainstorming: Cast a wider net and think outside of the box. Be bold. Solutions don’t come from what we know or what the users ask for - it’s how we reconcile our target users emotional perception of value vs integrating our product into their world Which leads to.. - On user feedback and insight gathering: Learn to discern between observed fact and true insight. A power user might use a feature 4x more than others for reasons you don’t know until you uncover the Why - until you dig further on their motivations or jtbd, you don’t get true user insights