Comments on: Software product manager’s first 30 days at a new job ….

By: vishal

vishal — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 17:30:06 +0000

What percent of time should the new PM focus on outside the building activities (listening to customers and learning) vs internal i.e (working with engineers to build). FYI The company has already shipped product and has paying customers in 2-3 market segments.

By: Nitesh Jain

Nitesh Jain — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:05:13 +0000

Great article Gopal. Have recently joined a new job, and this would certainly help. Some points to share on my side. Apart from lunches, it is also good to take opportunities and meet people over coffee in cafeteria. Most of time people are busy on their job, so it is good idea to catch them over tea/coffee. This would sometimes mean, watching them leave their seat and go to cafeteria, and then follow them (stalking did I mean :) ) Other things that I do is be part of as many group meetings as possible, get introduce and observe the group dynamics. It is also good to get an idea on history of how the product has come up and also history of how team has been built, Mr. X got Mr. Y, and they had worked together or are classmates etc.

Cheers
Nitesh

By: Prabhat

Prabhat — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:20:28 +0000

Appreciate the simple yet important steps you have mentioned in the post. Joining in a new role can be overwhelming at times, and its quite easy to get ambushed with demands from various functions.
From my personal experience, i realize that after the initial breather, in which you are expected to pace yourself up (most of the times without too much guidance), it becomes more and more assumed that you’d have the answers.
Utlizing this self-help initial phase in the most structured manner is key and having a meticulous list like the one above can take the suspense out to a large degree. Just makes you more confident in those initial days while conversing with the know-alls of the organization.

By: IT Outsourcing

IT Outsourcing — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:48:44 +0000

That’s true that our focus should be to first gain a solid understanding of the company’s vision and business strategy and take stock of what exists within the company. Nice blog.

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What Product am I managing? « Something on Everything — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 05:50:15 +0000

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By: Prashant Wagle

Prashant Wagle — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:20:03 +0000

Mr. Shenoy,

I am breaking into the role of a product manager post my MBA at an early stage startup. Your posts certainly help me form the right mental approach as I go into the job.

Appreciate the contributions.

Best Regards,
Prashant Wagle

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By: Chris Brown

Chris Brown — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:17:32 +0000

Great article, but what about meeting your customers?? If your product is for enterprise, go out on a few sales calls to some of your bigger clients and prepare to be awed by the amount of feedback and insight (and, yes, plenty of hot air) you will receive. If your customer is the general consumer, then get your hands on as much consumer research as possible.

Chris

By: Val

Val — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:45:37 +0000

This is a great set of steps for those product managers who have been at the same company, with the same products for a long time. Take a week and think like a new user, if you can! Validate the strategy, review the competitors. Lets be honest with ourselves, no matter how much we WANT to be doing all those things, we usually end up fighting fires, managing releases, sitting in on sales calls or figuring out priorities. We don’t spend as much time as we should with our product and our competitors.

By: gopalshenoy

gopalshenoy — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:06:42 +0000

Ashok – Thanks for the comments. As far as small companies, I have successfully used this in companies as small as 50 people. In fact I find that it is easier to collect the information or find that it does not exist in smaller companies because the people you need to talk to are right there.

By: Ashok Kabadi

Ashok Kabadi — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:01:58 +0000

Great list. I find it can work at established and large companies where documentation is available and many people are around to fill in the blanks. The only issue is that the list is large, as someone else said – but if it takes 45~60 days, so be it. As for small companies and start-ups this doesn’t work. Documentation does not exist, is incomplete, or is outdated. Folks are super busy and many don’t have the answers themselves. PLUS, you are expected to make quality and complete intitial deliverables during that same time – and that ends up taking the priority (or risk losing the job, in today’s highly competitive market). So in this case, the learning takes a lot longer.

This is what I have seen in my experience.

By: Russell Mackay

Russell Mackay — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:48:46 +0000

A great summary, how often we forget the basics and jump right into the most current fire.

By: brianhodgson

brianhodgson — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:27:21 +0000

beyond 30 days, it is important to refresh on this periodically to ensure you are in touch/aligned.

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Reads from the week of Jan 3 | Korner Talk — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:39:22 +0000

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By: gopalshenoy

gopalshenoy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:40:15 +0000

Mark – Yes, totally agree with the lunch part. I have done this many times and it works so well. This is true especially with dev managers because believe it or not, they sometimes never get a chance to get out of the building to talk about work in a very informal setting.

By: gopalshenoy

gopalshenoy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:39:00 +0000

Steve – I agree. This checklist is to make sure that you get to unearth all the resources that may exist which could include all the work done by the previous PMs. What I have found usually is that such information exists but are stored in number of islands of information. And if you ask and the manager says it does not exist, you know what is a gap you may want to fill.

By: Steven Haines

Steven Haines — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:17:38 +0000

Nice job. This is how strategies can be formulated. Assembling all the baseline information. However, if this has to be sought out as a completely new undertaking (getting all the data) then the predecessor PM didn’t do their job. I am a strong advocate of the PRODUCT MASTER PLAN as the go-to resource for everything related to the product, the organization, the market, finance, documentation, etc.
–
One other point. This is a fairly huge undertaking for the first 30 days. In the interviewing process, some of this should be asked for by the PM. After all, you have to know what you’re getting in to so that you can envision yourself taking over the product. Otherwise, you might find yourself managing a product you don’t like or believe in.

Steven Haines
Author: The Product Manager’s Desk Reference

By: Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:57:31 +0000

Love this list. Two things I might add: 1) I try to have lunch with as many people as possible. It’s a good way to start a personal relationship with people. 2) Meet with engineers and ask lots of (smart) questions. You’ll need their help later and you want to make sure that you know what they’re doing.

By: Rian

Rian — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:32:24 +0000

Good list! Under competitors, I would also add to get to know their product as well — i.e., don’t just use your own product, also use competitor software to do the same tasks. It’s a great source of ideas and a good way to learn the market quickly.

By: Some useful tips « Grey Product Management

Some useful tips « Grey Product Management — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:11:53 +0000

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