Novice PdM
New to Product Management?
How to provide value as a beginner when you don’t know sh*t.
Throughout my time in school, product management was never a career path that people talked about. Granted, it is a relatively new field and I only graduated a couple of years ago. But still, none of my professors, academic advisors, friends, or family had the inside scoop about Product. Instead, I would see and hear things like ‘Data Scientists have the sexiest job of the 21st century.’ Please.
Long story short, I have been a Product Manager for two years. My career path so far has been:
- Associate Product Management Intern.
- Associate Product Manager.
- Product Manager.
And before I keep cruising along and trying to progress through the ranks, I wanted to pause and write about why I believe being a new product manager could be the best position to be in. And I want to share with you how to contribute to a product team even when you still don’t know what the hell is going on at times.
You are now a Product Manager 👏
One way or another, you have found yourself in what is truly the sexiest job on the planet. You know the basics of being able to set yourself apart from others on a resume, handling challenging interviews, and locking in a position for yourself. But there is something special about doing those things for a PdM role. It’s one of the most coveted jobs in the market, and you were no doubt up against some extremely tough competition. I applaud you, and I want to hear about your journey (send me a note)!
Whether this is your first job out of college, a career change or development, or something you have just stumbled into, you have now entered what is perhaps the best stage of any product management career.
These are my top three reasons why:
- Learning is maximized. Experienced PdMs know just about everything. Or at least it often feels that way. But you don’t know sh*t! So a lot of your time goes towards reading, studying, asking questions, observing how the experienced PdMs handle situations, and learning about the product and the team. The learning should never stop, but when you are new it’s on another level.
- You are fresh. Having a different pair of eyes come in to look at a product, evaluate how it is fitting into its ecosystem, observe customers and users, and to help determine what should be built is incredibly valuable.. and FUN! Some folks are jaded and worn-out. Not you — you have all the energy in the world right now.
- You get the best work. As your experience and ability to manage a product grows, generally so does the scope of what you are responsible for. That can lead to being spread too thin and no longer enjoying your work as much. But right now, you likely get to focus on one specific feature, or a smaller product. That allows you to have razor sharp focus in a single area. And you don’t have to worry as much about all the non-product related things that the senior PdMs have to.
What to focus on 🧠
It’s possible that you are an absolute rockstar product manager, and from day one you know exactly what to do at all times. That certainly hasn’t been my experience and I’m sure it won’t be for most. As a new product manager, it can be easy to get distracted by all the things that come your way, and you might end up lost. You are in the middle of it all: customer research, feature prioritization, writing user stories and requirements, marketing, testing, UX/UI, sales, giving product demos, analytics, customer support, documentation, etc. Emails and slack messages are flying around, meetings are popping up left and right, customers are calling you, it’s busy. And you are new! So, you may not know the product inside and out yet. Maybe you haven’t learned the process for completing a task that has just come up. But as long as you focus on the following, you’ll be fine:
- Develop strong relationships with people on and off your team.
- Become a go-to person for finding specific information.
- Master the tools: Jira, smartsheet, Abstract, etc.
- Read absolutely everything you can get your hands on.
- Don’t ever even risk coming across as a know-it-all.
- Respect senior PdMs and offer to help them.
- Anticipate what will need to be done in the future, and do it now.
- If you have an idea or a question, express or ask it.
- Spend time with your product every day.
- Fight for your product and for what you believe in.
- Respond to all emails, slack, messages, calls, etc. as quickly as you can.
- Always be ready to give a product presentation, training session, or demo.
- Show interest in all aspects of the product.
- Make your boss’s job easier in every way you can.
- Do the right thing for your customers.
The truth is, you may not provide value right off the bat as a new product manager in the ways that you expect — and that’s ok. The contributions that you are able to make, whether you recognize it or not, are actually unique to being new. So, enjoy the stage that you are in right now, focus on what’s included in my list, and just take a moment to reflect on why you might already be in the perfect product management position. Don’t let these times as a beginner just pass you by.
