Don’t jump yet, PM! Read this first

Congratulations! You’ve nailed your first Product Management job. 😊

Now you have the power to really influence from within. You can use your experience and knowledge to change the product and solve real customer problems.

In addition to the prestige and the money (well… maybe not the money…), now you can start making an impact.

“But… what should I do? What are my roles?” these are questions I was asking myself when I began my first role as PM.

What is the problem?

I can remember myself starting my new role as a product manager — proud but confused. I didn’t really know what I should do. Even after a year in the role, knowing most of the basics, I was still confused and not sure how to complete certain tasks my manager expected of me. I clearly remember several times where I thought that transitioning from my previous role was a mistake — but still I remained.

Ideal PM Venn diagram (not the reality…)

Often people use this “ideal PM Venn diagram” to illustrate where a PM fits in an organization, but there are a lot of responsibilities that are not quite described in the diagram. (There are other Venn diagrams that try to depict to a more realistic (and funny) reality here and here.)

Not depicted are some of the expectations your manager may have of you, such as:

• To think about the future of the product, “get out of the building” — or in simple words, go talk to customers
• Make sure features and the product are launched according to schedule and with the minimal viable features that were agreed on
• Be able to measure the success of each launch
• Make sure you deliver all the right requirements to R&D and the UX/UI teams on time

And sometimes you are also expected to take on more responsibilities, or an extra product to manage (“jump into the water”).

“Wow! These are a lot of things to do, so many expectations and so many new skills that I need to learn, how can I do it?”

Nothing prepared me for all the roles and responsibilities that needed to be done daily (and I am constantly learning more).

Know your (internal) interfaces & responsibilities

I’ve tried to list, from my experience, some of the PM interfaces and responsibilities, to try and help you get your head around what is expected of you and what it takes to do the job.

Knowing that the PM role can vary between companies, the below list is partial. If you don’t have one of the below interfaces where you work, you’ll have to assume that this is yet another one of your responsibilities.

Note: The most important interface that is not listed here is the customer! I chose to focus on internal interfaces and not external ones.

For each person you work with and team that you interface with, you should think of the WIIFM (What’s in it for me) and WIIFY (What’s in it for you). This might help you better understand the other side and the general situation.

Product Owners (AKA Inbound PM)

• Share your thoughts on the product roadmap, listen to the PO’s thoughts and “groom” the roadmap together
• Explain the reasons behind each feature, and how you think it will drive the business and the product forward
• Explain the customer needs and pain points for every feature
• Review, with the PO, the user stories priorities to make sure that real customer value is met

R&D teams

• Get your R&D teams motivated by explaining to them why they are creating each feature and why each new feature is important
• Share the company strategy and explain why you think this feature can help users solve a problem they have
• Share with them the analyzed data and feedback you have from users, as well as success stories and how a feature has improved the lives or experiences of users
• Talk to your R&D teams, listen to their ideas
• Help your R&D teams understand the problems that the product seeks to solve so that they can be more independent

User Experience (UX) teams and Designers (UI)

• Once you understand the user problem, work with UX and UI to explain why something matters
• Talk about what is important to show on a screen, what the user should feel or experience in a certain process
• Don’t try to solve things by yourself — let your UX/I expert be creative, and then review and comment

Technical Writers

• Engage with the technical writers (TW) to make sure they understand the context and the reasons why so they can offer the needed documentation around it. One of my managers once told me “A product is not complete without its documentation”, and this is so true
• Think of the customer/user that will be using your product — what will they need to know?
• Giving the full picture of a new product or feature to the TW helps that writer organize the information and enables them to often suggest the right terminology that should be used as the relevant microcopy for your product

Peer Product Managers

• When working on a PM team, it is common to have cross-product integrations and joint initiatives
• Make sure everyone is aligned with the goals and the “problems to solve” before you begin
• Make sure you have on-going communication with your stakeholders, including peer PMs
• Having sync meetings with peer PMs can let you in on potential feature integrations, joint values, possible change affects from other products and change of priorities that you should be aware of

“The Field” (Account Executives, Pre-Sales, Professional Services, Technical Account Managers, etc.)

• They are your eyes and ears to the customer
• These are the people that customers often feel more comfortable with, and so share what they really need or want — encourage your colleagues in these roles to share with you some of this knowledge
• Try having periodic update meetings with key people from the field for feedback on current issues, new trends, new features, etc.

Management

• Make sure you are aware of and aligned with the company goals and initiatives
• Request feedback on your work — you can always improve
• Reflect back on information from the field — for example, how a certain feature was received
• Are there any requests / needs that you see repeating? Should your management pay attention to them and possibly focus their goals in that direction?
• Ask your manager for feedback on features you were responsible for — they might have information to share

What should you do now?

I’ve often noticed that whenever I face a task where I’m not sure what to do, I ask myself these 3 questions:

• Do I understand why I’m doing what I need to do?
• Do I know how this task can have an impact?
• Do I understand the urgency of the task and when it should be completed?

Answering these questions will help you prioritize and convey your message. Don’t be afraid of consulting your interfaces (manager, field…) for answers.

Explain your ‘Why’

It really helps me having the ‘Why’ clear for myself before any task.
Here are my key items for conveying the ‘Why’ to others:

• Convince yourself before you try to convince others
• Explain the ‘Why’ the best you can, aligning to goals and company initiatives
• Challenge the known and basics before exploring new areas
• Share your thoughts with others
• Get feedback on your thoughts and directions from key stakeholders

Personas

A persona is an avatar that can best represent your end user. Creating such an avatar helps understanding of the end user is that will be using your product / feature (remember: You are not the user!).

Explain to your team which features are ‘important’ and which are ‘nice to have’, by describing the persona’s needs, desires and what is important to them.

A maximum of 5–6 different personas are recommended. If you have a very complex product you might find yourself with more (some companies might have 20 personas and sub-personas).

Here are some key questions that always helps me describe my persona better:

• What is the persona’s relationship with the product?
• What does the persona find important in your product?
• How many times (a day/month/…) is this persona using your product?
• How will this new feature solve this persona’s problem (“Jobs to be done”)?

Measurements

Don’t move on blindly to your next feature. Try to have as much visibility into what your users are doing in your product, so you can learn from it for the next feature.

When I managed an on-prem security product, I had very little analytics data visibility into how my users were using my product. Still, I could learn what was working better and what was not by talking with the field.

Now that I’m managing a SaaS product, visibility and analytics are two of the main things we design into the product, so I’m always able to extract interesting insights that can inform future enhancements.

My key measurement tools to share with you:

• Make sure you know your organization’s Objectives and Key Results (OKR) and define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  What are the key results that you would like to achieve for a new product or feature?
  How are you going to measure these objectives and results using performance indicators?
• Use analytic tools
  There are different analytic tools for different use cases
  A couple of examples include Google Analytics and MixPanel
• In case you have a “standalone” product (like I had)
  Look at support cases
  Get in touch with “the field” for feedback
  Use the product yourself — see how it feels (requires you to be very judgmental)
• Ask your users directly
  Use surveys
  Go to User groups and try to engage with users, asking them what they like or don’t like in your product

Training

There are a lot of other good places where you can get basic PM training. I am lucky enough to work for a company that sent me to a recommended product management course at Pragmatic Institute.

Participating in such courses can help you be in line with other peer PMs on your team and have a stronger ground base to work from. For example, CyberArk has started providing a Product Management course for all Product Managers that helps us to “speak the same language” and with refining our working procedures.

Take two long breaths and continue to your next meeting

Yes, a PM role can be stressful; at times it looks like you are responsible for so many things you don’t know where to start. I know that like me, other PMs feel pretty much the same.

This is exactly where you should think like a PM — prioritize!

You are not alone. Here are a few small tricks that have helped me stay sane:

• Distract yourself
  Find something else to do that you enjoy, letting your mind have a break from time to time
  Once you feel ready, get back to work
• Be versatile, keep up to date
  Try to keep track of the trends of the market you are in
  Read what others in your industry are doing
• Think out of the box
  Try challenging existing concepts and think how you can do it better
  If you find something to improve, evaluate if it’s worth investing in changing it

I know today that I love being a PM.

I know that I can always learn from other PMs experiences, so it would be great if you can share yours!