5 Things you should do in the first 30 days as a new product manager

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Product Managers, who are starting a new job, might not truly understand the role and responsibilities of a PM.

However, the employer has very high expectations from day one. This disconnect is not conducive, especially to the PM’s success. It should be tackled immediately and proactively.

But the problem is — how does a new product manager, who doesn’t understand the role or the company’s working style, proactively do something about it?

The answer to that question depends on multiple factors — the kind of role, past experience, education background, and the structure of the product team.

But, there are things that a new product manager should do in their first month to set themselves up for success.

Here, are the top five

Set clear expectations with your direct manager

You have been hired for a specific reason. Make sure that you know what that specific reason is.

Align with them on a few things as soon as you start on their team:

1. What is their definition of the role that you’re hired for. Ask them about specific tasks that they want you to own in the first 1–2 months.
2. What does success look like in this role
3. What they think you should do to be successful. Start broad, but get narrow — try to get specific guidance on how you can meet their criteria of success
4. Get their help to identify the important stakeholders that will influence your roadmap (and indirectly your success)

Focus the first few meetings you have with your manager on the above. However, the tone and structure of your 1:1 will evolve and mature over time. Once you’re comfortable, you should focus on progress updates and career progression.

I strongly recommend making your meetings very structured. That will allow you to lead the discussion rather than follow it. I use this template (even today) for 1:1s with my manager.

Meet your counterpart engineering manager

The PM-EM (engineering manager) relationship will have the most impact on what you do and how successful you and your product will be.

Invest time in nurturing this relation from day one.

In the first week, setup a formal meeting with the EM. Focus on your discussion on the below:

1. Understand their perception of “what” the team does and what are the goals they care about the most. Try to get a sense of what success looks like as per the EM, and how closely that aligns with your definition
2. Dive right into it. Don’t hesitate to get into the technical details in the first week. The sooner you do it, the sooner you learn. In this meeting, ask the EM to connect you to the engineer who can help you ramp up on what the team has done/is doing
3. This is usually a good time to get details on their working style — how does the team operate, what is their preferred way of communication, how do they like the PMs to contribute, and just get a sense of what they care about in this relationship and how they think you should contribute.
4. Get personal (not in a creepy way) and know the EM as you would a friend. Obviously, this won’t happen in the first meeting. But use this meeting to set the tone.

Read as much material as you can

This one is really obvious, but I’d still put it in the list just to be sure you have it on your list.

The goal here is three fold:

1. Understand and read about goals/OKRs
2. Understand the team’s (read: manager’s) documentation style and preferences. Read a lot of the recent requirements documents, user stories, launch emails, announcements, etc.
3. Understand what data the team cares about, and how you can get access to it ASAP.

Typically, there is a lot of material to go through when you join. And this is usually a good time to create some sort of system that helps you organise all documents and resources.

I usually create sheet with a list of questions that I want answers to. Every resource that answers the question, I link it on the same sheet. (More on this in a later post)

Resist the urge to start changing things

Every time you join a new company or team, you will look at things from a perspective different from everyone else who’s been there a while.

Don’t act on them right away.

Instead, document them, learn, get more context, build credibility, and then act. This will make your actions impactful and your presence noticed.

Get in front of your users

Spend a large chunk of your first month with users. Do whatever it takes -attend sales calls, answers customer support queries, talk to sales teams — to get closer to users and learn about their pain points.

The goal here is to understand the processes to get access to users. It is always helpful to know how long it takes.

Secondly, talking to users will expose you to the real pain points, which internal stakeholders might not be able to.

If you’re looking for more details and want to understand “why” doing the above is important, refer to this guide. I highlights all the important steps you should start doing from day one.