Product Manager Onboarding

  It is all about the stories. This is my 3rd week working as a Product Manager (PM) and I can truly say that the experience has been really interesting.

  As I approach the one-month mark I can say I feel mostly comfortable with all my co-workers (even though we started in the middle of a pandemic and we are all working remotely) and as days go by I feel much more productive than when I started.

Maybe what I am about to share is not exactly your situation but I find worth sharing it. My on-boarding experience has been totally different like I said due to the pandemic, however, there are 3 things that I would encourage any new PMs out there to do:

1. Don't be shy!

  What do I mean by this? I have placed it as my number 1 on my list, because I find there is tons of information online about processes, flows, workloads, statistics and metrics, planning, project management and much more; but there is very little information about how is the life of a PM in daily basis, especially when you start a new position.

  Since our goal is to babysit a product and bring it all the way to the end line, we need to make sure our face and name is known but almost everyone within the company, so I will highly encourage you to keep a list of every employee and their functions within the company; if your company has a structured organizational chart then even better; again, don't be shy, introduce yourself and find out what they do.

2. Push For Answers

  Pushing for answers doesn't mean to be pushy, but asking the right questions. Part of the job of the PM is to know his product well, to understand it to such of way that he is able to describe it to everyone at any given moment.

  There's not a set of questions that you must ask, but there are some common questions when it comes down to product management, such as: "When is the due date?", "What are the risks?", "Are there any roadblocks?", "Is there anyone on vacation during the developing timeline?". It is important to remember that even though it is everyone's responsibility to push the project across the finish line, it is the responsibility of the PM to ensure all key components are taking into accountability and there is no missing/lose pieces before the release of the product, so the more meaningful questions you ask the better the product will be.

3. Find Your Niche 

  Not everyone is good at everything, everyone is best at something. Finding a specialty within PM could be a game changer for the person starting on this position. It goes without saying that there is no better thing that to find satisfaction in everything we do. There are multiple ways to try what exactly its the thing that makes you love what you do. First will be asking yourself some questions: "What is the thing that makes me happy when I do it?" "What is that role that I find joy performing?" "Is there a specific job that would love to do even after hours? Even when you don't "have to" do it?", be honest with yourself and work hard to accomplish that goal. Second, ask people who care about you and let them tell you what are your strengths. Third, look at the results of your work, if you find value in it then it is a good way to evaluate.