Mastering the art of Product Management in your new role

The first days in a new position, whether due to a company change or role transition, often present multiple challenges. The sheer volume of information to absorb, people to meet, and tasks to tackle often creates a sense of overwhelm, leading to a state of inertia.

In this article, we propose a series of topics to address during the first weeks of work to break that inertia and facilitate a more productive transition. We outline key topics to address during the first weeks of work, empowering you to craft an initial roadmap, define deliverables for the first 3 months, and plan a 6-month trajectory, among other essential steps.

Step 1: Understanding the Context

Understanding the overall context in which our company, team, and product operate is the first essential step when joining a new organization or team.

Understanding the Company

• Build a high-level understanding of the company as an organization, for example, following the CANVAS model.
• Delve into the organizational chart: identify key individuals within the organizational structure. Establish relationships with each of them. Schedule 1-on-1 meetings with each counterpart, stakeholder, or relevant role for the position.

Understanding the Product

Starting "from the outside in," try to answer the following questions:

• What is the product?
• What problems does it solve?
• Who are its target users/customers?
• What is its Value Proposition? What makes it unique/different?
• What are its key features?
• What are its Strengths and Weaknesses?
• How does the product fit into the company's overall offering? Synergies, interrelationships, dependencies, complementarities.
• At what stage of the product life cycle is it?
• Use it, familiarize yourself with its operation, installation, and onboarding if applicable.

Understanding the Customer

It is generally advisable to have customer (and user) segmentation, considering various dimensions. For example, in the case of business customers (B2B), these dimensions may include company size, gross merchandise volume (GMV), the industry in which the company operates, or the company's development stage, among other relevant factors. If the team has not yet conducted this segmentation, it will be the responsibility of the new Product Management figure to carry out the research and grouping of relevant segments.

It is also crucial to recognize that each segment may have different needs, diverse interests, specific challenges, or problems to solve, which directly influence the development and direction of the product(s) to be managed. Therefore, it is recommended to prioritize these audiences and always keep in mind "for whom" we are designing our solutions. This should be a fundamental pillar when making customer-centric decisions in the product development domain.

You may find it useful to use empathy maps .

Current Product-Customer Fit

Once you understand the Product we offer and the target customer segment, it is worth asking how successful the current "fit" between them is:

• What is its market share?
• What is the current product adoption level?
• How satisfied are customers with the product? (use an existing quantification method)
• What aspects do customers value about the product? What do they demand or ask for?

Competitive Environment

As important as knowing our product is knowing the market alternatives it offers:

• What options does the client company have? In other words, who are our competitors?
• Why do we win or lose in relation to them? Features, services, price, support, ease of use, communication.
• How easy is it for my customer to switch to the competition? How easy is it for a competitor's customer to become our customer?

Step 2: Deepening Understanding

After a few days or weeks since starting in the new role or company, it is common to find more questions than answers, and many aspects to explore that have emerged in step 1.

Despite not having all the certainties, it is likely necessary to start making decisions with an understanding that has not yet reached 100%. At this point, it is essential to overcome fear and take action, but it is also crucial to validate our actions with different team members, stakeholders, and other supporting figures involved in the role integration process. This may include our direct superior, other Product Managers, engineering team members, customer success, or any other commercial figure with whom we are closely interacting and who has a direct connection to customers and the product on the front line.

Vision / Objectives

• Is there a clearly articulated vision for the product?
• Have specific objectives been established? For example:
• Successful market launch.
• Market leadership within a specific time frame.
• Competing by offering the best quality in the market.
• Optimizing the product to meet the needs of a particular customer segment.
• Improving accessibility and reducing costs to make the product more affordable.
• Other specific objectives defined for the product.

Current Strategy

• Is there a clearly defined strategy for the product in terms of What / Why / How?
• Why are we developing this product? What is its main purpose?
• What specific objectives does the product seek to achieve?
• How do we plan to achieve those objectives? What is our strategic approach to developing, launching, and managing the product in the market?

This article can help you understand and/or develop the product strategy .

Backlog or Roadmap

• Is there a clearly defined backlog or roadmap for the product? What does this backlog or roadmap contain?
• What elements are included in the backlog or roadmap?
• Is the progress of initiatives being regularly followed and updated?
• What are the delivery expectations for the initiatives included in the backlog or roadmap?

More information to build and/or feed your roadmap .

Gradual Adaptation: Initial Interventions

Over time, you will begin to take on tasks with greater independence as you deepen your knowledge and gain confidence in your role.

To familiarize yourself with processes, methodologies, functionalities, and challenges to solve, it is essential not to limit yourself to reading documents, watching videos, or participating in internal courses. It is advisable to engage in conversations with both internal and external team members, as these interactions will provide you with a valuable perspective on undocumented or implicit aspects. This firsthand information will be crucial for your integration into the role and for better collaboration with the team and the organization as a whole.

At the same time, you should take advantage of these interactions to make yourself known. Building strong relationships is crucial in the product management field, where negotiation and communication skills are fundamental.

Tips:

Design a plan to obtain all the necessary information.

Prepare for meetings: jot down your doubts and questions, have a clear idea of what you expect to get from each interaction, and take notes for future reference.

Take your time to feel confident before proposing new ideas or solutions, unless it is urgent or requested at that moment; remember that some ideas may have been considered previously by the team. This does not mean inhibiting your ability to propose, but being aware of the team's accumulated experience.

Contact us if you want to discuss this further.