AMA: Figma Head of Collaboration Product, Avantika Gomes on Building a Product Management Team

There's a lot written about basic PM competencies (https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/), and for any PM on my team, they should be able to do all these things you'd expect from a PM (write specs, understand the customer, communicate upwards and outwards, GSD). I'll focus my answer on a few attributes that I think are really "make-or-break" for me: * Good communication skills, both written and verbal, are an absolute must-have for any PM on my team. Whether it's through writing specs, influencing stakeholders, or pitching product ideas, PMs have to be able to communicate effectively across mediums (written, verbal), forums (large groups vs. small groups vs 1:1) and audiences (to developers, marketers, sales, executives). In particular, they need to be able to tell good stories (e.g.,, can they get their team inspired about an idea?), structure their communication effectively (e.g., can break down ambiguous problems using a framework?) and make technical concepts easy to understand for non-technical folks (e.g., can they explain how routers work to someone without a CS background?) * Great PMs "own" the problem. They're not afraid the step outside the boundaries of their function to do what it takes to get the product out the door. They rarely ever use phrases like "that's not my job" or "this was the designer/developers responsibility". Their strong sense of ownership of the problem leads them to passionately debate about the right solution, speak truth to power when necessary, but also be open to other points of view (because it's not about "them", it's about solving the problem).

Congratulations! Being the first PM at a company can be a really exciting and formative experience, in shaping the product vision and the product organization. Here's a few things I'd suggest: * It's all about the user - user needs, user problems, user stories! Spend a lot of time learning about your customers, their needs and what they're looking for from your product. * Make sure you socialize what product management is, what your key responsibilities are, and how cross-functional partners should work with you. A "PM" can mean different things to different people, so make sure you tailor this to what your company needs and then communicate it out. * Set up your product processes early. For instance - start simple with a product launch calendar, some task management process (e.g., an agile process in JIRA or Asana), etc.

There are a few that I consider important to set up (and refine) as you grow your team: 1. Processes for top-down sharing: As your team grows, knowledge sharing becomes harder but also more critical. PMs can only do their best work when they have context about conversations and updates from across the organization. For instance, "context" could include new product updates, changes in company strategy, takeaways from executive conversations and board meetings. I'd explore ways that you can provide this context either synchronously (e.g., through a team meeting) and/or asynchronously (e.g., through a "here's what's top-of-mind" slack message or email 2. Processes for upwards sharing: It's important to also think through the best ways for your team to share what they're working on (product updates), but also for them to share feedback on how the team is operating (upwards feedback). This is necessary with a smaller team too, but in larger teams becomes more challenging to do this ad-hoc and 1:1 - additional processes like a recurring survey or a shared product launch calendar. Keep in mind that this is not just important for you, but for the entire PM team and XFN partners too, so be sure to do this in a transparent way. 3. Team-building processes: Often overlooked, these are important to increase the cohesion and connection that your PM team feels. I like to use a weekly meeting or a private slack channel to share wins, talk about product news, share personal updates. It should feel like a trusted space for your team to share their thoughts and get to know each other more personally. Also, in today's remote climate where team members can often feel more disconnected, you might want to think through team rituals (e.g., beginning of every meeting with a win, learn and a "smile" - something that made you smile in your personal life) and in-person bonding (e.g., as a team, we meet in person once a quarter). A helpful tip - carve aside 30 mins each quarter to also do some "housekeeping" of your team processes. Audit what's working and what's not, which meetings are useful vs. not, what are themes from your team surveys. Iterate on your team processes just like you'd iterate on a product!

Contrary to popular belief, it's not about writing a job description as fast as possible and starting to hire! It's important to spend some time upfront thinking about the team you are trying to build: 1. Define your team structure: Think about how you want to set up your product team - what are the main product areas to be supported? What areas might grow down the line? What areas need specific skill sets? It's helpful to give each PM a clear focus, in terms of user they're focused on and problem they're solving rather than a clear feature. For instance, when I worked at Pinterest, we were much more interested in hiring a "Discovery" PM rather than a "Homefeed" PM. At Figma, we hired for a "Collaboration" PM rather than a "Comments" PM. You don't want your PMs attached to features, you want them attached to specific users and their problems. Features come and go, problems don't. 2. Define your PM competencies: Think about the attributes you care most about as a PM. Is your company exceptionally data-driven, and therefore candidates needs to be analytically savvy? Is your company a B2B company and therefore candidates need to be business-oriented and able to interface with Sales? Factor in the skillsets you already have on your team - if your team is already highly technical, do you instead want to complement your team with more creatively-oriented PMs? What domain knowledge is necessary for each role? Write down the attributes you care most about, how they'd evolve for different levels of seniority and how you'll evaluate candidates on them. This is absolutely critical before you start hiring so that you have an objective and clear interview process. 3. Build your pipeline: Create your job posting, and promote it across LinkedIn and other job sites. Start to talk to candidates both formally and informally (reach out to interesting folks on LinkedIn and make connections). For senior roles, often times you need to keep conversations going with candidates for a until they're ready to interview. It's better to wait to get the right candidate than to make a hire decision in a hurry. Also, it's a good idea to get folks within your company to refer people in their network - amazing people often know amazing people! Create a referral program and spread the word. Once you have these pieces in place, you can start interviewing to find the right candidates. I'd suggest that until you have a big enough team and enough confidence in specific PM hires who understand the business/role well, that you limit hiring responsibilities to a very small group to start so that you can maintain a strong and consistent bar for the type of talent you hire.