AMA: Meta Director Technical Program Management, Vasanth Arunachalam on PM 30/60/90 Day Plan

I worked at Microsoft for about a decade and then moved to Meta to take on a new role, a few years back. That was the most unsettling period of my professional life. I’ve gotten accustomed to a certain culture, way of work life, people, tools & processes etc at one company and the thought of having to do it all over again was intimidating. I decided to build a 30-60-90-day plan in my new role at Meta to provide clarity to my team (and to my manager, myself) about how I’m going to ramp up. De ...Read More

I’m assuming the question is about setting a ‘team’ vision/mission and one doesn’t exist yet. The mission statement is the “What” and the vision statement is an ambitious future state of what the world might look like when you accomplish your mission. A crisp vision/mission statement serves as a strong identity for your team and guides them during critical moments of decision making, gaining alignment, prioritizing resources etc. Here is a framework that I’ve leveraged in the past to arrive at a ...Read More

I’ll apply the framework outlined above to this question and talk about setting up a Technical PM function for the first time. 30 days of LEARNING: I’ll start with a listening tour, meeting with all cross-functional leaders (Engineering, Data Science, Design, Marketing, Operations etc) and trying to understand where the Technical PMs can add value. I usually get a list of all the areas where help is needed. I ensure that the expectations from the team aligns with the Technical PM job profile and ...Read More

The listening tour is what I love most while taking on a new role. I’m a social person and I love meeting people. What better than getting to know the people you are going to work closely with? I typically have a ledger that I carry with me into these 1:1 conversations with my cross functional team members and take notes diligently. This also helps me to organize those into themes. Towards the end of my 30-60-90 day ramp up, I do a share out of my perspective on what works, what doesnt and where ...Read More

“Rushing to prove value” is one of the common pitfalls of starting in a new role. Having said that, you want to make steady and incremental progress in delivering value. See my response to the question "What's your best product management 30-60-90 day plan to make a big impact at a new company?" for the framework you can adopt for a 30-60-90 day ramp up plan. Here I’ll outline some quick wins you can aim for but I can’t stress enough on not coming across as ‘rushed’. Relationship building with y ...Read More