Contributing myself and supporting my team can be at odds with each other.
Coaching and supporting my team is always my number one priority. There are
times when I simply need to say no and depriorit
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Building a Product Management Team
1 answer
Group Manager, Product Management at GitLab • March 7
13 answers
Senior Director of Product at The Knot Worldwide | Formerly Trello (Atlassian) • February 2
As a first PM, you will need to be very judicious with how you allocate your
time and resources. In fact, I think that’s true for larger companies as well.
There are always going to be more ideas than
VP Product Management, Cisco Wireless at Cisco • February 22
Honestly, the first product manager for a company is probably not ready to
establish a prioritization framework. The first PM probably needs to focus on
customer discovery, market discovery, MVP intu
VP, Product & Operations (WooCommerce) at Automattic • March 24
There are many great approaches to this question – and to some extent, it will
depend on what the company values. If you're a first Product Manager, it is most
important that customer needs / expectat
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
The great thing about being the first hire is something that is also great about
Product Management: there is room for interpretation. My philosophy has always
been more heavily focused on understandi
Group Product Manager at Airbnb • June 6
First PM in a company! I have not done it, nor have anyone in close network to
have a good understanding. My guess is that they have to establish right
roles/responsibilities on what to carve out from
Head of Product, Retailers at Faire • June 14
When you are the first PM, you are straddling several priorities: Finding
product market fit Scaling the team Scaling the product The biggest failure mode
is trying to do 2 and 3 before you do 1: As
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
In my experience a prioritization framework is foundational to establishing a
great working relationship within your own team and stakeholders. I'd also argue
that if executed well in the beginning, t
Senior Director of Product, Central Technology at Zynga • August 2
There are a few different vectors to consider here. There is the effort/impact
matrix, which is pretty good at helping identify low hanging fruit - essentially
mapping out potential workstreams on a 2
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Thank you for the question and I'm sure this is exactly not the answer you're
looking for which is, "it depends" You're balancing building trust and
relationships, understanding your users and the bu
Director of Product Management at Aurora Solar • October 27
The fundamentals of prioritization are not too different when you're the first
at a company. But in the early stages of a company or product, it's even more
important to focus. At an early stage com
Director of Product Management at GitLab • December 7
This is a great question about how to pave the way for two things: product
strategy and product management execution. I can see this being applicable to
not only first Product hires at start-ups, but
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
The product manager's primary responsibility is to ensure that the right product
is delivered to the market at the right time. In order to do this effectively,
you will need to establish a framework f
Group Product Manager at Gainsight • March 2
Know your customer - Often this can just be the investor in the company/company
owner. Meet their basic expectations from the product first, and win their
confidence. Aim to build a functional protot
1 answer
Senior Director of Product, Einstein AI at Salesforce • February 22
The ideal product manager-to-engineer ratio can vary depending on the nature and
complexity of the products being developed, the size and stage of the
organization, and other factors such as the devel
7 answers
Senior Director of Product at The Knot Worldwide | Formerly Trello (Atlassian) • February 2
I have been a part of small teams, large teams, a PM consultant and an
entrepreneur. I have yet to scale a PM team beyond the first PM but here are the
things I would consider: Structure your team ba
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
This is a situation that our team went through last year, scaling from 2 PMs to
10 over 12 months. Before hiring any additional PMs, we first took the time to
survey the teams that existed in our curr
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta | Formerly Microsoft • May 4
Building with intent is key. As a first PM or TPM, you are often running a
one-person show. You wear multiple hats and you tend to be scrappy, flexing to
what the business needs you to do. That approa
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
The first PM hired into a company, or in a division of a company, will usually
be an individual who can wear different hats on any given day. (see one of my
favorite product management graphics: https
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
I'm not sure it is the most effective because I've really only used one
strategy, but it has been effective for me. Grow your own scope, take on more
than you can handle, do a good job of pitching th
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
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
5 answers
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
As I mentioned in another answer, lean on those around you; there is a wealth of
knowledge to be amassed from stakeholders and peers that have likely interacted
with the product that you've been broug
VP Product at CookUnity • June 30
Assuming this is an early stage company, the priority should be learning the
basics of the business and building relationships with as many colleagues as
possible. Use those learnings to construct a m
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Absolutely, welcome to the discipline, you're in for quite a ride and I'm super
excited for you. Optimize for learning and honing your craft. There's a balance
to have the confidence to make decisi
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
If you are a junior PM who is the first product management hire, it would be
fair to assume you are working at an early-stage startup where likely the
founder is acting as the product leader. You were
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
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 a
4 answers
Director of Product at Netflix • August 3
The candidate must “spike” (“8/10” or higher) in all of these areas, in order of
importance: 1. Critical Thinking Given how many decisions and complex problems
are thrown at PMs, this the #1 most im
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
I'm lucky in that Google has a really rigorous interview process that I benefit
from. Google is also known for taking a long time during that process but I
promise you that is largely because of the r
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
The product manager's job is to identify the most impactful problems to solve,
enable their team to build and ship solutions that delight users, learn, and
iterate. Product managers need a multitude o
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
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 ex
6 answers
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta | Formerly Microsoft • May 4
Expanding the team from 1 to multiple people comes with a set of pitfalls that
I’ve learned the hard way. And many other factors such as Org culture, line of
business, product lifecycle etc, have a te
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
Here's how I'd think about it: Some planning cadence where strategy and roadmap
can be reviewed at different levels of fidelity. (Annual, Quarterly etc.)
Product review with key cross functional sta
Director of Product Management at Aurora Solar • October 27
The most important process you can set up is a retrospective of some kind. I
talk about this in more detail in another answer, but as you add people,
ensuring that you have ways of sharing and improvi
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
Adding every new member to the team adds friction and operation overhead
increases. You will need to set up processes that allow the team to operate
independently and work with each other effectively
Group Product Manager, Production Experience at Figma • December 21
There are a few that I consider important to set up (and refine) as you grow
your team: Processes for top-down sharing: As your team grows, knowledge sharing
becomes harder but also more critical. PM
6 answers
Principal PM Manager / Product Leader at Microsoft | Formerly Amazon • January 31
Interestingly enough I see two trends in the types of KPIs product teams miss.
1) Aligning with the larger's organization or business goals - Ensuring that
your product roadmap is actually impacting
Director of Product Management (Cloud Platform) at Atlassian • May 10
In terms of KPI's shared between product and engineering, I would say "Effective
Resource Utilization" can be missed primarily because it can be hard to track
and measure across projects/teams. "Inte
Director of Product Management at GitLab • July 26
Many product organizations focus on delivery, Net Promoter Score, and user
counts. One metric that I think is important to always consider is your
availability and consistency of user experience in th
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
This is a good one. I think there are two that often get missed and largely it
is because they are hard to measure and expensive to move. Product excellence.
How do you measure customer delight in a
Executive Vice President Products at Snow Software | Formerly Rackspace, Dell • October 25
Oftentimes, I find that Product Management teams are focused on getting the
product to market that they forget that their #1 job is building a business. As
a business leader, you can't be simply focus
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
This is a great question. In my opinion, a lot of product teams especially ones
that are focussed on customer-facing products completely miss tracking product
health KPIs like bugs in the product, pro
5 answers
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 12
At the company level, there are a few different methods of communications to
keep everyone abreast of updates: Product Notification emails (Ad Hoc) - These
emails have a set template and allow produc
Director of Product Management at Aurora Solar • October 27
Great question, and it doesn't have a single answer. One thing that is important
is having a consistent, accessible, forum/location for people to see: What's
been released; What's coming up; Metrics;
Director of Product Management at GitLab • December 7
Communicating as a product manager is probably 90% of the job. I would say you
need to make sure you establish clear chains of communication, both internally
and externally, especially as a pertains t
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
What product management updates get shared with the rest of the company and how
they get shared will vary based on the size of the company and the function of
the company. The goal for communication,
4 answers
Senior Director of Product Management, Fintech at HubSpot | Formerly Segment, WeWork, Airbnb • April 11
This is a scenario that teams often find themselves in, especially in fast
moving parts of a business. The question I would ask when looking across the
existing products is "Where do I gain the most l
Director, Technical Program Management at Meta | Formerly Microsoft • May 4
Prioritization is key. I don’t believe in dividing ‘all’ available work across
my team. I believe in ensuring my team focuses on the top business priorities
and are having the most impact. I typically
Group Product Manager at Google • August 18
I like this question although more specifics would help as the answer varies. It
certainly is a tough skill to master though but worthwhile because this will
always be the case. Even at the big compan
Sr. Director, Product Management at Mezmo • December 12
If your PM team only has one or two people responsible for covering multiple
products with complex features, I would recommend building a prioritized list of
deliverables that are necessary to achieve