If you were starting out in a rapidly growing company would you start by embedding some best practice and then start to build out a team or start by building a small but mighty team and tackle it as a group?

Answer

5 Answers

Building a Product Management Team

Jacqueline Porter

IBM Product Management • 3y

I am a firm believer that what you need to grow and what you need to scale are two different things - including leadership, team processes, and strategy. This means that I have found it easier to start with a small seed group to build your framework for operating. This has a couple of advantages, including reducing biases for certain processes and ensuring multiple perspectives are included from the beginning.

1,568 Views
Orit Golowinski

JetBrains Head of Product | Formerly GitLab, Jit.io, Cellebrite, Anima • 3y

When starting out in a rapidly growing company with a small team, the main focus should be on building the team. While there may be some best practices that can be embedded right away, such as documentation and customer feedback, it's important to establish a strong foundation of team members who can work together effectively. As the team grows, especially during times of rapid growth, some processes may need to change in order to set the team up for success. For example, a well-defined onboardi ...Read More

486 Views
Preethy Vaidyanathan

Matterport VP of Product • 1y

There's no single right answer; the best approach depends on the urgency of the need and how quickly you can hire. One approach is to start with some foundational, lightweight processes and then build a small but mighty team that can scale those processes as a collective group. This involves prioritizing the following: Early Impact: Demonstrate some immediate impact. Examples include sharing a well-defined roadmap, creating a forum to receive customer feedback, or establishing a simple prioritiz ...Read More

597 Views
Roshni Jain

Volley VP of Product • 2y

I would work on doing both. When you start out in a new role it's important to get quickly up to speed, create a plan and start adding value. Most likely you'll see many opportunities to make things better now that are a light lift. So, I would add these best practices (could be simple things like getting a new tool, email updates, adding a new ceremony to the team), while you figure out the ideal team composition and start filling those roles. A potential way to think about this might be to pic ...Read More

427 Views
Mike Flouton

Boxford Capital Managing Partner | Formerly Barracuda, SilverSky, Digital Guardian, OpenPages, Cybertrust • 4y

My bias is always to start building a small but mighty team of A players. A players will make magic happen despite a lack of process. Process is helpful in larger organizations (and to help get more production out of less skilled players), so put more process in as you grow and things get more complex, and don't worry about optimizing for a team that's not there yet.

333 Views