I’m the first PM hire in my company. What advice would you give to someone tasked with establishing this function in an existing business structure?

PSA: This perspective comes from joining product organizations that already had traction but lacked structure. The job of the first PM isn’t to bring order for its own sake, it’s to solve the problems that made hiring a PM necessary in the first place. 1. Start with alignment, not process Before you introduce tools, frameworks, or ceremonies, align on why you were hired. What pain points or opportunities drove the decision to bring in a PM? Is the company struggling with prioritization? Are deci ...Read More

This is a good one; and I'll admit that I've never been the first PM hire in a company, but I have worked to establish a new PM team within an existing structure. Here are my tips: Be humble and go on a listening tour. Things have clearly been working (to an extent) and it's your job to go around and understand the lay of the land, folks expectations of you, and how you can help. Building trust often leads to the best outcomes The best quick value add you can likely achieve will likely come out ...Read More

Congrats on your new role! Joining as the first PM at a company can be both a blessing and a curse. The first thing to acknowledge is that you are going to be strapped on your time so you need to ruthlessly prioritize your time and focus to ensure you're driving value and impact to the organization. First, you should understand whether the roadmap is clear and that it is the most impactful items the company needs for the road ahead. Is the roadmap clear and is there alignment amongst the leaders ...Read More

Whether you are the first hire or an early leadership hire that is trying to establish the product management function, the most important aspect is to show value.  Beyond that, there are a few critical aspects of setting up the function Align with the CEO/Leadership team: You hopefully established with the leadership team/CEO  how they define the role and what they wanted from you as the first PM hire before you took the job. If you didn’t, its still not too late. Do have a conversation around ...Read More

Wonderful, congrats! Get into a rhythm by understanding the business/company goals. Then understand how the tech works (look at the customer/user interface first and then make sure you understand how the system behind the UI works). Begin collecting data in a transparent way and share your learnings with your stakeholders and leadership. Conduct user research (both qualitative and quantitative) to help illustrate what product areas (epics/themes) you want to focus on and how these connect back t ...Read More

This is a great question and one that happened to me as well a few years ago! Here is what I would consider doing (in no particular order) Build trust, rapport and product knowledge: Become knowledgeable about the product, the sales cycle (if applicable: join sales reps on calls, meetings, trainings etc...), go do a few shifts of customer support tickets, join marketing and sales on a trade show etc... Formalize the roadmap: Even if you're the first product hire there is probably already a roadm ...Read More

All Product Managers need to be a sales person at different times in their career. As someone establishing a PM function for the first time, you'll be selling the vision of how an effective product manager will help the business and company achieve their goals. There's obviously at least one champion considering you got hired by somebody! But don't be surprised if some colleagues don't understand the need or value of a product manager, so this is the time to set expectations and build trusted re ...Read More

See question: “What are good OKRs for product management?” for a general introduction to the topic. Congratulations, that feels like an amazing experience to get through! I encourage you to focus on 2 things: Adopt a scientific methodology: See question “How do you approach setting crisp KPIs and targets for Engine features and linking them to your topline metrics?” for my step by step process for realistic OKRs. Consider the need for change management strategies to help your company transition ...Read More

The first thing that you want to do is to establish the credibility of the PM organization and earn the trust of your peers, otherwise, you risk becoming irrelevant and ignored. PMs need to lead by influence. To do this well, I'd set up a 30-60-90 day plan in which you meet a lot of leaders across the company, understand their pain points, talk to customers and understand their needs and pain points too, and then put together a proposal for how the PM organization will help solve these pain poin ...Read More

Here is my advice for a junior PM in a small company: Get to know your product. Learn to ue it everyday and document any issues you see Talk to customers about their experience using your product. Document these issues Create a prioritization framework: prioritize the problems you see that are biggest for the customers Pick metrics you want to measure. What will drive the biggest impact for your company and customers? Create a 3-6 month roadmap and share it with all your team members. Align on c ...Read More

Establishing the product management function in an existing business structure is challenging but can be a very rewarding and unique experience. Here’s some advice based on my experience (joined several companies as first PM): Talk with All Stakeholders: Take the time to meet with everyone from executives to the last employee to understand the company product, customer pains, market, and any other feedback on the product and the product-market fit. Gain a comprehensive view of the company's oper ...Read More