What are the key processes you'd set up when expanding the PM team from 1 to multiple people?

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 telling effect on the type of pitfalls you’ll encounter, so take this with a grain of salt. Here are a few things worth considering - N degrees of separation: The larger your org grows, more layered your teams are (typically). Ensuring that you and everyone on the team feel connected to each other in ...Read More

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. 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 t ...Read More

I'm going to suggest a few processes, but please do scale each process to the size of the organization. Treat your processes like you treat your product - establish 2-3 internal customer problems that are actually worth solving, and solve them with an MVP of a process and iterate as you learn - don't try to introduce everything at once. Quarterly priorities: Getting into the habit early of writing down the plan for the quarter is a good muscle to build early in establishing the PM discipline eve ...Read More

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 stakeholders that isn't viewed as a gate keeping exercise but a feedback process and of course has PMs giving each other feedback Experiment review where the focus is creating excellent hypothesis, treatment arms, and making sure you can measure what you need to Cross functional discipline review and the ...Read More

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 improving your processes is fundamentally important. Any process you introduce should have a strong reason for existing. While company breakpoints might point to the need for specific processes at an organizational level, within a small product team it's less prescriptive. But since you're product people, ...Read More

More often than not, we are in scaling phase as a company/group when trying to expand from 1 PM to multiple PMs, I want to ensure that following is in place: Clearly defined roles & responsibilities for PM What outcomes we want to drive what processes we want to develop what skillsets are must have and nice to have for the PMs Clearly defined interview / hiring process Well-defined onboarding process Clearly outlined process for PMs to add value: Well defined product validation and product e ...Read More

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 and efficiently. Your main job will be driving alignment within the team and across the organization, along with coaching and mentoring the team.  You will need to make sure every team member has a clear area of ownership, can articulate product vision and strategy effectively, and understands produ ...Read More

I'd first focus on setting up a robust planning process so that no matter which PM other teams are working with, they know how to make requests and how they'll be handled. This includes: A clear milestone planning process where each PM summarizes and communicates what their teams will be working on for each milestone. A lightweight intake process for bugs and feature requests, so that requests are captured in the same place and with the same high-level information. A consistent quarterly priorit ...Read More

First things first: work with your team to create processes. Much like a building a product, a product leader should interview their team to understand their pain points in the way the team is being run. Processes should be solutions to your team’s problems, much like your product is a solution to your customers’ problems. The ones I have established and found most useful in the past for my PM team and myself are the below: PM team meeting: solves the problem of not feeling part of a team. Agend ...Read More