What ideas or projects would you try to take on and lead after landing your first product management role?

If you are an entry-level product manager or a first-time PM switching from a different function, executing a feature end-to-end is the best place to start. During execution, one can learn system behavior and develop necessary POVs, such as user behavior and the jobs-to-be-done for the persona. During this process, a PM works closely with peers in the User Experience and Engineering teams, helping the PM understand how the team operates. Also, during interactions with customers and the sales team (B2B) at different product/feature launch stages, a PM can demonstrate their expertise in the feature and the product. Conversations with the sales team and customers are where product strategies and future roadmaps usually develop,  outside of top-down, market-driven strategies handed down by leadership teams.

Finally, starting with execution does not mean the strategy is the wrong place to start. In large companies, strategies are often vague and require cross-functional stakeholder approval, and it's a bit harder to establish your POV with members outside your team.

The job of PM relies on influence, not on ideas. As a young PM, I always suggest to focus on building influence small steps by small steps. Get small wins. People start to follow you because they see that you can achieve things, not because of your ideas. So as a PM start by achieving things, pick one thing and get it done in a short amount of time. And repeat it.

Frankly, be humble, say yes to things that move the needle, and focus on delivering quality. Whether you’re the Chief Product Officer or just starting your career - sometimes building a process, finding a scrappy manual solution that doesn’t require engineering effort, or making a copy update can drive more immediate value than launching a greenfield product. 

Besides getting the job done for the business, everything you work on is a learning opportunity that goes into your toolbox of experience - you’ll be amazed at how often you lean on things you learned in your first year as a PM later in your career.

• get some quick wins under your belt:

  • shepherd a small product/feature/enhancement that’s currently in development out to market launch

  • jump into user research calls to understand customer pain

  • jump into sales calls (prospects or existing customers) to understand pain

  • work with user research (or do it yourself) to understand and document the nature of different customer personas/segments, if this hasn’t been done already

  • write a PRD for small product/feature/enhancement, get feedback on it, and refine accordingly

• learn

  • know the high-level product metrics that the team is currently tracking, and where they generally stand

  • immediately start using the product putting yourself in the shoes of a new user, and jot down anything that could be improved and what friction/problems/pain you’re facing

  • learn as much about the existing products in your ownership/purview/domain as quickly as you can

  • learn about other products at a cursory/introductory level so that you could see where your product fits in the grand scheme of things

• build relationships

  • form and maintain strong relationships with other product development stakeholders all across the board, starting with your developers, designer, research, analyst, marketer, and manager

This assumes that you have the ability to choose what you work on in your first PM role, which is great if true, but rare since businesses already have a specific idea for "what needs to be worked on" before they make a PM hire. But let's assume that you've just landed your first PM role and you're looking to get some quick wins under your belt in the first 60 days.

I would suggest pursuing one or more of these paths:

• Interview engineering, product, and design leaders across the organization and ask them "What's the one thing you'd like to see magically get built and why?" to draw inspiration and ideas from. Maybe even talk to the Sales team.

• Look at the data and (assuming funnel analyses is too complex for a PM at this stage) find your top users and try to set up calls with them. In these calls, have them walk you through how they use the product and observe where they run into friction that causes them to wince or leave the product

• Dig through the backlog and prioritize it to find:

  • 1 big project that drives up user engagement or adoption

  • 1 small UX improvement to increase customer delight

• Review the last 3-6 months of customer support tickets (you can dump them into GPT for a summary) to identify opportunities to reduce customer friction through improved product experiences

• Finally, look at competitors' products and do an unbiased competitive teardown of your product vs/ theirs. The last PM who did this on our team got promoted faster than their peers.

The most important thing is identifying a project that has the potential to be impactful for the product or business.

I often see new PMs do 1 of 2 things:

1. Go after easy "low hanging fruit" - this is the easy work the whole team knows we need to do but we didn't do it yet. It can be very tempting to take that work on because you will deliver it.
2. Go after the known too hard problems. These are the "we know we have to fix it at some point" problems that all products have. Newer PMs often see themselves as knights in armor who will fix these problems for good. The challenge is that they can often suck up lots of bandwidth, lead to analysis paralysis and never get delivered.

The sweet spot is a finding a challenge you can solve or learn about uniquely; a project where others can recognise clear impact that only you could have delivered.