What is your advice for creating and/or improving the product management process when joining a small but growing team? Particularly for a small company with no or little structure?

Be adaptable to change - don't be afraid to try different things or change a process that is no longer working for the team. For a team that is growing quickly oftentimes process gets ignored because the team is so focused on delivering/executing that they feel process may slow them down. In some cases little to no process can be a good thing, but for a team that is scaling it can be detrimental. What I try to do is understand how they are using product management processes today and then try to ...Read More

When joining a small company with no or little structure or joining a small but growing product team, it is essential to understand the current state of the product management process before establishing new processes. Rushing to make changes and establish processes that have worked for you in the past is not ideal. What worked in one company may not work here due to differences in the culture and how teams have been set up.   In your first few days, you should set up a meet and greet meeting wi ...Read More

I'm a strong believer in "just enough" process, so my answer to questions like this is always some version of "it depends"! The one piece of process that every team must have is a way to reflect on, and incrementally improve, they way they work together. You can call this process whatever you like - "reflection", "retrospective", "after-action review", "post-mortem" - but it is imperative to building an effective team.  This practice will inform the way you introduce and evolve processes as your ...Read More

As someone who has recently joined a small and growing team, I can relate to the challenge of creating and improving the product management process in a company with little structure. When joining such a team, it's essential to take the time to learn about the existing product management process. Observe how the team operates and identify what works well and what needs improvement. Additionally, familiarize yourself with the product, strategy, and vision to determine whether the current team is ...Read More

You can spend too much time setting up "product management processes" and covering a lot of ground. Instead of focusing on creating a product management process, focus on diagnosing what's going well and what isn't in your current team and product output. Do teams have confidence that they are building the right thing? If not, focus on sensing mechanisms and processes to gather more input during problem and solution validation. Are teams effectively collaborating with UX and Engineering to come ...Read More

Product Management is not about structure or process, it's about the mindset. I would hence spend all my time on ensuring the company and team has the right mindset: we are here to build products customers love, yet in a way that help business we are all working on the same goal it's a long road that will be made of failure and success etc. Having the right mindset and culture is what you need for a company to have a chance to succeed. The structure for how to scale should come once you have est ...Read More

In these situations, I hope you've aligned with leadership on the reasons for them to hire a PM (sometimes their first PM) before you join the team, whether that's as an internal transfer or an external hire. If you aren't on the same page about the problems they are trying to solve by hiring you, and also how much autonomy/decision-making they are going to let you have once you get there, it's going to be a bad time: leadership is going to be frustrated when you start asking a lot of questions ...Read More

Id say the main key things to do is to focus on agility and results over rigid frameworks. 1. Start with outcomes, not inputs. Align the team around clear measurable outcomes. Ask “What does success look like in 6 months? Instead of introducing detailed roadmaps and lengthy planning cycles, get everyone obsessed with the end goals. This will naturally drive focus on the most impactful tasks. 2. Small companies can’t afford to get bogged down in bureaucracy and formal structures like sprint cycle ...Read More