What is the most effective way to scale a Product Management team beyond the first Product Manager?

This is a situation that our team went through last year, scaling from 2 PMs to 10 over 12 months. Before hiring any additional PMs, we first took the time to survey the teams that existed in our current state. We reviewed the tools they owned, their missions, their place in the lifecyle of the motion that we support (Quote to Cash), and made our decisions from there. Certain teams needed to be consolidated, others needed to be created, and some simply needed more structure. With a plan in hand, ...Read More

The simple answer is to hire PMs :) .  That said, I'm assuming you are asking more of how to structure the team to scale to the needs of the organization as you hire Define the discipline: Hire PMs that align with your definition of product management. You'll also need to setup the discipline (see my answer on establishing the function) Enable each PM to own their area of the product or business end to end as you set up the team.  This is crucial.  Often this means aligning PMs to specific perso ...Read More

I have been a part of small teams, large teams, a PM consultant and an entrepreneur. I have yet to scale a PM team beyond the first PM but here are the things I would consider: Structure your team based on where the company will be in a few months/years—hiring should reflect the company’s vision and serve as a blueprint for where the business is headed. Ideally, each one of the identified goals above would have a subject matter expert (e.g. a retention PM, a growth PM, a localization PM, an Ente ...Read More

Contrary to popular belief, it's not about writing a job description as fast as possible and starting to hire! It's important to spend some time upfront thinking about the team you are trying to build: Define your team structure: Think about how you want to set up your product team - what are the main product areas to be supported? What areas might grow down the line? What areas need specific skill sets? It's helpful to give each PM a clear focus, in terms of user they're focused on and problem ...Read More

I'm not sure it is the most effective because I've really only used one strategy, but it has been effective for me. Grow your own scope, take on more than you can handle, do a good job of pitching the problem space and opportunity and get broad consensus that this work is critical and required. Then make it clear and obvious that to succeed in this new problem space it will require you to drop a piece of your current scope that is critical Hire for that role In particular something I'll note is ...Read More

Building with intent is key. As a first PM or TPM, you are often running a one-person show. You wear multiple hats and you tend to be scrappy, flexing to what the business needs you to do. That approach works wonders up to a certain scale but soon exposes its flaws. When you think about scaling out from there, here are a few things to consider - Understand your business (replace with org or product team) needs deeply, ideally the 1 to 2 year trajectory of where it is going. That’ll tell you what ...Read More

The first PM hired into a company, or in a division of a company, will usually be an individual who can wear different hats on any given day. (see one of my favorite product management graphics: https://medium.com/@productboard/the-many-hats-of-product-managers-4692aab2fff) The decision to grow and scale the PM team beyond your first product hire is made after discussing needs and opportunities with stakeholders, but also by gaining important insight from the existing PM that's been working in t ...Read More