I ask them a lot of hard questions to understand how they came up with the messaging they did. I want to hear from them what customers they talked to or surveyed, who else they worked with internally to refine the messaging, and I try to poke holes in the benefits they cite to pressure test it. I am also very critical about making sure we are leading with value and that the messaging is extremely clear and consice.
I am a project manager at heart. So I push the team to be the same. We have our roadmaps which we present and then turn into tickets for overall tracking. We also have a monthly reivew on areas of the business - so this let's us check in on how things are going and what is getting done.
For messaging and materials in particular, we do a quarterly review of our materials. We try and make it fun - we listen to different music, everyone picks a song, and we go through and update and verify our materials. Building in those mechanisms are important so that they actually happen!
Every time I join a new organization, I ask for the same things:
From there I construct a 30-60-90 day plan to meet people, learn the products, and craft a strategy for the products that will lead to measurable success.
One of the main skills I see to success in PMM im Empathy. Empathy in the sense of being able to to put yourself in other people's shoes. You are the customer and market advocate internallt and the product advocate externally, so understanding those different perspectives can help a LOT in any PMM materials you are developing, from slides to demos to websites to campaigns.
From a process perspective, I'm not sure I'd draw a disctinction between the two. However, portfolio may be a little more complex in that it's multiple products. One thing I've found successful is drawing out a marketecture for how that portfolio of products fits into the broader ecosystem of our technology. You can use it to help you understand how to develop messaging that is distinct from your other products yet tied to the overall product strategy and narrative that's been developed.