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Product Manager's Playbook
What a Product Manager does on the first day / week / month / quarter in their new role
(aka the 'Product Manager's Playbook')
The Cambridge Product Management Network held a interactive session entitled 'What a Product Manager does on the first day / week / month / quart...' on 24th March, 2011 lead by me, Arthur Meadows.
The session was attended by Cambridge's finest and highly experienced Product Managers and together, we built a 'playbook' of recommended steps / milestones for new Product Managers as they start their new role.
Product Manager's Playbook
Summary / Key
A product manager needs to demonstrate expertise in the following areas:
| Personal Credibility |
| Processes, processes, processes! |
| Commercial Requirements of Market / Customers |
| Understanding of the Product |
| For tasks that clearly cross multiple objectives.... |
The tasks for each period are grouped by these categories (except for the 'First Quarter' which is grouped by similar theme).
Before you start
| Review external website |
| Competitive Analysis |
During the First Day
| Listen! |
| Meet as many people as possible |
| Ask "What are you expecting of me?" |
| Handshakes with Big Cheeses and plan subsequent meetings |
| Basic Tools configured: access to PC, email, intranet etc |
| Establish what are the primary sources of info: email, intranet |
| Plan meetings during first week or two |
| Get Org Chart |
During the First Week
| Get on the right internal distro lists: engineering weekly report, press release etc |
| Find external info sources from colleagues eg, market intelligence reports, analysts |
| Identify important meetings |
| ID Power Brokers |
| Product demos from Sales |
| Understand Sales Cycle and Customer Decision Making Unit |
| Product demos from Engineering |
| Read Product Collaterals - as many as you can find |
| Sniff out ‘Bombs’ that are about to explode and determine length of fuse! |
| Understand ‘stated’ corporate strategy and objectives |
During the First Month
| Pub lunch with other PMs / close team mates |
| Repeat frequently: Make no promises – I’m here to listen and understand! |
| Have a demonstrable success (preferably by 3rd week) |
| Have your weekly structure defined (meetings, reports, reviews etc) |
Understand how things actually work around here (Use the Pragmatic Marketing Framework (PPT) to understand who does the work and who approves it.) |
| Understand the Approval Process |
| Understand the KPIs of other business functions KPIs |
| Visit Customer with Sales |
| Be the expert at the business requirements for the product |
| Sales Pipeline Funnel Review |
| Be the Product Owner |
| Understand the business / requirements of the top 10% of customers |
| Get Revenue by Product |
| Competitive Analysis (Basic version) |
| Participant in a Sprint cycle |
| Review Customer Support tickets with Support Manager |
| Review Backlog |
| Identify Strengths and Weaknesses by Product |
By the end of the First Quarter
| Work out how to prioritise time |
| Improve Processes!! |
| Join Sales on Prospecting Call |
| Understand Customer / Industry vocab and jargon |
| Be the Product Expert |
| Be the Market Expert |
| Be the Customer Advocate |
| Have Product Collaterals / Messaging / Web Content updated |
| Map the existing Road map |
| Complete Product BCG Matrix (Cash Cows, Stars, Question Marks, Dogs) |
| Work out P&L by Product |
| Propose new Roadmap |
| Gain Product approval for major R&D – or at least understand how that works |
| Produce Product Business Plan |
By the end of the Third Quarter
| Understand the unique competences of the company |
| Have the ability to challenge engineering work estimates |
Views: 109
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sue Spriingett on -
This is a great start and if every PM followed this, they'd be v much in the right track. My observation is that much of PM /mkting is about identifying the longer term opportunities, that fit the business strategy and are realised because of being New in Post and not settled into "the way of doing things round here". Use being new to advantage and question protocols! Sue
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Allin on -
I've just used the list as the basis for my own plan. I'll report back in three months and let you know how it went!
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Permalink Reply by Arthur Meadows on -
In reviewing this, I realise that it would be worth expanding on 'how things actually work around here' by the end of the first month.
I have wandered my new employer with the Pragmatic Marketing Framework and asking senior management about each task:
- who executes the work for each task
- who approves the work for each task
Fortunately, Pragmatic Marketing provides a very useful PowerPoint version of Pragmatic Marketing Framework. (Original forum post updated accordingly.)
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