First 90-days as the only Product Manager!

Its been six months now that I have taken a role of a product manager. And now upon reflecting on what I learned in the last 6-months, I can see a lot of things.

Like Product Management which is a very structured thing, a product manager also has to be a very structured person.

In this blog, from my personal experience, I am gonna share what a Product Manager should do in the first 90 days.

Unlike engineers or designers, product managers face much more variability about what they do depending on the company they join. Because some products serve millions of who may not pay for the product, while others serve a few hundred for $1M per year.

So the first 90 days in any organization you join is very important. And one should always spend these 90 days 3Ps — People, Product and Planning.

The 3Ps of first 90 days

People

Understanding people and how they work is very important. This gives you the idea of the key stakeholders for different things that you are gonna require in the product building journey.

You can do this by just doing a catch-up meeting with all the key stakeholders in the first 15–20 days. One of the other things which you can do is be part of all the meetings that are happening and just listen to what others are saying.

This will help you know the following things:

• What is their ambition for the product?
• How they can help you
• How they think the product can be improved

Product

Knowing the product is a critical thing in your journey because you can’t know it all in just some days and going through some documents. There will be so many hidden things that you will miss. So listening and hand’s-on experience is the best way to know the product.

You can do the following things to know more about the product:

1. Spend time with the marketing team and understand what features they are marketing.
2. Spend time with the sales team and understand what hidden USPs they are selling to the customers. These USPs might not be the biggest differentiation but could be critical for the product.
3. Spend time attending the meeting for product demos and the support team. This will help you understand what major problems are being faced by the customers which need to be solved.
4. Spend some time with customers or in competition research to understand what other products in the market are providing and what customer thinks about your product.

Learning about the product will never stop but the learning in the first 90 days will be the foundation for all the work you will do in the organization.

Planning

Now that you know what the product is and who are the key stakeholders of that product so start with planning and imparting your vision of the product.

Start preparing a roadmap for the next 3–6–9 and 12 months. Streamline the features that you want to build and prioritize them using some prioritization frameworks like RICE or Moscow.

Start planning for your days and important product meetings that you should be doing every week.

Planning will never stop but a structured plan backed with data is something that will help you win the game.

As the only product person in the team, you will have a lot of responsibilities. Make it fun and enjoy the experience. Remember, the foundation needs to be strong and learning and listening is the key to it in the first 90 days.

Let me know how this helps you in your journey.

Thanks for reading!!

Hey! Pranay here, I am an entrepreneur, educator, podcaster and a product manager. You can get more information about me on my website

Feel free to reach out to me on Linkedin | Twitter | Pranay.thestage@gmail.com|