The 90 Day Product Management Roadmap: Days 61-90
Previous posts examined building a successful first 30, then 60 days in a new product management role. Now that you’ve reached the end of the beginning, here’s what to focus on as you close out the first 90 days in your new product management role.
Team Communication Process
By now, you should have established a regular communication process with your direct reports and your peers. There’s a lot of ways to do this— weekly email, face-to-face, Slack update. Don’t just focus on what you completed — nothing is so dull as a progress update. Instead make this about how you are feeling and how you and your team can help each other. Communication is for relationship building and problem solving.
“Don’t just focus on what you completed; nothing is as dull as a progress update. ”
Make sure they all have clear direction and measurable objectives. These objectives should provide your team with a sense of how they can succeed, and what's going to make them — and you — happiest in their work. Your peers should also be considered part of your team, just as much if not more than your direct reports.
You want everyone you work with to feel like a collaborator, whether they report to you or you report to them.
Align Team Objectives with the Larger Organization
The objectives you’ve defined for your team should be tied to the larger objectives of the business. This is relevant even if you're in an organization that hasn't adopted a measurement model like the entrepreneurial operating system (EOS), or doesn't have any other sort of formal structure. No formal structure? Establish one. Keep it simple - maybe it's only one or two numbers you’re mapping to. The simpler the structure, and the easier it is to understand, the better. If no one understands your goals, your goals are no good.
Product Manager Punch List
With objectives and measurable goals established in place, you should have what building contractors and others call a punch list. You’ve built your own house within the product management function, and your punch list acts as the guide for the house you've built and that you live in for the period of time you're committed to this organization. The punch list demands a rigorous review, and should include everything essential to be successful in this role.
The punch list:
Identify your allies and other key stakeholders. Who do you need to succeed?
Define goals. What has to get done this year? This should be two things or less. Three is too many.
Define the roles needed to get the goals done.
Identify if you have the right people in the right roles.
Have a thumbnail idea of how you want to grow the people you have.
Get feedback loops with internal and external customers in place. These can be very informal when you start.
Meet with your key stakeholders and ask them what they need to succeed.
Getting the Right People in Place
There can be a slow to hire/quick to fire dynamic in many organizations, especially when revenue isn’t growing as quickly as anticipated, turnover is high, or other uncertainties exist. Hiring people often has ridiculous bureaucratic labyrinths: multiple levels of approvals, making sure everybody likes the person, multiple interviews, etc.
Conversational interviews can be fun, but they’re rarely definitive. The only way to really understand if someone’s good at their job is to watch them work. Give candidates work to do and pay them for this trial work. Hire them as a consultant. Assign them a task that’s as close as possible to the work they’ll be doing in your organization. If you can't pay them for that work, spend some time in the interview watching them work on something. Don’t send them home with a big assignment; that’s unfair. Watch them work during the interview. Make real work the heart of your interview process.
Curious Conversations are Essential
A recent graduate of Fortune's Path 12 Steps of Product Management product leadership coaching program, based on the Fortune’s Path book of the same name, underscores the importance of conversations when we asked her about the most relevant lessons for someone getting started in a new PM role. She found the Success questions in Step 9 of the accompanying workbook to be especially relevant to guide and shape conversations:
“I found hidden value in uncomfortable pauses, dismissals, or misinterpretations. It was immediately made clear to me the gap-bridging or translation needed to foster alignment.”
Learning What You Can and Can’t Control
“This was a surprisingly liberating effort - letting go of assumed control and embracing humility...we are not our end user. ”
She continued: “Within the first 60 days on the job, Step 1 - understanding and reminding myself of what I can (and can’t) control or influence — was critical for my understanding and my wellbeing. I had a lot of inherent control at my previous company, with assumed influence with my track record. But at my new company, I was an unknown contributor. I had to reset my expectations or risk alienating my new peers and frustrating myself. We can only assume on their behalf. We can’t drive them to use our product exactly as we intended them to. Work with astute hypotheses, but embrace being wrong.”
The Fortune’s Path Love Score
“Also at this time, leverage the FP Customer Love Score to help focus future work planning. It can help underscore gaps in customer experience, and encourage your team to think about your business in a number of ways: as a holistic brand, as an eComm business, and as a customer care agent. Why disparate scores from these varying perspectives? It’s a healthy conversation to create greater alignment for a newly formed interdepartmental working team. It can work as an alignment exercise as well as an alternate means of tracking progress.”
All Systems Go for Your First 90 Days in Product Management
Congratulations! You’ve made it to 90 days in your new role. You’ve got your punch list of things that you need to be able to be successful in this new role. Systems and foundations are in place. You’ve identified the major objectives for the organization, what your part is in achieving those objectives, and how you are progressing towards achieving those objectives. These objectives should guide your daily to do lists and other milestones.
When it comes to people management, you’ve given your team clear and measurable direction. You're comfortable with your team and if not, you're in the process of moving some of them into new places in the organization and you're searching out people who you need to fill the roles that you've identified.
Everybody Needs a Coach. Ask for Help.
With your first 90 days in the rear view mirror, you may have identified some challenges to address, and some things you want to improve. But it can be hard to get better at something if you don't get feedback from a good coach.
Our book and workbook are designed as standalone resources, yet we know there are times where nothing beats getting hands-on guidance and mentoring. Our coaching program, anchored by Fortune’s Path founder Tom Noser, is designed for product leaders, teams and organizations.The three month program connects you with an experienced product mentor to coach you towards measurable progress on your OKRs/KPIs, helps you grow in confidence, and ensures you provide additional value to your organization.
Maybe your PM needs are more open-ended; we’re also available as fractional product leaders or as your product management consultants. Choose your own adventure — we’re here for the journey. Holler at us for a free discovery call.
Here’s some other great resources to navigate the first 90 days on the job:
Experts we like:
Lenny Rachitsky (he leads/is the Lenny’s Newsletter team):
Aakash Gupta at Apollo.io
PDMA Product Development and Management Group (privately listed; ask to join)
Robert Kaminski - product marketing
Substack newsletters for insight and inspiration: :
Lenny’s Newsletter - see above for creator Lenny Rachitsky
On the Path - our take on the issues and ideas that drive our own product vision