What are some tips for new product managers?

Doing something entirely new takes determination. If you are a new product manager, you are probably excited to start making meaningful contributions in your role. There are a lot of unknowns too. Even if you know product management fundamentals, a new job means learning a new context — it takes time to understand the complexities of your organization and product.

Your first month is crucial. This is the time to get to know the business, market and customers, and cross-functional team you will work with. Be curious and bold — listen, analyze, and build a plan for personal success. As a new product manager, your goal is to demonstrate to your team (and yourself) that you can deliver real value right away.

Learn the product strategy

If you want to help move the product forward, you need to deeply understand the strategy behind it. Review any strategic plans and roadmaps you may have inherited from the previous product manager — paying close attention to the vision, product goals, and former and upcoming initiatives. Get to know the market you operate in, your ideal customer, and existing competitors. Analyze how product objectives support the company's larger objectives.

There is a lot to learn, so it helps to have some areas of focus as you dig in. Aim to uncover the answers to these questions:

• Is the current strategy part of the team's everyday work?

• Who are the target customers and what value do they get from the product?

• What alternative solutions exist and how is your product different?

• How has the product changed and improved in the last year?

• What success metrics does the product team track?

Understand the business

In addition to learning the product strategy, familiarize yourself with the company's broader business objectives. Increase your understanding by reviewing quarterly reports, long-term plans, and all-company meeting notes. Schedule time to meet with leaders from marketing, sales, support, and engineering to understand their goals. By gaining insights across the organization, you can align product goals with what the rest of the organization needs to achieve.

Key questions to answer:

• What is the company's vision, mission, and strategy?

• What are its goals and how is success measured?

• What are the company's main points of differentiation?

• What is currently happening in the company that will impact the product's direction?

Use the product

You need to understand how the product works and how it solves real customer problems. There is no better way to become an expert than through hands-on experience. Aim to use the product as often as you can. This can be tough if you are not the target audience — a common issue that enterprise software product managers face. Of course, you can still learn the product by supporting customer demos, attending tutorials, and reading support content.

Key questions to answer:

• What problems does the product solve for customers?

• Are its key features and benefits well articulated?

• How could the user experience be improved?

• Where does the product fail to meet a need or perform an important outcome?

Get to know customers

Developing empathy for your customers is essential to building the best solutions for them. Read through any customer personas that the team has already created. Review both common and complex support tickets. Look for ways to engage directly with current and prospective customers — through user feedback sessions or sales and support calls. And if the organization has a formal idea management process, explore product ideas submitted by customers.

Key questions to answer:

• What are the demographics (e.g., job title, age, skills, location) of your users?

• For B2B organizations, what are the firmographics (e.g., company size, revenue, industry) of the organizations that purchase the product?

• What additional pain points are your customers facing that the product does not address?

• What would make your customers happier?

Talk to the broader team

Make it a point to build relationships outside the product team — talk to folks across engineering, marketing, sales, and customer success to learn how each team works. By building rapport and mutual respect, you will be better able to work with and positively influence other teams.

Here is what to consider when meeting with each team:

Engineering
Engineers know how the product is built and deeply understand what the technology stack can do. Learn more about the engineering team's processes, tools, and work styles.

Key questions to answer:

• What development methodologies and tools do they use?

• What limitations exist with the current technology stack?

• How do they estimate team capacity?

• What frustrates them when working with the product team?

Marketing
Marketers are experts in communicating the value of your product. They know how to best reach and engage prospective customers. During your first few weeks on the job, familiarize yourself with their strategies and listen to their opinions. Eventually, you will collaborate with them on buyer personas, go-to-market timelines, and communicating new product features.

Key questions to answer:

• What is the go-to-market strategy?

• How long is the typical marketing launch timeline?

• What channels and tactics do they use to communicate with both prospects and current customers?

• Which of these channels and tactics are performing best?

• What metrics do they track?

• What frustrates them when working with the product team?

Sales
The sales team knows how to convert prospects into buyers. They have valuable insights into what your target audience needs in order to reach a buying decision. When meeting with the sales team, aim to understand their methods for engaging and motivating prospective buyers.

Key questions to answer:

• Where do the bulk of their leads come from?

• How long is the sales cycle on average?

• What documentation or other information do they provide prospects during the sales process?

• What is their process for submitting ideas or requesting new features on behalf of prospects?

• What metrics do they track?

• Where do they feel processes and documentation can be improved?

Customer success
The customer success team ensures that customers get the most out of the product. They know what it takes to reduce customer churn and generate long-term loyalty. Get to know their processes for learning new functionality and keeping customers happy in their use of your product.

Key questions to answer:

• What is the process for training customer success folks on new features and functionality?

• What is their process for escalating customer issues?

• What support documentation do they use when working with customers?

• What metrics do they track?

• Where do they feel processes and documentation can be improved?

You will need to do all of this research and discovery alongside your regular duties, as well as any formal company onboarding tasks. Make it manageable by blocking off a small window of time each day to get through it steadily. Plan it out over the course of your first month so it does not become too overwhelming. When you take it in stride, it is easier to absorb all of the information you gather.

Download this document to track your findings in one place. It is divided into sections with all of the key questions listed above.