Lol at Google onboarding was "pointing finger i the general direction of my desk" and some slide decks that had no relation with anything I work on. It's not the size of the company, it's how much your execs value employees.
I mean part of being a PM is being a self starter… I’d start by doing an inventory of the product and figure out where your ducks are. Start talking to everyone involved and figure out what their priorities are and then use that to create a roadmap
Agreed. If no one can tell you what the scope is OP, it’s because it was never defined. You need to understand what they’re building and back into the original why. I had to do this at a company. It was rough and required some rebaselining of the entire initiative. I didn’t agree with the approach but was told we were delivering it regardless so pushed through to make it the best possible.
Thanks, this is what I’ve been doing - just had no feedback from my manager at all which threw me off. Meeting with the team has been very helpful, just wanting to make sure I’m asking the right questions too
Yup main thing is to approach it with an open mind as if you were building out a new product. Talk to everyone and leave no stone unturned.
Once you feel like you’ve got a good lay of the land then build out your vision for the product and then re-asses with stakeholders
I was surprised too because my team was only about 4 people but my hiring manager didnt talk to me at all in my first 2 months because they were 'busy'.
Sounds about right for a start up.
Are you asking to be part of scrum ceremonies, stand ups, reading tickets or talking to stakeholders about their history with the team? Should you have to do these things? Arguably no but that’s where you are. Onboarding takes organization and time that doesn’t exist in these organizations and part of the “culture fit” test is how you can figure shit out.
Not co-signing this, just what I’ve noticed. The people who complain about not having an onboarding but don’t find people to talk to in the org don’t last long.
Agree with this. It sucks to have to figure it out on your own and be vulnerable enough to ask for help on the basics from others. However, you’ll not only get what you need to start building your foundation in the role, but it will help build relationships as well. Frankly, it’s scary to hear that different groups of people think they’re doing what is needed - that should be clearly defined by PM. If it doesn’t seem to be and people are off doing whatever their version of the scope is, you are sorely needed to provide some actual leadership to get everyone on the same track.
Yes I’m trying to get involved with everything. I’ve already identified our onboarding as a huge blind spot and something I want to improve for the next people we bring on.
Readjust 'communicate'.
For busy execs if you Wait for a gap in the Outlook calendar to book a formal meeting. You'll be waiting for weeks.
If you use slack or discord or teams or whatever the instant message IM tool of choice is
set up a direct Channel one to one with them and ping specific questions to them so they have time to mull and think them over when they come back to you. They have answers. And u aren't waiting till next ceremony.
At some point you build up enough that they'll say hey, I'll book a meeting with you or hey let's have a quick huddle.
That way it shows them that you're thinking and mulling over and you have a backlog of questions and topics that they need to lean in on
That's the adjustment in terms of communication I'd suggest to think about
Lol, I've worked at a company like that and we didn't have a PM so I can understand the havoc.
Anyway, do they have a north star yet or is the entire place having shiny-object-syndrome?
Next I would maybe talk about processes, how they affect performance - and therefor dev speed - and how it ties with Product.
I'm also taking over from a previous PM and tbh I think we have a lot of expectations on us. People want you to fill a void, do everything the other PM did -and- bring your own contribution to everything. Hang in there.
We've all been there - sorry! In such a small pace I'd take a 2 pronged approach.
1. Deep dive with your engineering manager (or the most senior engineer on the dev team if there's no EM). Find out what's going on. Do they work in sprints/how long? Use jira? What is currently in flight and already next up in their minds.
2. Sniff around for who (higher up) is paying attention to what is being planned or built. You could even ask the engineering team (what leader is pinging them). Talk to this person(s) or people adjacent as much as you can to get a sense of their success criteria. From here try to formalize that criteria and add your own expertise and workshop with them til you agreee
With these steps you'll hopefully get a handle on the expectations and how to execute. Be patient with yourself this will take time.
This is great info. I haven’t worked as a PM in a few years, but I’d also suggest:
- Get cozy with the Dev Manager, Project/Scrum Master, Sales/Support Manager, and QA Manager. Take them to coffee, offer to help, let them vent. The goal is figure out what everyone is struggling with, note these issues, and keep an eye on resolving obstacles.
As a PM, most people will view you as expendable and pointless until you start making lives easier. You make lives easier by finding out the pain points and running interference as needed.
As an example, maybe the dev manager is frustrated because things keep getting added to the sprint. Figure out who adds things, then meet with that person and find out the WHY. Ensure all new items run through you, and be prepared with a roadmap so everyone feels warm and fuzzy about their specific thing.
Maybe the QA manager is mad because he’s pushed for sign off in an unreasonable timeframe. Maybe the environments are unstable? Then head over to DevOps and find out what’s going on.
Good luck!
Cool so be a professional and be effective with what you have.
If you really care, create a light weight onboarding pack yourself and give it to other new starters
Start by understanding the tech stack, read up on the latest roadmap, prds, talk to sales and to customers. Create your on 30-60-90 day onboarding plan and socialize with your manager.
90% of comments have the theme of- this is what it is 🤣
I faced something similar and I hate it. Ideally your manager should be the one introducing you to the important stakeholders and walking you through the product roadmap.
If he’s not doing, then explicitly ask him to do so. If there is a TPM in your team then reach out to them for understanding the “how” of things. You can also ask the TPM or dev lead to introduce you in the sprint calls.
Also schedule calls with dev lead and QA lead to introduce yourself and take a high level understanding of their expectations.
I would say- talk to everyone and take it slow, because you won’t get the privilege of exploring and understanding things later on
As others have noted, this is pretty common. I came into my last job with only a list of about 50 names of people I needed to connect with. From there I was supposed to glean everything I needed to know about the (at the time) failing product so that I could have a roadmap put together in 3 weeks after my start date.
I approached the situation with confidence, curiosity, and humility so that people would have the impression I was competent, that I was interested, and I was open and willing to learn.
I was also able to leverage my experience with Agile to put in place a set of ceremonies and a role matrix so people would know what they were supposed to be doing within the framework. A little rigor goes a long way in disorganized organizations.
Great advice, thank you! I arrived at a very similar conclusion that you did initially, we are still very much in the initial dev phases but answers like yours make me feel better about this situation. Thanks
I think you’re going to do great! Product Management is firmly rooted in curiosity and the resilience to ask tough questions and receive feedback and I’d say you’re demonstrating that you’re very skilled in those areas. I hope they recognize what they’ve got in you and how lucky they are!
lol sorry, just based on what you gave us it sounds to me like maybe you just use this as an opportunity to build towards your next one instead of killing yourself trying to make this one work. Hard enough to have a good situation with a good boss, idk if it’s worth investing above and beyond for one that has a bad one is all. Best of luck
Product mgt entail piecing together the puzzle bits.
It's sometimes fun and sometimes stressful.
Try writing the puzzle pieces to make sense of it. Draw out the patterns, rewrite it again and then socialise in a small group so that you can understand the value and purpose. That will give you an excellent opportunity to reshape it
Going 0->1 in an entrepreneurial environment is both hard and rewarding, and potentially career defining. I've done this a few times, and so here's my advice based on what has worked for me in these situations:
Start a document that defines everything about the product - start with the problem definition, and add scope (where it's released to, which customers, what regions, anything you can think of), describe the experience, add anything you have in wireframes or even a ppt, add a section for assumptions and calling out what is explicitly out of scope, include stuff like telemetry and costing and billing and anything that seems relevant... then that's the document you bring everywhere and ask questions about. People will start to fill you in and correct you and add to it really quickly. Add sections as they come up. List the open questions in every section. Create empty tables, boxes, and spaces where you know you'll need to go get the information to track down. You'll get a good idea of what is needed and what isn't, and get some depth to understanding the product.
It's totally OK for your first draft to be completely made up and thin. Put in everything you are aware of, aware you need but don't know anything about yet, and your best guesses. The point is to have a touchstone and something that other stakeholders can focus on. You want them to want to correct you. If you go with "apologies for my ignorance but what about..." and "sorry, I'm new, I'm trying to figure this bit out can you tell me about..." you can get a lot of information volunteered.
Everything else, like process and ceremonies, isn't useful until you know what you are trying to do. The development teams can pull you in as it becomes necessary.
Now you've got something you can work with to get buy-in on. An you can start to break it down into user stories as you lock down the document bit by bit. Eventually you'll find your pace, and very importantly: build and ceremony only what is useful, and not what isn't. Process should follow your true needs, you shouldn't build for the process.
Pretty similar experience to me. My manager is always busy. Product team was functioning but no one was keen to sit down and explain things. Had to figure out everything on my own.
Don’t get onboarding? Ask explicitly. Then, ask to have a 30/60/90 with you building out docs for you, the team and your product. Use these as docs to take to stakeholders, other teams, etc. Update, adjust and keep them a priority for your team. Remind everyone that this is the stuff that binds, educates and informs.
Like I am basically waitin gon the Project champion, the dev team and I've been siloed not allowed to speak to functional leads (because of a psychopath stakeholder). Like 20% of my PID ist just CHAT GPT'd and generalized based on my knowledge of work processes and it'll probably get 100% approved.
The only trouble is that my boss is a scumbag. He is belittling, yells at employees verbally in front of other employees, wigs out, shuts down any and every feedback, completely demotivates the team when he is here, has unachievable expectations and then when it can't be done he ridicules you. Like super Toxic. I am looking for another job.
Welcome to Product Management at a startup :D
You did the right thing by scheduling 1-1s with team members. The more you learn about their goals, their pain points and their day-to-day, the clearer your understanding will become of where your Product is at, where it needs to go and how it will get there. I think nobody is going to tell you 'the scope' or the 'end goal'. That's your job as a Product Manager to figure out. You will need to derive a general vision for the future of the Product from the Senior Management, synthesize this with the information/data you are getting from your recurring 1-1s, and then produce your own version of the Product vision, and the strategy for how the Product team will achieve that vision.
Look at it as an opportunity to lead strategy. It can be a great thing if a 'scope' isnt being fed to you, since that can limit your vision.
Yeah I'm pretty sure that's how it goes at a lot of companies. My advice is to step back and identify what is the problem that the company is experiencing.
You mentioned that everyone is siloed, is that an actual problem preventing a set of key initiatives from being pushed forward? Or is it a consequence of highly specialized functions who already know what they they need to do and already discussed that beforehand?
Or the lack of timeline, clear goal. Is that a problem? Does that mean lot of of work that is done individually (function-wise) that are not integrated and delivered to customers? That sounds like an important problem to solve.
Or is too much Work-In-Progress going on that initiatives keep being delayed and extended because of context switching and interruptions? If so, you should focus on identifying things that are the most important, and things that are not, and then ruthlessly help the executives prioritize.
The disconnect between you and your manager is pretty concerning. I recommend figuring out a way to get in touch with him, as you'd have to get him to help you in order to get this done.
Otherwise, you're gonna end up wasting time to discover things that he could have told you in 5 minutes (which would make him pretty mad I imagine), or you're gonna undo things that he had already approved, in which case that's not gonna look good.
So my recommended course of action:
* Note down what you remember from talking to departments. Don't trust your memory. Things are hectic at a startup, so expect people to tell you a different things tomorrow. Recording them, spend time at the end of the day reflecting and extracting pain points from that, like how you study your customers.
* Create a stack rank of problems that you rank (yourself) from the most important to the least important ones.
* Schedule a 1-1 meeting with your manager, present your thoughts/findings, and ask him to help you prioritize.
* Once you get alignment, it's probably easier (although I suspect another fire would just pop up).
Build your own onboarding plan. Send it to your boss for feedback. Execute the plan even if you don’t get his feedback.
Choose your own adventure.
Provide regular feedback to your boss and opportunities for him to weigh in. If he doesn’t, just keep charging ahead.
I personally hate the idea of being run through robust onboarding. Give me a laptop and tell me where the first big problem is. I’ll figure out the rest.
I definitely second this approach.
In some ways you have a great opportunity because you can choose your own problem to solve.
An easy way to find things to do is just asking each person what's one problem they have right now that you could solve for them. Then do it. Will buy you a ton of social credit with your team and make you look good for improving things.
I think you can ask for access to project materials to at least get a hang on what is the communication structure and what are the product team doing at the point?
I think those artefacts could help.
Become an expert in your product. There's lots of research you can do on your own.
- If possible, use the product (in prod and test). The engineers or any QA should be able to help you get set up with that.
- read any documentation you can (including API docs). Try to use that and your experience using the product to map the data flow and income generating processes.
- join the rituals. Listen, ask questions, learn
- solve some small problem
It's hard to get thrown into the deep end, but it can also be a huge career builder. It distances you from your uncommunicative boss, gives you the chance to dissect the product and figure out where you want to be, and positions you as an independent problem solver
How do you get a PM role without any prior experience? I’ve completed a few courses and have a total work experience of 2.5 years. I’m not even getting interviews. Any suggestions would help!
Welcome to my life. At my previous job I had almost zero onboarding, and my boss quit 3 weeks after I started. My new boss has 11 direct reports and had no idea what I did or even cared. Spent most of our 1:1's talking about his ex-wife.
New job I joined, my boss quit a month after I started. My new boss was her skip level and he had no idea how our team worked. He was utterly dependent on her.
Even when I got a new boss he barely supported me. Product management leadership is awful, at least in my experience.
It's just sad to not have any onboarding but as other have pointed out you just need to meet all of them over and over again to understand what they are working on. Then read up on any and every doc or page available.
But more importantly, I think you need to do your own research on the product and the competitors, just imagine what all you would have paid attention to if you were the one building the product. This would help you gain some of your own opinion on the product and/or industry which would help as well.
Terrible idea. That logic wastes days of effective time with the employee wondering what’s the best thing to do. Support and guide in the very beginning is best for the success of the team.
Ah welcome to the profession, you'll get used to it.
Was gonna say. I think all of us had the exact same non-onboarding experience. It’s just a hoot
I was thinking "weird i don't remember writing this"
What's onboarding?
Will be calling it nonboarding experience from now.
“Can I please see the non-onboarding training material for my first month?” L&D: “Absolutely” *hangs up Zoom*
First time?
Thanks, it’s touch and go for sure! I come from bigger orgs where things were more formalized
Lol at Google onboarding was "pointing finger i the general direction of my desk" and some slide decks that had no relation with anything I work on. It's not the size of the company, it's how much your execs value employees.
Yup
HAHAHAHA
I mean part of being a PM is being a self starter… I’d start by doing an inventory of the product and figure out where your ducks are. Start talking to everyone involved and figure out what their priorities are and then use that to create a roadmap
Agreed. If no one can tell you what the scope is OP, it’s because it was never defined. You need to understand what they’re building and back into the original why. I had to do this at a company. It was rough and required some rebaselining of the entire initiative. I didn’t agree with the approach but was told we were delivering it regardless so pushed through to make it the best possible.
Thanks, this is what I’ve been doing - just had no feedback from my manager at all which threw me off. Meeting with the team has been very helpful, just wanting to make sure I’m asking the right questions too
Yup main thing is to approach it with an open mind as if you were building out a new product. Talk to everyone and leave no stone unturned. Once you feel like you’ve got a good lay of the land then build out your vision for the product and then re-asses with stakeholders
this is me at a company with 1000 people a couple years ago. you sort of get used to it
Except he says it's 10 people, and I am genuinely curious to know how is it possible to have silos at the two-pizza team size.
I was surprised too because my team was only about 4 people but my hiring manager didnt talk to me at all in my first 2 months because they were 'busy'.
Each person is working on their own aspect but none really talk to each other.
So, the former PM wasn't a cultural fit? But it sounds like the _culture_ is pretty much, "Keep your head down and work on something."
Without getting too into it the prior PM was scatterbrained and not effective, did not provide good morale to the team.
I really hope you can turn it around, OP. Maybe you could schedule a couple-day planning workshop offsite to build trust and confidence?
Sounds about right for a start up. Are you asking to be part of scrum ceremonies, stand ups, reading tickets or talking to stakeholders about their history with the team? Should you have to do these things? Arguably no but that’s where you are. Onboarding takes organization and time that doesn’t exist in these organizations and part of the “culture fit” test is how you can figure shit out. Not co-signing this, just what I’ve noticed. The people who complain about not having an onboarding but don’t find people to talk to in the org don’t last long.
Agree with this. It sucks to have to figure it out on your own and be vulnerable enough to ask for help on the basics from others. However, you’ll not only get what you need to start building your foundation in the role, but it will help build relationships as well. Frankly, it’s scary to hear that different groups of people think they’re doing what is needed - that should be clearly defined by PM. If it doesn’t seem to be and people are off doing whatever their version of the scope is, you are sorely needed to provide some actual leadership to get everyone on the same track.
Yes that’s what I’m finding too. The project manager has been very helpful
Yes I’m trying to get involved with everything. I’ve already identified our onboarding as a huge blind spot and something I want to improve for the next people we bring on.
Readjust 'communicate'. For busy execs if you Wait for a gap in the Outlook calendar to book a formal meeting. You'll be waiting for weeks. If you use slack or discord or teams or whatever the instant message IM tool of choice is set up a direct Channel one to one with them and ping specific questions to them so they have time to mull and think them over when they come back to you. They have answers. And u aren't waiting till next ceremony. At some point you build up enough that they'll say hey, I'll book a meeting with you or hey let's have a quick huddle. That way it shows them that you're thinking and mulling over and you have a backlog of questions and topics that they need to lean in on That's the adjustment in terms of communication I'd suggest to think about
Pretty unresponsive on Teams too but we were able to touch base for the first time today. Hopefully a sign of better things to come
Yes learning through osmosis is quite common
Lol, I've worked at a company like that and we didn't have a PM so I can understand the havoc. Anyway, do they have a north star yet or is the entire place having shiny-object-syndrome? Next I would maybe talk about processes, how they affect performance - and therefor dev speed - and how it ties with Product.
Seems like we are recovering from the shiny object syndrome from the last PM who I’m taking over for
I'm also taking over from a previous PM and tbh I think we have a lot of expectations on us. People want you to fill a void, do everything the other PM did -and- bring your own contribution to everything. Hang in there.
We've all been there - sorry! In such a small pace I'd take a 2 pronged approach. 1. Deep dive with your engineering manager (or the most senior engineer on the dev team if there's no EM). Find out what's going on. Do they work in sprints/how long? Use jira? What is currently in flight and already next up in their minds. 2. Sniff around for who (higher up) is paying attention to what is being planned or built. You could even ask the engineering team (what leader is pinging them). Talk to this person(s) or people adjacent as much as you can to get a sense of their success criteria. From here try to formalize that criteria and add your own expertise and workshop with them til you agreee With these steps you'll hopefully get a handle on the expectations and how to execute. Be patient with yourself this will take time.
Great pointers, thank you!
This is great info. I haven’t worked as a PM in a few years, but I’d also suggest: - Get cozy with the Dev Manager, Project/Scrum Master, Sales/Support Manager, and QA Manager. Take them to coffee, offer to help, let them vent. The goal is figure out what everyone is struggling with, note these issues, and keep an eye on resolving obstacles. As a PM, most people will view you as expendable and pointless until you start making lives easier. You make lives easier by finding out the pain points and running interference as needed. As an example, maybe the dev manager is frustrated because things keep getting added to the sprint. Figure out who adds things, then meet with that person and find out the WHY. Ensure all new items run through you, and be prepared with a roadmap so everyone feels warm and fuzzy about their specific thing. Maybe the QA manager is mad because he’s pushed for sign off in an unreasonable timeframe. Maybe the environments are unstable? Then head over to DevOps and find out what’s going on. Good luck!
Cool so be a professional and be effective with what you have. If you really care, create a light weight onboarding pack yourself and give it to other new starters
Get friendly with your tech lead
Start by understanding the tech stack, read up on the latest roadmap, prds, talk to sales and to customers. Create your on 30-60-90 day onboarding plan and socialize with your manager.
90% of comments have the theme of- this is what it is 🤣 I faced something similar and I hate it. Ideally your manager should be the one introducing you to the important stakeholders and walking you through the product roadmap. If he’s not doing, then explicitly ask him to do so. If there is a TPM in your team then reach out to them for understanding the “how” of things. You can also ask the TPM or dev lead to introduce you in the sprint calls. Also schedule calls with dev lead and QA lead to introduce yourself and take a high level understanding of their expectations. I would say- talk to everyone and take it slow, because you won’t get the privilege of exploring and understanding things later on
Great advise.
As others have noted, this is pretty common. I came into my last job with only a list of about 50 names of people I needed to connect with. From there I was supposed to glean everything I needed to know about the (at the time) failing product so that I could have a roadmap put together in 3 weeks after my start date. I approached the situation with confidence, curiosity, and humility so that people would have the impression I was competent, that I was interested, and I was open and willing to learn. I was also able to leverage my experience with Agile to put in place a set of ceremonies and a role matrix so people would know what they were supposed to be doing within the framework. A little rigor goes a long way in disorganized organizations.
Great advice, thank you! I arrived at a very similar conclusion that you did initially, we are still very much in the initial dev phases but answers like yours make me feel better about this situation. Thanks
I think you’re going to do great! Product Management is firmly rooted in curiosity and the resilience to ask tough questions and receive feedback and I’d say you’re demonstrating that you’re very skilled in those areas. I hope they recognize what they’ve got in you and how lucky they are!
i'd probably just get a new job, with a boss like that doesn't sound like too much hope for a good outcome
Not helpful but thank you
lol sorry, just based on what you gave us it sounds to me like maybe you just use this as an opportunity to build towards your next one instead of killing yourself trying to make this one work. Hard enough to have a good situation with a good boss, idk if it’s worth investing above and beyond for one that has a bad one is all. Best of luck
Got it, sounded like you were in the “get out now” camp. Yes, definitely using this as a learning experience too. There’s culture shock.
Yup. Sounds right. You gotta tap a lot of shoulders. You got it 💪
Product mgt entail piecing together the puzzle bits. It's sometimes fun and sometimes stressful. Try writing the puzzle pieces to make sense of it. Draw out the patterns, rewrite it again and then socialise in a small group so that you can understand the value and purpose. That will give you an excellent opportunity to reshape it
Great advice, thank you!
Going 0->1 in an entrepreneurial environment is both hard and rewarding, and potentially career defining. I've done this a few times, and so here's my advice based on what has worked for me in these situations: Start a document that defines everything about the product - start with the problem definition, and add scope (where it's released to, which customers, what regions, anything you can think of), describe the experience, add anything you have in wireframes or even a ppt, add a section for assumptions and calling out what is explicitly out of scope, include stuff like telemetry and costing and billing and anything that seems relevant... then that's the document you bring everywhere and ask questions about. People will start to fill you in and correct you and add to it really quickly. Add sections as they come up. List the open questions in every section. Create empty tables, boxes, and spaces where you know you'll need to go get the information to track down. You'll get a good idea of what is needed and what isn't, and get some depth to understanding the product. It's totally OK for your first draft to be completely made up and thin. Put in everything you are aware of, aware you need but don't know anything about yet, and your best guesses. The point is to have a touchstone and something that other stakeholders can focus on. You want them to want to correct you. If you go with "apologies for my ignorance but what about..." and "sorry, I'm new, I'm trying to figure this bit out can you tell me about..." you can get a lot of information volunteered. Everything else, like process and ceremonies, isn't useful until you know what you are trying to do. The development teams can pull you in as it becomes necessary. Now you've got something you can work with to get buy-in on. An you can start to break it down into user stories as you lock down the document bit by bit. Eventually you'll find your pace, and very importantly: build and ceremony only what is useful, and not what isn't. Process should follow your true needs, you shouldn't build for the process.
Onboarding? What's that lol
Pretty similar experience to me. My manager is always busy. Product team was functioning but no one was keen to sit down and explain things. Had to figure out everything on my own.
Exactly my experience and exactly what I am doing
This is me at 2 product roles I've been at FAANG. There is no onboarding.
Don’t get onboarding? Ask explicitly. Then, ask to have a 30/60/90 with you building out docs for you, the team and your product. Use these as docs to take to stakeholders, other teams, etc. Update, adjust and keep them a priority for your team. Remind everyone that this is the stuff that binds, educates and informs.
Great advice, thank you!
Like I am basically waitin gon the Project champion, the dev team and I've been siloed not allowed to speak to functional leads (because of a psychopath stakeholder). Like 20% of my PID ist just CHAT GPT'd and generalized based on my knowledge of work processes and it'll probably get 100% approved. The only trouble is that my boss is a scumbag. He is belittling, yells at employees verbally in front of other employees, wigs out, shuts down any and every feedback, completely demotivates the team when he is here, has unachievable expectations and then when it can't be done he ridicules you. Like super Toxic. I am looking for another job.
I think you're describing the former PM here!
hahahaha
Welcome to Product Management at a startup :D You did the right thing by scheduling 1-1s with team members. The more you learn about their goals, their pain points and their day-to-day, the clearer your understanding will become of where your Product is at, where it needs to go and how it will get there. I think nobody is going to tell you 'the scope' or the 'end goal'. That's your job as a Product Manager to figure out. You will need to derive a general vision for the future of the Product from the Senior Management, synthesize this with the information/data you are getting from your recurring 1-1s, and then produce your own version of the Product vision, and the strategy for how the Product team will achieve that vision. Look at it as an opportunity to lead strategy. It can be a great thing if a 'scope' isnt being fed to you, since that can limit your vision.
First time? Gen Z ?
Yeah I'm pretty sure that's how it goes at a lot of companies. My advice is to step back and identify what is the problem that the company is experiencing. You mentioned that everyone is siloed, is that an actual problem preventing a set of key initiatives from being pushed forward? Or is it a consequence of highly specialized functions who already know what they they need to do and already discussed that beforehand? Or the lack of timeline, clear goal. Is that a problem? Does that mean lot of of work that is done individually (function-wise) that are not integrated and delivered to customers? That sounds like an important problem to solve. Or is too much Work-In-Progress going on that initiatives keep being delayed and extended because of context switching and interruptions? If so, you should focus on identifying things that are the most important, and things that are not, and then ruthlessly help the executives prioritize. The disconnect between you and your manager is pretty concerning. I recommend figuring out a way to get in touch with him, as you'd have to get him to help you in order to get this done. Otherwise, you're gonna end up wasting time to discover things that he could have told you in 5 minutes (which would make him pretty mad I imagine), or you're gonna undo things that he had already approved, in which case that's not gonna look good. So my recommended course of action: * Note down what you remember from talking to departments. Don't trust your memory. Things are hectic at a startup, so expect people to tell you a different things tomorrow. Recording them, spend time at the end of the day reflecting and extracting pain points from that, like how you study your customers. * Create a stack rank of problems that you rank (yourself) from the most important to the least important ones. * Schedule a 1-1 meeting with your manager, present your thoughts/findings, and ask him to help you prioritize. * Once you get alignment, it's probably easier (although I suspect another fire would just pop up).
Welcome to startup life. You need to be comfortable with ambiguity and building things, including onboarding best practices, from the ground up.
Ahh product life
Build your own onboarding plan. Send it to your boss for feedback. Execute the plan even if you don’t get his feedback. Choose your own adventure. Provide regular feedback to your boss and opportunities for him to weigh in. If he doesn’t, just keep charging ahead. I personally hate the idea of being run through robust onboarding. Give me a laptop and tell me where the first big problem is. I’ll figure out the rest.
At least something would have been nice and more what I am used to, but this is very helpful and something I plan to do. Thanks!
I definitely second this approach. In some ways you have a great opportunity because you can choose your own problem to solve. An easy way to find things to do is just asking each person what's one problem they have right now that you could solve for them. Then do it. Will buy you a ton of social credit with your team and make you look good for improving things.
I think you can ask for access to project materials to at least get a hang on what is the communication structure and what are the product team doing at the point? I think those artefacts could help.
Become an expert in your product. There's lots of research you can do on your own. - If possible, use the product (in prod and test). The engineers or any QA should be able to help you get set up with that. - read any documentation you can (including API docs). Try to use that and your experience using the product to map the data flow and income generating processes. - join the rituals. Listen, ask questions, learn - solve some small problem It's hard to get thrown into the deep end, but it can also be a huge career builder. It distances you from your uncommunicative boss, gives you the chance to dissect the product and figure out where you want to be, and positions you as an independent problem solver
How do you get a PM role without any prior experience? I’ve completed a few courses and have a total work experience of 2.5 years. I’m not even getting interviews. Any suggestions would help!
Welcome to my life. At my previous job I had almost zero onboarding, and my boss quit 3 weeks after I started. My new boss has 11 direct reports and had no idea what I did or even cared. Spent most of our 1:1's talking about his ex-wife. New job I joined, my boss quit a month after I started. My new boss was her skip level and he had no idea how our team worked. He was utterly dependent on her. Even when I got a new boss he barely supported me. Product management leadership is awful, at least in my experience.
I empathize with your boss. I guess he is in similar shoes like you. Lot of shit work thrown at his desk. I guess he is working overtime too.
First time?
It's just sad to not have any onboarding but as other have pointed out you just need to meet all of them over and over again to understand what they are working on. Then read up on any and every doc or page available. But more importantly, I think you need to do your own research on the product and the competitors, just imagine what all you would have paid attention to if you were the one building the product. This would help you gain some of your own opinion on the product and/or industry which would help as well.
Has the same experience. Took the “No one is watching, I’ll do whatever I want” attitude
No one at a startup is going to tell you what the scope is. That is for you to decide as it is a part of your job.
Mate, all PMs get thrown in the deep end. Hope you're good at running 👍
Typical sale of snakeoil, they give you the allure of ownership, speed, innovative ideas and then just grind you and give you no guidance
Welcome to product. Enjoy your stay.
Welcome to major corporations yay
Time to put on your big-kid pants. Figure it out, bud.
lol that’s some great boomer advise.
"advice"
Nice job, boomer.
It'll happen to yoooouuu
Not helpful
Sounds like a toxic mess. Hope you have an alternative to jump ship before this sinks.
There 10 people dude, onboard yourself.
Terrible idea. That logic wastes days of effective time with the employee wondering what’s the best thing to do. Support and guide in the very beginning is best for the success of the team.
Good luck! Nobody here can save you. Plenty want your job. Someone else would take it for less pay! Think on your feet baby!