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Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

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Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#21

Post by pavlov »

Cypher wrote: post #16
peterprescott wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is for Project Management, but I think OP is a Product Manager...

whats the difference?

Product companies tend to have more product managers and less project managers (they’re usually called something else, like simply software engineering managers or tech leads who have take on the project management duties).

Traditional enterprises and software consultancies tend to be organized around projects rather than user-centric products and their features, so they will more often have project managers instead. The product responsibility in turn tends to become more ad hoc, sometimes with someone assigned as a “product owner” outside their regular title.

(My personal view: if a company has project managers and product owners, that’s a sign that it’s probably not the place for me.)

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#23

Post by fhd2 »

Probably a bit against the grain, but I don't think you need to try and act like you are an experienced PM. No amount of blog posts or books will quickly get you to that level, only experience will. They were well aware of your background when they hired you. Perhaps they hired you _because_ of it? At a company that size, PMs are often just corporate animals playing politics a good chunk of their time. You'll probably have to become more similar to them over time, but for now, you might just have a honeymoon period where you can add your own flavour to how the product you're assigned to should be run, and make it more successful.

As a founder, you probably already have a lot of the skill set that's needed for that. If you listen to people and apply your intuition, I bet you'll do well.

Sure, understand what the role is generally about, what the expectations are and all that. But I don't think it's a problem that you didn't hold it before, no need to make it one. PMs are in my experience a slightly different job at each company anyway. The most important thing with your background is probably to develop an eye and tactics for the games other PMs and middle managers play.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#24

Post by robertlagrant »

Cypher wrote: post #16
peterprescott wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is for Project Management, but I think OP is a Product Manager...

whats the difference?

Project management is "create, maintain and drive the ticking off of a to-do list being done by multiple people inside/outside company to achieve a goal" - e.g. "move from Dynamics CRM to Oracle CRM", and it cares a lot about setting exact timelines and ticking off when tasks are done. Most quality control or creative input is done elsewhere.

Product management is "understand a market and customers to create or improve a product, prioritising features to feed to teams to deliver based on some metric (e.g. "creates most new sales" or "slowly improves the lives of existing customers without breaking anything"), and is often highly involved in quality (and perceived quality matters such as UX) and is fairly creative, as it decides what features go into the product.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#25

Post by Prunkton »

Since you may not have seen it in your previous career: be aware of politics in companies (that size). Especially when you are interacting with other departments, PMs and positions generally above yours.

I'm not saying its the most important thing or specific to the first days. But getting the dynamics early on will benefit you, your project and the people involved.

Also more specific to day one: have fun and be excited :) good luck!

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#26

Post by remus »

pluc wrote: post #19

Ask for sales to give you the same demo they give customers. Ask the engineering team for a demo. Ask the founder/execs for a demo. Ask tech support for a rundown of the most frequent issues. Each of those will show you what each silo think is important.

Also, ask customers for a demo to understand how they use the product and what they think is important.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#27

Post by Clubber »

aimazon wrote: post #13
PoppinFreshDo wrote: post #12

How are you a senior PM if this is your first PM role?

senior is the new junior senior = junior staff = mid principal = senior

Title inflation at its finest. Maybe he's 65 or older, thus being a senior PM.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#28

Post by cpfohl »

mellosouls wrote: post #17

You should clarify what you mean by PM; product and project management are different things. I assume its one of those rather than Programme Management or Prime Minister... ps. a cheatsheet for a famous general management-onboarding book The First 90 Days ; while it doesn't specifically address your question a lot of it will apply: https://sourcesofinsight.com/doing-the-first-90-days/

This is true. Although, I’m not sure how many medium size companies have their own Prime Ministers.

Your first few weeks at any company in any role, though, are well spent meeting people and learning the product really well.

I also like to get or sit in on a sales demo and an onboarding call.

Re: Ask HN: How to approach first days on a new job as a senior PM?

#29

Post by bsaul »

dandellion wrote: post #18
louthy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founder is ‘PM on steroids’

Not if the "founder" experience as a founder was micromanaging a startup of 10 people. I had a PM like that once and he was one of the worse PMs I've had.

curious to know more : what about him / her made it that bad ?
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