90-day plan

This plan is to hit the ground running as product manager.


Day 1-30:

• Obtain all information publicly available to get up to speed on what is happening with the organization (e.g. annual
  reports) and the industry.

 Learn my way around get to know the team

• Meet with my manager to identify top priorities for my department and what is expected of me. Set up a time for weekly status meeting.
• Meet with each member of my team to learn their role, challenges and opportunities. Find out what they expect of me and how I can help them.
• Meet with as many top influencers as possible and ask them valuable suggestions about my role and about navigating the
  organization.
• Learn the corporate systems, the internal workings of the company and read the company policies and procedures.
• Attend any orientation or training offered.
• Review the list of existing partners and study what is known about them, how they have been performing, etc…
• Subscribe to industry online news, thought leadership, and any other industry online resources.
• Go to lots of meetings and offer to help on small initiatives.
• Read as much as possible and study to continue to improve industry and product knowledge.
• Draw up the logical value chain (ecosystem) for the industry and find out as much as possible about each value step and how the organization adds value (or could add value).
• Listen and take lots of notes.

Day 31-60: Take ownership

• Meet with my manager for a first 30-day review. Ensure I am focusing on the right activities and adjust as necessary.
• Take ownership of some projects.
• Contribute my thoughts/ideas on how to streamline industry partners and programs.
• Make a list of activities/project that will contribute to meeting the department objectives and set up a plan to reach the goals.
• Go to lots of meetings and begin to run some of them.
• Continue to build relationships.
• Begin to write materials (drafts)
• Continue to learn and read as much as possible.
• By this time I hope to have uncovered some promising unexploited opportunities for growth and have begun to figure out how to exploit them.

Day 61-90: Begin to take on more of a leadership role

• Check-in with my manager for a first 60-day review. Discuss how things are going, review progress on projects I am involved in and offer new ideas. Reach agreement on how to move forward and secure sufficient resources to get things done.
• Obtain constructive feedback from team members on my progress.
• Start to recommend new partners.
• Use my integrative thinking and propose new solutions or better ways to add-value to partners or programs. Ensure the
  strategies I am proposing match the business environment.
• Share my ideas on developing new ways to reach out to partners and engage with them.
• Start making decisions.
• Take a fuller leadership role.
• Start being a resource to others.
• Keep a focus on problems/projects/activities that are priorities. Create some momentum in a positive and collaborative way.

Company’s vision and Business Strategy: Your focus should be to first gain a solid understanding of the company’s vision and business strategy and take stock of what exists within the company. Specifically, find answers to the following questions by interviewing internal resources:

1. Company’s vision and business strategy
2. What are the current hypotheses?
3. What are the data points (customers, research sources, analysts, partners etc.) that have been used to arrive at the vision and business strategy?

Target market: Who are we selling to?

1. What segmentation and sizing has been done?
2. Which segments are we targeting?
3. What do we know about the target market?
4. What do we not know about the target market?
5. Who are our top customers today?
6. Who are the customers with the largest potential?
7. How is market research done? Customer visits? Surveys? Focus groups? Advisory boards? User conferences?
8. Which customers have we talked to? Key learnings?
9. Which customers should we talk to next?
10. What are the pain points that exist in this market that customers are willing to pay for?
11. What is a typical sales process and how long does it take?
12. Is there a win-loss document that will give you an idea on why you win and why you lose?
13. Common objections that are raised in a sales situation
14. Why do customers buy from us?
15. What is our unique value proposition?
16. What solutions are prospects using today? Or in other words, how are they solving the problem today?
17. What are the pain points of their current solution?
18. What is the business impact ($, outdated information, process inefficiencies etc.) caused by these pain points?
19. Have they tried to solve these pain points? And?
20. What are they planning to do to solve these pain points and what is the urgency?

Your company may not have the answers to all of the above questions, but asking all of the above will help you identify the gaps that you should look to fill.
Competitive Analysis: Who are our competitors?

1. Who are the main competitors? If you are breaking new ground, is anybody else trying to do anything similar? If yes, what are they trying to do? Traction?
2. Has anyone talked to competitor’s customers to understand how their solution is working for these customers? Why did they buy?

Get to know your product
Simulate the experience of a new customer. Install your software (if on-premise) or create a new account (if a SaaS product) and learn everything about your product that you can. Understand the development process from identifying needs to writing requirements documents to getting it build, tested and shipped. Attend every meeting you are invited to.
The four ways I have done this are:

1. Take all the product training that exists
2. Read through the documentation (Yes, do the RTFM – this may be the only time you would do this)
3. API documentation (if API exists) – this will allow you to quickly understand different aspects of the system
4. Specs – read through as many functional specs as you can. It will give you a history of the product and also quickly understand what exists, why it exists and what it is supposed to do.

Your goal should be to be able to demo your product to your peers after the first 45 days. I would recommend that you do not use any demo material that exists today such as product presentation slides etc. Make your own. Can you explain in very simple terms of how your product will help your customers? By making your own slides, you will be forced to think and learn stuff as you are putting your slides together. Just using the current demo material is not going to help as much.
Tools used
Learn every tool that is being used in the company. Ask your manager to get you a personal account in these systems if this has not been done already. This would include

1. CRM system such as salesforce
2. Enhancement request database (if one exists) where customers submit requests
3. Bug database
4. File servers where important information is stored or can be stored for backup purposes
5. Specs database
6. Reports server – where are product usage reports stored? Where are key financials regarding your product stored?

Who do you need to talk to internally?
Given that software product manager’s job is the most cross-functional job you will ever find in a company, you need to plan on sitting down with key stakeholders in every department that touches your product from start to finish. Ask your manager to help you create a list of these key stakeholders.
This includes the obvious ones such as engineering, sales, marketing and also departments such as QA (how do they test your product), order admin (if appropriate – how does a new customer’s order get fulfilled?), shipping (if appropriate – how does your product get to the customer?) etc. Again, you have to understand the entire process from start to finish and get perspectives from everyone involved in the process. Believe me, you will learn something new from every one you see.