In 2021, I became a people manager. I had prior experience with managing product interns, coaching early career PMs, and establishing product communities that fostered peer-to-peer coaching, but I had never been a full-time people manager. Below are some of the key lessons I’ve learned in my first year.
Lesson 1: Embrace your new team
I had been greatly looking forward to becoming a people manager, but I had not realized the extent to which my day-to-day work would change. In my new role, I found myself with no standups to attend, no sprint planning to prepare, no edge cases to resolve, no incidents to manage, etc. I missed the engineering team that I had been a part of.
When I confided to my engineering partner that I felt a bit untethered, she gave me some advice: “make your peers your first team.” This changed my perspective!
Bit by bit, I picked up new activities, organized my time in new ways, and embraced my new team. I adjusted my 1:1 meetings, which had previously helped me stay well aligned with the product managers of partner teams. I let my direct reports pick up those relationships and instead focused my attention on building relationships with Group PMs of groups adjacent to our problem space. I now used 1:1 time to discuss strategic initiatives and long term visions.
Next, I built in ample time in my week with my engineering, design, and program management partners so that we could go deep on topics or co-work on key initiatives. In addition, my group co-leads and I set about crafting a working agreement to establish working norms. We conducted a group calendar audit and established group rituals. A year later, we are revisiting our team practices as group leads so that we can reinforce what works well and make tweaks where we could improve.
Lesson 2: Focus, focus, focus!
As I transitioned from being an individual contributor on a team to being one of our group leads, I found myself overwhelmed by a very long to-do list. I balanced supporting two teams, rolling out a group-wide product strategy, informing stakeholders of key changes that might impact them, etc. I didn’t have enough hours in the day.
I paused and asked myself what the teams needed most from me. This led me to focus my energy on staffing up Product for our group. As a first-time hiring manager, I was nervous and I worried that I would make a mistake. I asked the best manager I knew for some guidance. He said: “Don’t rush. Take the time it takes to bring in the right person.”
That simple advice kept me grounded as months and months went by. As we interviewed candidates, I stayed focused on the skillsets that were most needed for each team. In addition, I considered the strengths that each candidate might bring to the overall group. I now get to work with two talented product managers, who have turbo charged our group’s product work!
Lesson 3: Start strong
As I prepared to bring two new product managers onto the team, I wondered: how should I go about setting each individual up for success? I reflected on my own experiences, and decided to conduct a few activities. First, I created a tailored onboarding document for each individual and compiled useful information to equip them with a starting point to do their own research into the users, business value, and tech stack of their product. I also used the tone of the onboarding doc to introduce the new PM to our team culture. In keeping with New York Times practice, I shared the onboarding doc a few days prior to the PM’s start date and welcomed them to their new team.
Next, I held a 1:1 early in the PM’s first week. As we are working remotely, I took care to start slowly. We made sure that there were no issues with device setup, access, etc. Then, I made some space so that we could get to know one another. I shared some fun facts about myself, my past work experiences, and a few key details about my working styles. I requested that the product manager also share similar detail with me in our next 1:1. I paid particular attention to “working styles” and to discussing the ways we could partner together effectively.
Lastly, I crafted a 30-60-90 day plan for each product manager, to help define what success would look like. I presented the plan as a blueprint that could be altered, since projects are likely to evolve significantly in the span of 90 days. In effect, the plan helped set some guiding posts. For example, the first 30 days focused heavily on learning, which set the expectation that diving in to the day-to-day work could begin in earnest once the product manager had developed a strong understanding of their problem space.
In conclusion…
A year in, I’m finding that I’m greatly enjoying being a people manager. I get a kick out of delivering on a vision by helping bring the various pieces of the puzzle together and I love being someone that PMs can bounce ideas off of.
That said, I am still learning tremendously! As I embark upon my second year as a people manager, I hope to continue becoming a better coach and to always stay human.