Product Management Consultancy

⚡️Blazing Fast Onboarding

As an Interim Product Manager

2021, Berlin
 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

 Product Management Consultancy

Quick
🏻‍
♀
‍️‍️‍‍️♀️️️ Intro ‍️
I promise
 Product Management Consultancy

Mirela Mus

● 10+ years in Product Management

4+ years Product Leadership
3+ years in Product Consulting
● Background in computer science and
business (MSE and MBA Degrees)
● Founded Product People - Interim Product
Management consultancy and community.
 Product Management Consultancy

What We Do
We help companies discover and deliver great products faster. We empower our Product community to share
knowledge generously. And through our engagements, we do all the hands-on and unglamorous work of a Product
Manager on an Interim basis (3-36 months). We onboard fast, align teams and deliver outcomes

Interim Product Manager* Product Community 7K members

*Sometimes referred to as Freelance Product Manager or Product Owner.

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B2C Clients
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B2B Clients
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Use Cases

Typically, we are most effective in the following scenarios:

1. You got funding and need to grow your Product Team by 1-5 PMs.
2. Your PM is going on parental leave for 3-12 months.
3. The PM is leaving/left your company, and hiring will take 3-9 months.
4. You have a temporary initiative that is important and urgent.
5. You’d like someone to appraise the product team or processes.
Product Management Consultancy
 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

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What is Onboarding? 🛥
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Onboarding is the mechanism through which

new employees acquire the knowledge,
skills, and behaviors in order to become
effective. 🐝

Source: Onboarding Article on Wikipedia

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Full Time Hires Breakeven After 6 Months

Source: The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins, a book The Economist called “The Onboarding Bible”
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Onboarding ends when you

start delivering value. 💎
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How do you measure that for a

Product Manager? 🧐
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Measuring a PM’s Work

1. By the outcomes, they helped drive

a. Business metrics

b. User experience and NPS

c. Stakeholder and team happiness

2. By the processes, they use or set up along the way

a. Methods, templates

b. Culture, rituals

3. By the speed, of which they impact the above

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Initial Context Matters

1. If the product organization is successful 🏠

a. Outcomes in early weeks-months are often the result of prior good strategy or decisions aka go with
the flow, not your work as new PM.
b. You can still influence day-to-day parameters like the amount of hand-holding you need to keep
current projects afloat and how much rework others need to do after you.

2. If it’s a disaster 🏚
a. You can achieve faster outcomes once you’ve understood the core issues and quick wins.
b. Bonus points if there’s a leadership void that you fill just by stepping in.
 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

 Product Management Consultancy

Why Product Manager

Onboarding Is So Hard 👩🏻‍💻👨🏾
‍‍💻
 Product Management Consultancy

Why Onboarding a PM Is Hard

1. Product Management has a huge surface area (e.g. business, tech, operations etc.).

2. PMs “invest” everyone else’s time.

3. PMs make or break the information flow in their team and product.

4. Some PMs need extensive domain knowledge to make the right bets. (e.g. fintech, medical etc.)

5. PMs must deeply understand the company’s and product’s strategic context.
 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

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Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value

Even
‍♀
‍♀️️ Before You Join ‍♀️
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Example from “The Founder” Movie 🍔

Context for the video you’re about to see:

1. Today, McDonald's feeds ~1% of the Earth’s population. In the beginning, it had financial troubles.

2. Harry Sonneborn, a consultant and McDonald’s fan offers to help.

3. After quickly reviewing their data, he explains the problem and makes a game changing proposal.
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"You're not in the burger business, you're in the real

estate business. - Harry Sonneborn
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I’m not Harry Sonneborn, but I found some

shortcuts that help me deliver value in 1-2
weeks.
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Some Client References (1/2)

Onboarded
very fast 🛥

Source: References received on LinkedIn Profile, screenshot taken on 2020-07-01

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Some Client References (2/2)

Delivered
value 🚀

while keeping
the team
happy 🤗

Source: References received on LinkedIn Profile, screenshot taken on 2020-07-01

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A Metaphor for Product That

Informs My Approach 👽
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They dealt in the intrinsically untoward, where rules were forged as you went along and

were never the same twice anyway, where just by the nature of things

nothing could be known, or predicted, or even judged with any real certainty.

It all sounded very sophisticated and abstract and challenging to work with,

but in the end it came down to PEOPLE and PROBLEMS.

- Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons (Culture Series)

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It all sounded very sophisticated and abstract and challenging to work with,

but in the end it came down to PEOPLE and PROBLEMS.

- Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons (Culture Series)

 Product Management Consultancy

Outline

1. Quick Intro

2. What Is Onboarding?

3. Why Product Manager Onboarding Is So Hard

4. Ideal Scenario: Deliver Value Even Before You Join

5. Real Scenario: Deliver Value in Less Than Two Weeks

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How to Deliver Value in Less

Than Two Weeks 🗓
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What Worked For Me (Outline)

1. People

a. Map Them

b. Be Visible

2. Problems

a. The Main Quest

b. Product Context

c. Company Context
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People ‍
‍‍‍👩🏽‍🎤🏻‍💼‍
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Map People
Name This is the person
that brings you in 💪🏼
Champion 😎

Stakeholder Understanding who’s

who Helps you
approach relevant
people faster 💫
Peer

And suffer less

Troublemaker damage from these
people 👿
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Map People
Name Role @Client This is the person
that brings you in 💪🏼
Champion 😎 Managing Director / Founder /
CPO / VP / Head Of / Product
Manager

Stakeholder Sales / Marketing / PR / Understanding who’s

Legal / CS who Helps you
approach relevant
people faster 💫
Peer Engineering / Product / Design
/ User Research / BI

And suffer less

Troublemaker Any damage from these
people 👿
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Map People
Name Role @Client Tips

Champion 😎 Managing Director / Founder / ● Keep happy.

CPO / VP / Head Of / Product ● Help them get the desired outcome.
Manager ● Make them look good.

Stakeholder Sales / Marketing / PR / ● Figure out their goals, incentives, constrains, ways of
Legal / CS working and communication preferences.
● Get input/buy-in or help from for your “Main Quest”.

Peer Engineering / Product / Design ● Same as for the stakeholders.

/ User Research / BI ● Build a good rapport with. Do “Side Quests” to help the
most competent and responsive ones.

Troublemaker Any ● Political opponents of your Champion, keyboard

warriors, disgruntled, insecure or less capable people.
● Manage preemptively and try to defuse their actions.
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Be Visible - Intros

1. Get access to basic communication tools like email Slack, or similar.

2. Do a personal intro to stakeholders/peers. Shoot a general one wide and large: “I’ve

just joined to help Champion on Main Quest. Send anything on that my way. I may

not be super useful in the first days but will do my best.”

3. Add on LinkedIn/Xing many people from the company (tech, business, operation) to

familiarize them with your background and credentials.

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Be Visible - Communication

1. Get into the communication flow. Involve people, ask for feedback and respond fast. When you

don’t have “the answer”, point them in the right direction.

2. Be the 💩☂️for your team when issues get escalated (if it impacts your Main Quest), even if it

wasn’t you who created it. Review processes and suggest some if missing.

3. Announce relevant updates wide and often while praising the team. If team members shows

interest in doing this, encourage them to take the stage .

 Product Management Consultancy

What Worked For Me (Outline)

1. People

a. Map Them

b. Be Visible

2. Problems

a. The Main Quest

b. Product Context

c. Company Context
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Problems 🚨🚨
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Problems: used as an umbrella term for

opportunity space, issues, etc. ☔️
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Identify Your Main Quest

The Main Quest is what you’ve been brought in here for, aka “the main problem you’re solving”

1. Agree with your Champion about how they measure your success and what that is.

a. Check if their boss/peers see it the same way. Misalignment happens but you should be aware.

2. If there are any Side Quests do them only if:

a. You’ve secured 1.

b. It helps stakeholders/peers consider you successful/helpful.

c. It defuses troublemakers or gets them out of your way.

d. It furthers the client’s mission/long term goals.

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Product Context

1. What's the most important Job To Be Done (JTBD) this company exists to solve?

a. What evidence do we have that we've clearly understood the customer's job(s)?

b. What are the experiences of purchase and use that the customers currently have?

2. When customers choose something else, why do they do it?

a. Who is not consuming the company’s products today?

How do their jobs differ from current customers?

b. In which circumstances are they trying to make that progress?

What are the functional, emotional, and social dimensions of this progress?
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Company Context

1. Process

a. What things are set in stone and what’s negotiable? (e.g. methodology cultists vs laissez faire)

b. How do your champion/stakeholder/peers share info and updates?

c. How do you get things done?

d. Where’s the useful info stored? Who can give you immediate access?

2. Culture

a. What’s the “vibe” like? How do people act when their boss is not around or involved?

b. What are the no-go areas? What are the horrors of the past aka “the company’s oral history”?
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In reality, not all your clients want life

changing outcomes. 🥺
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Robot: “What is my purpose?” Rick: "You pass butter.”

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Thank You 🙌
Mirela Mus
Founder, Product Management Consultant
mirela.mus@getproductpeople.com
meetup.com/productmanagementpeople t.me/getproductpeople