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The Essential Onboarding Plan for Product Managers
How to Add Value & Build Trust Fast
Like most product managers, I’m used to being the SME for all things my product: I know who our customer is, what our competitors are building, how to work with different stakeholder groups, and which teammates don’t like to be interrupted when their headphones are on.
I also know what it feels like to be the new person — I’ve worked on nine product teams at three companies and each time I move, it feels like my world is flipped upside down. The new team speaks in acronyms I’ve never heard, I have to build new relationships from scratch, and sometimes I have to learn a new industry overnight. Even when I’m lucky enough to have a knowledge transfer from the previous PM or a formal ‘Onboarding Plan’, it still takes weeks to feel competent and months to feel adept.
There are many skills a Product Manager is expected to master (this article lists twenty-six of them), but one that is frequently overlooked is the ability to onboard quickly onto a new team. Effective onboarding means your team and product will struggle less with the transition and you can be a value-adding contributor within the first few weeks.
What does “Good Onboarding” looks like?
- You establish a baseline relationship with your…
