I spend hours, nay days writing a thoughtful, well-researched blog post and it gets zero attention. But it’s this hastily written post about landing a PM role at Google that went viral. Such is life I guess.
I gained a lot of new subscribers too—thank you for your support! If there’s specific topics you’d like me to write about, please comment on this post or send me an email at me@nikitha.co.
Based on the success of my previous post, I’m guessing that any topic with the words “PM” and “Google” is going to be widely read. While I do want to talk about my PM learnings from Google, this is still my first month. My priority is to really soak things in before making broad proclamations. In the interim, I’m going to shamelessly milk the fame.
That said, I want to capture what I’ve been doing to get up to speed with respect to onboarding, and revisit this a year from now to see what was useful and what wasn’t.
- I read the book “The First 90 Days“. Not required. Unless you’re managing team(s) of people, I found this book to be mostly irrelevant. Sure, there’s chunks of wisdom but if you cared enough to read this book, you would know these things even without reading the book
- I’m setting up 1:1s liberally, with people I know I’m going to work with closely and people I’m unlikely to interact with regularly. There’s not many opportunities to build social capital, but being a new employee is one of them. I’m also sitting in on conversations with users
- I’m meeting peer PMs to understand how PMs at Google are measured, evaluated, and promoted (the process at Google is elaborate, to say the least)
- Whether through a formal or informal program, my desire is to find a mentor outside of my management chain. He or she can provide candid feedback and actionable steps for growth, without the fear of it impacting your day-to-day activities
- From 1:1s, I’m trying to gather trends, especially from immediate stakeholders. Are there any common pain points users and teammates are citing? Are there any specific product areas or high impact projects that come up frequently that need immediate PM input? These trends help inform where I should focus
- Understanding the product portfolio and the mapping of product areas to teams has been invaluable. I’m digging through wikis and documentation to understand the history and context of how things are done and why they are done that way. As a new PM, this is important to avoid proposing ideas that were shot down previously for very valid reasons
- Speaking to my manager and skip level manager was helpful to understand the goals for the team and organization. I want to ensure that I’m working on, and prioritizing the right products/features
- Which brings me to – setting up my personal goals. The OKR process was formally introduced to the corporate world at Google and thus, they take it very seriously. I haven’t cemented mine yet, however, my goal is to frame my personal goals in a way that contributes to my team’s goals and the broader product organization’s goals
- I’m documenting every 1:1 and every meeting in order to summarize my learnings for future reflection
- Finally, I’m trying to pick a few projects where I can dip my feet in and start actively participating. I learn best when I’m doing, so finding a balance of “quick wins” vs “long term product roadmap” is key to setting myself up for success
This list is not exhaustive and is colored by my own biases and experiences. I hope it gives you a sense of what I’m doing and I’d love to hear about what you think is missing from this list.