So? Youre a Manager... Now What?

This book is great practical information for Managers in today's business climate. I liked reading this becaues it re-inforced many things that I was already.
Table of contents

Who does she recommend as a mentor?

So You're a New Product Manager, Now What? - Product Manager HQ

Who does she look up to within the organization? You need to understand what the overall product vision is for the company, and how your product fits into her vision. This conversation can be relatively quick sometimes it only takes 10 minutes! Your product lives in an ecosystem of products , and you must understand what role your product will be playing.

So you're a manager. Now what?

Ask her questions like the ones below. Does your team use agile or waterfall? Story points or kanban? Shirt-size estimations or hourly estimations?


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  • Wir fanden einen Pfad: Gedichte einer Sinnfindung (German Edition).
  • 2. Change your mindset;
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When are the different sprint rituals, and what is the goal of each? If features slip, what is the process for re-prioritizing them? How does documentation work, and where does it live? Are your engineers all-purpose, or do particular ones specialize in particular languages or features? Is your team in charge of development operations e.

Understand what the existing design processes are. Do you have a dedicated designer, or do you send requests to a shared team? How are design requests prioritized?

Product Manager HQ

Where do design assets live — in tickets, or in a tool such as Sketch or Photoshop? Note that your customer advocate could potentially be embedded in different teams: Get a sense of where the customer research lives, how customer research is conducted, how to request customer research, and how customer research is consumed. Remember that as a product manager, you must advocate for your customer. Know how your organization conducts customer research!

Learn the process for submitting analytics requests, if there is one.

What You’ve Been Taught About Management is Wrong - Mark Horstman, at USI

Do you have a dedicated analyst, or do you send requests to a shared team? As a product manager, you exist to serve the needs of your customers and the needs of your stakeholders. Your goal in this conversation is not to win brownie points or to please the stakeholder. Instead, your goal is to understand their perspective and internalize it , without giving up your own priorities as a PM.

Sometimes, it can be daunting to have all that autonomy — especially if you join a team that does not yet have a formalized ramp up plan for you to rely on. It covers the first 90 days; past that, you will have enough context to independently decide what to do for the rest of your tenure as a Product Manager. Week 1 Days Start joining sprint rituals, and observe how the team works. It's a journey that can seem daunting at first and is filled with traps.

I've trained and worked with many managers during my career and have seen patterns in what tends to be successful and what isn't. Here are ten tips to help new managers master what business author Henry Mintzberg once called "a practice where art, science, and craft meet. Employees need to be provided with guidance and then allowed to own their successes and failures. However, when moving into management it's important to spend time amplifying the abilities of others instead. Recognize the contributions of others, publicly and often. It's no longer all about you!

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Given the opportunity, your team is likely to come up with far better ideas than yours. It's important for new managers to work with employees closely and let their ideas flourish. When employees feel their contributions are making a difference, their engagement will go up and the company will be better off. If your team or department is getting more budget, exposure or headcount at the expense of other teams, you'll have a long-term challenge ahead of you politically.

They offer little or no advice, and they are quick to pass the buck and place blame if something goes wrong. Let's call people at this end of the spectrum "Climbers," because those who operate there tend to climb on the backs of others to gather all the spotlights onto themselves.

1. Don't micromanage

It was amazing how quickly everyone gave me an example of working for Climbers and how much they hated it. One person said "I wish my boss were more human. Ironically, his focus on profits, profits, profits makes me feel worthless. If I thought I could get another job, I would quit in a heartbeat. Another person said "Whenever I've had a Climber for a boss, I didn't want to work for him.


  1. So you're a manager. Now what?!
  2. Il sacro fuoco della regina (Italian Edition).
  3. Literal Meaning.

    4. It was all I could to show up, do the bare minimum, and slip out of there at the end of the day. Another person agreed rapidly. And good luck trying to get him to see that he does it. After all, it's true: Most Climbers won't wake up and smell the coffee if or when employees try to help them see the ripple effects of their actions. However, perhaps by reading about this concept in a column, a Climber might realize that blame and avoidance work only so far and for only so long.

    Here's the simple truth: All actions and attitudes displayed by managers have ripple effects.