The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding New PMs: Unleash Their Inner Prodigy
How to onboard new PMs in 3 easy steps
So, you've just managed to hire a brilliant new Product Manager (PM) for your organization (potentially following the PM hiring rubric I outlined previously). You've meticulously screened them for their structured thinking and data-analysis prowess. At this point, you're probably thinking you've conquered the hardest part. Think again! The real challenge begins now as you onboard and ramp them up. As we all know, first impressions matter, and just as it's crucial to distinguish between acquisition and activation in your product, creating an exceptional onboarding experience for your new PM is key to elevating your product organization to elite status.
Fear not, for I have iterated on the art of onboarding PMs to perfection during my time leading product at Wonolo, transforming it into a frictionless experience. I'll share the top 3 tactics I've used: 1) masterfully utilizing Google Groups, 2) crafting the ultimate onboarding document, and 3) orchestrating product onboarding sessions led by fellow PMs.
1) Google Groups: The Unsung Hero of Onboarding
At Wonolo, we harnessed the power of Google Groups in combination with our gSuite products, making onboarding (and offboarding) a breeze for everyone in the organization. We had five different product domains (product managers, product designers, product researchers, product analysts, and product operations), all reporting to me. Coordinating who attended which recurring meeting could have easily turned into a logistical nightmare, but Google Groups came to the rescue. By creating a Google Group for each domain (e.g., product-managers@) and a master product@ group, we streamlined the process. The pièce de résistance was linking Google Calendar invites to the Google Groups, ensuring that adding a new PM to product-managers@ would automatically populate their calendar with all relevant meetings. Voilà! From day one, your new PM's calendar is filled with only the critical meetings.
2) Crafting the Ultimate Onboarding Document
In a fully remote environment, the onboarding document is your new PM's lifeline. At Wonolo, our onboarding document was a masterpiece, comprising 8 essential sections:
Welcome section: A warm greeting and any critical context for the new PM.
Key dates section: Highlights of crucial planning meetings or company events within the next month.
Getting set up section: Links to knowledge base articles for filing requests with each functional department and information on claiming work-from-home stipends.
Reading materials section: A treasure trove of links to essential gDrive docs, Confluence pages, and Jira projects to help the new PM get up to speed.
Ramp plan section: The expected order in which the new PM will ramp up. Example:
Meet everyone
Establish ability to execute
Establish ability to analyze
Establish ability to write
Establish ability to plan
Establish ability to strategize
Regular team meetings section: An explanation of the goals for each meeting, already in their calendar thanks to the Google Groups trick.
People to meet section: A curated list of key individuals from various departments that the new PM should meet within their first 30 days. The PM's engineering counterpart tops this list, followed by the rest of their team, the broader product team, and finally, cross-functional connections in marketing, sales, and more. At Wonolo, this list could include up to 35 people!
Additional info section: A final section for any other critical materials.
This comprehensive document will be the new PM's go-to resource, enabling them to forge connections throughout your organization and build a solid foundation for success.
3) Product Onboarding Sessions: Peer-to-Peer Enlightenment
The final critical aspect of onboarding new PMs is ensuring they're exposed to live product onboarding sessions. At Wonolo, these sessions were primarily conducted by seasoned PMs and served a dual purpose: ramping up the new PM on the product while also showcasing the expertise of the PM leading the presentation. Once settled in, each new PM is expected to reciprocate by hosting an onboarding session on their product area for any new hires in the Tech department. Special shoutout to Andrew, a Director of Engineering at Wonolo, who cleverly automated this process using gSheets and an Airflow script to auto-generate calendar invites complete with links to background materials for all participants.
By following these 3 easy steps, you'll set your new PM hires on a path to success at your company, giving them a smooth and frictionless onboarding experience. After all, as any seasoned PM knows, activation is the cornerstone of success for any product (team). So, why not apply the same principles to your onboarding process and watch your new PMs flourish into true prodigies of the product world?