11 Checklists To Onboard A Product Manager

Q: "How do you onboard a Product Manager?"

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Product Managers are often brought on in haste & then chucked into the deep end of things.

Stop treating them as spec ATMs that will push out deliverables in an instant.

As a hiring manager, it's your responsibility to develop an orientation program to naturally assimilate them into the product cycle.

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11-point checklist to consider when getting a PM on board

1/ The Why & the Metrics

Develop an onboarding deck presenting the product vision, mission & existing strategy. Explain the "Why".

List down all the SMART KPIs (or OKRs) that you will be holding the Product Manager accountable for.

Talk about past trends & future goals.

Refer to past initiatives and experiments that you've tried and the results.

2/ Tools

Provide access to all the relevant tools (e.g. Mixpanel, Hotjar, JIRA etc.) on Day 1 to reduce back and forth.

3/ Documents

Consider sharing recent PRDs, personas, Business Strategies, Marketing Briefs, active Product Roadmaps etc.

Do NOT dump a Google Drive folder on them. Hand-pick the documents that will assist them in gaining critical context.

4/ Access

Provide access to the staging & production environment of your product so that they can play around. If you run a mobile app, give them an iPhone & Android phone with the app installed.

5/ Competitors

Provide a list of direct and indirect competitors so that the PM can see who they are up against. Comment on strengths and weaknesses of each and your competitive edge over them.

6/ In-Flight Projects

Before PMs kickstart new initiatives, it's highly likely they will be inserted into active product development. Create a brief on each workstream mentioning the objective, linked metric, the current owner & expected release dates.

7/ People

Share an org chart with the Product Manager to depict where they are. Clarify who they report to, who reports into them & their peers (photo + name + job title). Facilitate 1:1 setups with the immediate team & cross-functional stakeholders.

8/ Customers

Have the Product Manager shadow a few conversations with customers early on as a silent spectator. Shoehorn them in to allow them to start developing relationships.

9/ Buddy

Assign an experienced buddy to the Product Manager to allow them to absorb product context naturally and get quick answers. This should preferably be a product owner/manager but can be a dev or designer too.

10/ Process

Share a process document that lists all the active processes in the product - everything from sprint kickoffs, ticket cycle, backlog grooming, daily huddles, all-hands sessions and more.

11/ Plan

Identify check-in milestones and key deliverables for the first 30 - 60 - 90 day period.

Some points to note:

• Onboarding cannot be done in a day
• Hiring manager needs to be involved
• Encourage questions
• Afford the PM creative space