Product manager onboarding

This guide explains how to onboard a new product manager at PostHog.

If you're looking for what the role involves day to day, see What product managers do at PostHog.

People relevant in a new PM's onboarding

• PM onboarding buddy: Any PM who has been at PostHog for at least a year can onboard a new PM. Ideally they have some overlap or knowledge of the products the new PM will be working on. The onboarding buddy is the "owner" of the onboarding. They organise logistics, make a plan for the week, invite small team members, and serve as the main contact person for the new joiner.
• Blitzscale manager: A PM typically reports into the Blitzscale member that leads the majority of the products the PM works on.
• Small team & small team leads: While the onboarding buddy can share best practices and example PM projects, it's the role of the teams to share with the PM the context of the team & product they are working on (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, etc.).

A typical PM onboarding has the following phases:

Before the onboarding week

• Pick a date & location for the onboarding week
• Invite small team members to onboarding Slack channel, and for the in-person onboarding (at least 1 team lead is encouraged, team members are optional)
• Make a plan for the onboarding week
• Double-check everything else is taken care of (e.g. laptop has been ordered, Blitzscale manager is informed when & where the onboarding happens)

Onboarding week

We have two artifacts that can be reused and adjusted for each PM onboarding. We recommend putting both in a single Google Doc, tailored to the PM and team they're joining, to act as the main onboarding doc for each PM onboarding.

• First 6 months success criteria
• Onboarding week schedule

In addition to the two artifacts above, there are a couple of other items to set up, including:

• Invite PM to relevant Slack channels (#pm, team channels, ...)
• Invite PM to PM brownbag, PM standup, PM book club & the PM Google group
• Add the PM to the PM sprint planning and monthly growth review templates
• Invite PM to their teams standups & sprint plannings

The main focus of the onboarding week should be on those three topics:

• Teach the PM our ways of working: owned by the onboarding buddy.
• Teach the PM the high-level context of the product they are working on: owned by the small team leads.
• Give them their first chunky project they can work on, and ask questions throughout the week: co-owned by the onboarding buddy and small team lead. A growth review is a really good example, because they will learn about our data and product health, and naturally start thinking about next questions.

Don't forget to do something fun too! Have some nice dinners, explore the city you are in, and schedule a fun activity with everyone around.

After the onboarding week

For a PM to be off to a great start at PostHog, it's important that the onboarding buddy continues to work closely with the PM in the first weeks and months, reviewing first projects and giving feedback.

This section covers how the onboarding buddy supports the new PM through this period. For the goals we set over the same window, see First 6 months success criteria.

First month

• The new PM schedules a weekly 1:1 with the onboarding buddy. This session can be used to walk through ongoing projects, asking questions and giving feedback.
• The new PM invites the onboarding buddy to their first growth review, so that the onboarding buddy can give feedback. Participation in further growth reviews is optional.
• The new PM should actively share bigger outputs they've been working on with the onboarding buddy for feedback, e.g. RFCs or analyses.
• In addition, the new PM should set up regular 1:1s with their Blitzscale manager and the small team leads they work with, and actively facilitate feedback and ideas for high-impact projects.

First month → end of probation

• After the first month, the 1:1s can likely be spaced out or moved to on-demand.
• The onboarding buddy should still review some of the big projects or RFCs the new PM is working on, and give feedback.
• The onboarding buddy should also share their impressions & feedback with the small team lead & Blitzscale manager, so they have all the context for a successful probation period.

About the probation period

There is not one person alone who can assess the success of a new PM. Instead, the success of the probation period should be co-owned by the onboarding buddy, the small team lead(s) and the Blitzscale manager, with the Blitzscale manager making the call if, in a rare case, a new PM doesn't pass probation. They should regularly share feedback with each other, and of course the new PM.

Questions for the onboarding buddy:

• Has the PM adopted our ways of working & style successfully?
• Does the work they produce meet our bar (growth reviews, RFCs, pricing work, etc.)?
• Do they bring good energy to the PM meetings?
• Do they raise the bar across PMs for how they work, and best practices they share with the team?
• Keeper test: If the PM were to leave, would you feel the loss, and fight to keep them?

Questions for the small team leads:

• Can you see the PM bringing value to the team, by the context & user feedback they facilitate?
• Does the PM create a collaborative environment in the team, vs. a confrontational one?
• Does the PM's work, and ways of working, energise the team vs. draining them?
• Keeper test: If the PM were to leave your team, would you feel the loss, and fight to keep them?

Questions for the Blitzscale manager:

• Can you see the PM bringing value to the team, and making them more productive?
• Does the PM help move projects and topics along you deem high impact and/or urgent for the team?
• Do you observe a healthy team environment, with the engineers appreciating the work and energy the PM is bringing into the team?
• Keeper test: If the PM were to leave the team, would you feel the loss, and fight to keep them?

First 6 months success criteria

This is a reusable template for the success criteria we set with a new PM. Copy the block below into the onboarding doc and adjust it per person and per the products they'll be working on.

### First day

- Set all accounts up
- Complete a PostHog quest (e.g. answer a question that requires a funnel, watch some recordings)
  - Potentially find out from team leads what would be interesting to know
- Make one small PR to the handbook, e.g. update the PM team page (/handbook/product/product-team) with your team responsibilities

### First week

Overarching goal: You have access to everything and as a result can do work that is given to you with a reasonable amount of context, so you're not doing the work uninformed of data / what users are saying.

- Complete the onboarding checklist
- You can work autonomously and drive data analysis & user research for your teams
- Set up two customer interviews
- Set up 1:1s with your teams' leads. Other people we'd recommend meeting in your first couple of weeks are people from the product marketing, support, billing, sales, and growth teams. Most teams have a expert for your specific product, those are the best fit
- You've understood the roadmap + quarterly goals for your teams, and perhaps updated some of it on the roadmap (/roadmap)
- You've reviewed and contributed to at least one RFC or open discussion in your team → chat to a team lead about what makes sense here

### First month

Overarching goal: You know how to prioritise your own time and get the work done. You are regularly talking to users, reviewing data proactively, and confidently driving growth reviews, perhaps with a little assistance still.

- Set up 1:1s with everyone in your teams to get to know them
- You've helped your teams prioritise what to work on in their sprints
- You've prepared the first growth review for your team, have a solid understanding of the relevant metrics, and shared your insights with the team
- You've brought one big problem to the attention of engineers, (helped) write an RFC (if anything relevant is in progress) and added customer anecdotes and data
- Continuously setting up and running user interviews where necessary, and sharing your insights with the team
- After 30 days & the first growth review: organise an (informal) feedback session with the team, to get feedback on your work so far and how to improve your ways of working together

### Six months

Overarching goal: You can handle multiple products at once and can do the work for those products by far to the highest standard of anyone in the company.

- Continuously preparing the monthly product growth reviews for your teams, sharing findings with the teams, and making sure follow-ups are happening
- Always finding new and important problems to bring to engineers, backed up with data and user interviews
- Provide just-in-time feedback to engineers as we release new features, based on your own experience from using the product, and assisting the engineers where necessary gathering user feedback, following our principles of shipping and iterating quickly
- Participated in your first quarterly planning with the product teams you work with & exec, informing what to work on and what to add to the roadmap
- Continuously setting up and running user interviews where appropriate

Onboarding week schedule

This is a reusable template based on a previous onboarding. Copy the block below into the onboarding doc and adjust dates, names, and team specifics per person.

### Logistics

Travel & accommodation
- 🛬 Arrival: [date]
- 🛫 Departure: [date]
- 🛏 Accommodation: [hotel]

Additional attendees
- Onboarding buddy (full week)
- Team lead(s) (1 to 3 days, depending on availability)

Non-work events
- Dinners TBD, plan something fun together

Onboarding issue
- Track first day / first week / first month / 6 months goals in a dedicated GitHub issue

### Schedule for the week

Monday / Tuesday (depending on arrivals)
- Welcome!
- Handbook walkthrough with the onboarding buddy: mission, goals, teams, etc.
- Chat about PostHog's "big bets" (e.g. AI, Data Stack; schedule async sessions with the relevant owners)
- First-day to-dos from the onboarding issue
- Afternoon: how the onboarding buddy currently works with their teams, and what works / doesn't (1:1s, joining standups, in-sync vs. async growth reviews, etc.)
- Dinner (TBD)

Wednesday
- 1:1 with each team lead: product overview, intros, what matters right now, how the new PM can help
- How we do growth reviews (with the onboarding buddy)
- Start a growth review for one of the new PM's products
- Join team standups to say hi
- Dinner (TBD)

Thursday
- Morning: individual work
- Afternoon: walkthrough of the index of tools/resources the onboarding buddy uses a lot
- Example PM projects
- Dinner (TBD)

Friday
- Continue onboarding issue to-dos & first projects; get input from team leads on good first projects
- Afternoon: everyone heads home 👋

### After the offsite
- Connect with any remaining team leads for the products the new PM will work on