It’s been 3 months since I started my new role, so I figured it was time to cover what I’ve been doing. It is a lot.

Setting up the product function in a new company is one of the best opportunities I’ve been given. It’s fun, exciting, challenging, stressful, stretching and satisfying, in all the right ways. I’m massively grateful for this chance to shape something, and to play my part in realising a vision with these methods.

Perhaps you’re thinking of making the leap from mid-level/senior to the leadership tier. Here’s what I’ve been up to. As the first product manager I’m wearing multiple hats – researcher, designer, delivery manager, analyst, and product manager – and living a dream.

Things I started

My new job at Claimer, so I’ve been learning lots about the domain – and there is a lot to learn
A product wiki, including our playbook, guides on how we discover and deliver products, how-tos on supporting users, our research library, product & design principles, plus notes on our design systems and analytics pipeline
Our team ceremonies, including a framework for managing those inside Notion
Some user research into common problems claiming R&D tax credits as an early-stage tech startup
An agenda for product check-ins
An incident management and out-of-hours support process
The hiring process for another product manager – and I’m delighted we’ve hired someone excellent
A workshop to highlight some actions we can take to better live our ‘Self-improvement’ company value
A new element in our company culture, encouraging new joiners to write a Manual of Me
Designing and delivering a user-facing feature to manage team members
Discovering and designing the features for our internal-facing MVP

Some puzzles

Becoming a part of a product community – though I do have two ideas on this
Working with a Founder/CEO – I’ve never done it before, but we’re blessed by a healthy relationship
Establishing and growing our product culture, or how we do product – again, never done it before but it’s going well so far
Explaining how I do product – though I suspect it’s something you show rather than tell
Being a product leader, but I’m cautiously confident about this

Other things

I had a good summer, felt peaceful and positive, and realised I want to live near nature long-term
Our beloved black cat, Macs, was run over on 30 September, and I miss him a lot – RIP 🐈‍⬛
I went on holiday to Austria and ran 1,000m up a mountain, which was super fun
We learned that travelling to Europe by train is great for the environment but that you absolutely need to break down long journeys into parts: use sleeper trains and one-night stopovers to counteract the stress of delayed trains
Started training for a marathon
Signed up to an ultra-marathon (50 miles) – lol
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Bookmarks

TBM 40/52: Why Limiting WIP, Starting Together, Being Less Busy, and Working Together is SO HARD, 7 mins
How to Say No to Your CEO Without Saying No, 4 mins
Discovery Kanban at Optimizely, 3 mins
The case for slacking off at work, 8 mins
Common Agile Practice Isn’t for Startups, 8 mins
Year 2 Startup Learnings, 3 mins
Core Concept: The Product Trio, 3 mins
Year 1 Startup Learnings, 3 mins
How to Remember Everything You Want From Non-Fiction Books, 16 mins
On Note Taking: Putting Ideas into a Crib, 2 mins
Information Architecture Basics, 2 mins
Information Architecture. Basics for Designers., 7 mins
The Beginner’s Guide to Information Architecture in UX, 7 mins
UX Design 101: Information Architecture, 10 mins
Card Sorting: Uncover Users’ Mental Models for Better Information Architecture, 8 mins
10 Takeaways from my experience at On Deck Product Management, 21 mins
Against entropy — Why product managers really manage conversations, 12 mins
The Evolving Role of Product Managers, 11 mins
TBM 41a/52: Slow Down on Your Own Terms, 3 mins