By Marty Cagan · svpg.com · LinkedIn
Chris Jones, an SVPG partner, describes the hard transition from being a strong individual-contributor product manager to managing other PMs. He recounts advice from his own manager, Steve Roop, that a new hire should know more than anyone about their product area and customers, and should earn a visible win within 90 days. Jones explains that this advice is really a guide for the new manager: they must train the hire, step back, and let the hire own the credit. The piece matters because many new managers struggle to let go of the identity that made them successful, and it offers a concrete starting point for that shift.
01Key takeaways
- Make your new PM the deepest expert on their product area and customers, even if that surpasses your own knowledge.
- Aim for a visible, business-relevant win for a new hire within their first 90 days.
- Treat early onboarding advice as a guide for your own behavior: train thoroughly, then step back.
- Work quietly behind the scenes so your direct report can be the public face of their successes.
- Judge your own success as a manager by how well your team performs, not by your personal contributions.
02Key sections
- The fragile transition to management
- Strong individual contributors often find it threatening to share the stage with the people they manage. Their sense of personal value, previously tied to their own output, is challenged.
- Two principles from a first manager
- The author recounts his manager's advice: make the new hire the deepest expert on the product area, and aim for a visible win in the first 90 days. Both points shaped how he onboarded PMs ever since.
- Reading the advice as a guide for managers
- Although it appears directed at the new hire, the advice actually tells the manager what to do: train the hire thoroughly and then step out of the way. The manager's job is to help the hire grow beyond them.
- Engineering the public win
- Business-result wins are the best kind of early success. Achieving them usually means the manager works quietly in the background and lets the hire be the public face of the outcome.
- Measuring success through the team
- Letting go of individual heroics and measuring success by the team's success is the key shift. The author has passed this advice on to every new manager he has advised.
03From the post
“A partnership dedicated to teaching best practices to product teams and product leaders”
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.