4 Lessons Learned During My First 100 Days as a PM

At the time of finally coming around to writing this, I’ve been working at Capital One as a Product Manager for four full months now, but let’s just say it’s the same as 100 days. This is in no way meant to be prescriptive about what to do at the start of your PM career, but instead some thoughts I’ve had during reflective moments.

1. Decision-making

The common adage of the PM being in the driver of multiple gears always seemed too exaggerated, but already it’s now clear to me that the product managers define and drive the direction of the product. Therefore, the decisions I make affect many lives and determine many lines of work for the product. At its core, the product manager will be constantly making decisions on what and how to work on the product and explain/advocate why this is necessary/beneficial. The PM therefore can either save a lot of time or waste a lot of time for dozens of people; improve products significantly or waste engineering effort and user experience. I’ve learned to be more knowledgeable and tactful with the decisions I make, since what I say can mean a lot. This can manifest itself in many ways, including:

• Use data to justify decisions — if it doesn’t make sense it’s not the right decision
• Communicate across all your teams to hear their input — they can help you see things in a different light
• Create Amazon-style Press Releases to explain why the decision you made is right, and garner advocates within the organization

Once a decision is made, be adamant and strong about it so others can feel so too. Still, as time goes on, other factors might change that might make a previous decision not as sound. It’s still necessary to recognize that early on, and change decisions with strong justification.

2. Listen and React to Everything

Did someone say an idea for an improvement during a meeting? Write it down. Did someone push back on the current work being done? Talk to those with that mindset. Were action items assigned to people at the end of a meeting? Follow up to make sure it is addressed. The product manager is in the center of multiple moving parts, coordinating each layer to work efficiently to bring the best product to market. Ideas flow from each layer and towards you to determine whether (or not) and how to incorporate the idea into the final product. Anytime anyone shares an idea, wants to change what is currently being done, or offers advice to make it better, I’ve learned to make sure to fully and analytically think about its merit in relation to the product and our users. If I can’t do it when I hear it, I make sure to write it down and address it after.

Following up with all the thoughts and ideas others have shared with me has helped people feel more included in conversations and has given people more space to voice what they are thinking. It can be too easy to make all the decisions on my own without consulting others — being aware in consistently accounting for all points of views in the team ensures I’m always making the decision that all can agree on.

3. Confidence in My Thoughts

Especially during the first 100 days, while imposter syndrome is real and felt by us all, I need to break out of my comfort zone and stand up for my ideas. I still have not done that 😅 so I’m mostly writing this to push myself to be proud of my ideas and confident in my decisions, so hopefully by day 200 I’ll be able to say that I have.

I learned this lesson ironically not by my own confidence, but rather someone else’s confidence in our idea. I started with a new team after about 2 months with Capital One. I met with the previous PM, Josef, of my new team to learn more about the product I’ll be owning, and our conversation quickly shifted to discussing radical concepts for ATMs I had been thinking about whimsically. As our conversation progressed though, we realized real actionable steps we can take early on to set ourselves up to solve many issues Capital One currently faces with ATMs. Then, the first day I met my team, Josef introduced me, but then also the idea we had created together. I was so nervous that the team would think it’s shit because who am I to just join a group of people and immediately tell them what they should be doing.

But instead, the team loved it, and we had an impromptu design thinking session to flesh it out further. In a quick 2 days we were able to build out a remarkable MVP to prove the idea’s feasibility. Before the team even knew anything about me, the power of an idea alone can get us closer working together. In fact, this MVP was so successful that this idea has become the main body of work for the team for the next program interval. Josef showed me that advocating for ideas you have can create so much change, and in fact, as a PM it is our duty to hare and advocate for ideas and thoughts we have, working with engineers and designers to then bring it to life. As a new PM, seeing an idea I had while showering 15 minutes before my first meeting to being built is powerful– there is strength in advocacy and confidence.

4. Embracing My Own Uniqueness

I was so worried about fitting into the culture of the team and making sure my developers, managers, and design team would like me. But what’s worked best is to just embrace who I am and to just let that show. Especially since I started work in a virtual environment, it was hard to show my co-workers my life outside of Capital One. So instead, I let that bleed into my everyday work. I’ll make it a point to spend at least 2/3 of the time in my weekly touchpoint with my manager to talk about our lives. Or, at the beginning of meetings before everyone joins, I’ll make sure to create some meaningful small talk and share experiences about my life during it and get others to share about their lives too. I’ll curse and joke around. I’ll be confident and ask questions when I have no idea what the developers are talking about, but I’ll also assert my domain knowledge when I do know. I use the experiences I’ve already had working with my best friends in college on group projects to think —

“If this team was comprised of my friends, how would I act and how would I lead?”.

This pushes me to be my most authentic and true self, which translates to closer, more productive, and enjoyable team culture. And, while friendships take a while to grow, with time I’m working on making my co-workers be my close friends. Virtual work definitely makes this harder, but the dream state of my co-workers being able to rag on my ideas the same way my friends rag on me can be worked on everyday.