PM Expectations

Product Manager expectations are best understood when they reflect how the job actually works. Impact is the point, strategy and execution are the engine, and capacity building is how the engine improves.

1. Product impact is what matters most. The singular purpose of an organization is to bring a product vision to life by shipping product impact. Your impact expectations are to:

• Set an aggressive target on a goal that maps to user or business value
• Make strong progress against that target
• While also driving strong ecosystem impact

Your impact can be outstanding even when targets are missed, as long as the goal was important, the target was aggressive, and the ecosystem impact was solid.

1a. Strategy is your plan to drive product impact. Good strategies are adaptable plans that coordinate actions toward a goal in an uncertain world with rival interests. Your strategy expectations are to:

• Understand the situation, including product usage, top-line trends, and holdout impact
• Create plans to achieve your goals
• Provide a continuing stream of options on how to adapt your plans
• Help decision makers evaluate the options

Your strategy can be outstanding when, with minimal oversight, you develop plans that connect directly to valuable impact, whether realized or supported by strong proof points. Where impact hasn't landed yet, strong proof points are sufficient for an outstanding rating in the current cycle.

1b. Execution is your ability to enact the plan. It's the ability to get things done reliably and fast. Your execution expectations are to:

• Understand your team's velocity, e.g. tests and launches per eng per month
• Accelerate that velocity by clearing bottlenecks and filling gaps
• Improve the consistency of landed impact across cycles
• See around corners to identify and mitigate risk early
• Report progress toward goals every week
• Assess your team's internal capabilities and surface gaps

Your execution can be outstanding when your team ships at high velocity with consistent impact, you've removed identifiable constraints on output, and your team's measured velocity has improved relative to baseline.

2. Capacity building makes strong performance durable. It involves strengthening the skills, systems, and resources your organization needs to achieve its goals durably. Your capacity expectations are to:

• Improve the overall well-being and functioning of your team
• Collaborate with colleagues well, with an eye toward leveraging the expertise of other teams to bolster your team's capacity and drive results
• Identify one area where your organization needs to improve, build a plan, and execute it

Your capacity building can be outstanding when you've driven a measurable improvement in team health, cross-functional leverage, or organizational capability, and the change has persisted into the following cycle.