What a product partner does in the first 30 days
The opening month is where a team finds out if someone can make decisions with them. Here is what we actually do in that window.
The first month of a product partnership is not a strategy deck. It is the stretch where a team finds out whether someone can make decisions with them, not for them.
Start with the decision, not the backlog
A backlog already exists. What is usually missing is a shared call on what the next release has to change for a customer. We spend the opening days on that call, then let the work follow it.
What we look at in week one
- Who the product is for, in one sentence a customer would recognize
- The single outcome the next release has to move
- Where the current build is guessing instead of knowing
- Which meetings exist only because the decision was never written down
The month breaks down like this.
Week | Focus |
|---|---|
1 | Name the outcome the next release has to move |
2 | Cut the scope that does not serve that outcome |
3 | Write down who owns the next step |
4 | Leave a plan the team can run |
Leave the team with a plan they can run
By the end of the month the useful artifact is small: a written outcome, the scope that serves it, and the people who own the next step. Everything else can wait until that plan is in motion.