Product Ops: Day 1 - 30 in role

What does month 1 look like and what should you aim to achieve?

This is the first of a three part series exploring what the first 90 days in a Product Operations role should typically involve. Here, I explore the first 30 days - navigating a lot of meeting of new people, understanding the current setup, tools available and lot of people telling you what they need.

This guidance is for both experienced Product Ops folks as well as those new in role.

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Well… congratulations! You are in the Product Ops club, and you are probably reading this shortly before or after your first day in role. At least that is how this post is structured!

You are likely excited and nervous - usual for any new role, but for Product Operations specifically, I guarantee some of that nervousness will be about what you are walking into (in terms of product processes), and how you will be evaluated. How will you prove yourself?

Be relaxed on this - because your first 30 days in role, at least, is all about learning. Asking questions, meeting people across the business and finding out what is currently working, and what is not. Given this, you are extremely unlikely to be measured on anything other than starting to build relationships across the business. You are also unlikely to make any material changes or improvements - in fact, you should be pushing not to make any changes at all until you have completed (or are well into) your discovery phase.

This gives away the theme for your first 30 days - discovery. After the customary first few days orientating yourself with the overall business goals, product division goals, a look at the product, meet and greet with key people - what every new role goes through - then it is time to start planning out and implementing your discovery strategy.

NOTE: This assumes you have not moved internally within your business into Product Operations - in which case your company ‘induction’ would not occur or be significantly different. You may also have background or bias for inefficiencies based upon your previous experience, that you should look to compartmentalise (though not ignore) and continue your discovery phase regardless.

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Discover Discover Discover

Before you can dive in and do ANYTHING unless specifically commanded to (and even then, I’d still push back on the urgency), you need to assess the current landscape and should ask yourself the following to go find out. These are not in priority order, and are not exhaustive (I will add to this list as more comes to mind, so be sure to check back!):

• What tools are being used - i.e. Jira, Confluence, Miro, etc for cataloguing and presenting information within teams and between teams?