 Hello, everyone. I'm here to talk about growing your career as an early in career PM. So a little bit about me. I'm Marissa. I'm a product manager at Microsoft. I've been here for just over three years, and I've also been a two times intern. And I currently work on video creation experiences, so video creation tools mostly for and for 65 to really cater to those new remote work video creation needs for the enterprise and for education. I wanted to have this talk because really I think there's a lot of really great resources out there like about how to land a PM job in the first place like I know there's tons of courses there's tons of books on acing the PM interview and that stuff is really well documented. So in terms of actually like growing your career as a PM and like knowing how to get started. I think there's really a gap there. And I've noticed that when I first joined, even after being an intern and a lot of like new grad PMs that I've mentored it's it's a bit difficult to get started and know like, how do you go from an APM like an early in career PM to someone who's more senior. What does that look like so I'm here to give a talk specifically on that, how to really grow from from new grad PM to more senior and what that looks like. Yeah, so you scored the PM job. Now what I'm really here to just share my tips and my lessons learned. So like any good PM. I made a roadmap. This is the PM career growth roadmap. It's very subjective but the way that I kind of look at it reflecting on over the last three years is really like when you first start as a new grad PM it's really learning how to do your job and executing like new fresh pms are really good at executing a scope problem, writing a spec and just like being really good at that just like in shipping individual features. But then as you go along I think growth in terms of PM really comes in scope. So it's really about growing your area of ownership. When I first started working on video editing, I worked on the windows 10 native app and my first project was one little feature it was an audio tool feature within that app. And as you grow you grow to owning that app, and then to owning a strategy and then owning a portfolio of apps. For instance, my manager is in charge of video creation and edit for Microsoft will I'm in charge of like video creation so you can you can see how scope kind of grows. But as you grow your scope you know this leads us to number three. It's important to learn to delegate and to prioritize at that point like that's a very good indicator of like a strong PM. So as you grow more in career. It's really like yeah growing an ownership, you know spending your time more on the strategy side rather than the execution and knowing how to delegate that execution out. Then there's like empowering and mentoring other pms and as you grow it's really just about solving bigger and bigger challenges. So I'm going to talk about like how to start from really fresh out of college to somewhere you know I'm probably in the middle some middle of this roadmap somewhere. So the first lesson I want to talk about is really just like learning how to do your job. It sounds kind of crazy, but like, again, no one goes to school for being a PM right so say you just started at work like what are some tips on how to get started well. I think the number one lesson is really like you do not need to hit the ground running. No one's expecting you to be productive instantly it's really important actually that you take the time to onboard and be an expert in your area. As a PM like you were supposed to like own the vision for your area and know your area inside and out and rushing to read a spec and push things through just to show that you've made progress. It's not going to really result in good product so take your time in onboarding slowly. I know that we don't expect new hires to be like productive until like several months because we all know that they need the time to ramp up, especially in PM where you need a lot of context. So what does that look like that looks like soaking in the data that's really important, gain a deep understanding of your area, understand the user research understand the metrics like what are the top user jobs to be done what's the state of our product right now. What do people really need coming up next. Also understanding the data that's in place like what's our onboard onto your North Star metrics your key health metrics what are qualitative quantitative insights telling us about this feature and know your area inside and out related to learning I think also it's this is a really good point to watch others and to really see on your PM team like what are the who are the Rockstar PMs on your team and how like why are they this way and what what can you emulate from them like go to all the spec reviews go to all the meetings just to absorb and see how these people pitch ideas deliver spec reviews how they prioritize pick their brains set up one on ones but really like start learning from those around you. This is a really important point and I think this is maybe like it seems like standing the obvious but learn how to break down problems. You know we are hired as PMs to solve big intimidating problems I think that's really the point of having PM in general, even in the interview question the case question you're like, it's usually like designing alarm clock for the blind right like they test you on your ability to break down problems. And because like that's a really fundamental part of your job. So what I like to do and this is applicable to, you know, PM and any stage of their careers really like starting starting each project by splitting that problem down into tiny atomic units like what are the smallest items of that project and make a work back work back plan for yourself and who's responsible for what. So, for example, like if you're trying to ship a feature like it's kind of intimidating like oh like a my my first job is to deliver on this feature. And why, why do you want to deliver that in first place task one understand context, you know, task to like understand current you are like, figure out what what ongoing you are you need, then you're going to go like figure out the designs like break that down into small pieces as possible and any problem is solvable. And finally as you're learning like I would say be bold is really important. I think this lesson, especially as like a new grad PM it's really intimidating because you're supposed to be in charge of many things and, you know, have opinions and have leadership without authority when you're like the youngest person at work so it's definitely easy to get shy and hold back and not say your opinions but if you are in a good work environment and like Microsoft very much is this way. Everyone's opinion is respected so like do not hold back like speak your mind as for opportunities don't be shy like ask those stupid questions. Honestly chances are many people have the same stupid questions and they're not even that stupid. It's going to be uncomfortable but discomfort oftentimes indicates like you're growing somewhere right so just don't hold back and you know play that new B card and ask as many questions as you can, and have those opinions like if you if you don't do it like you might be missing out on something that's really important. My next lesson is really about picking your battles so say you've figured out how to do PM and you know how to write a spec and you know how to deliver basic features but you're looking at growing even further. This is where picking your battles and understanding prioritization is more important than ever. We talk about scope right scope is very central to PM it's like scope is really the area that you're responsible for us PM. And as I mentioned repeatedly you know the more senior you get the larger your scope becomes. It's important that you know as you're growing in your career like it's it's good to always be looking forwards to how can you expand your scope. Looking to like you know you're not you're no longer in charge of a feature you're in charge of a product, then you're in charge of a concept like video creation is a concept and that impacts multiple teams around you but that's that's really how people grow. The thing about scope is that prioritization is everything right. This is like so fundamental to the job it's it's not just a key PM skill for designing a roadmap prioritizing features, it's a key skill for your career. You're going to find as a PM, and maybe honestly for like most disciplines right like there is an unlimited amount of work that you can do. It's even harder than like, you know, having a sprint and taking on a certain amount of sprint items as it as a dev like as a PM it's truly unlimited. And you're going to find like you literally don't have enough time to do all the things so you have to be very very picky about what you own what you delegate and what you might even have to drop the ball on something that I was told that was really powerful is that you should be doing the work that you yourself are uniquely positioned to do. If someone else could do it and is better at it, consider passing that off to them but find what you're uniquely good at. And make sure that's at the top of your list right. And of course there's plenty of other ways to prioritize your time but just always keep an eye on your time. It's really really easy in PM to do the easy stuff like knockout emails reply to people like respond to help, but the hard stuff the problems that take multiple hours of thinking that is the stuff that you need to really carve out time for so so don't forget about like the bigger picture like big rocks you need to solve another important part of prioritization is learning how to empower others right this is about delegation. So in scope delegations absolutely a necessity. And I used to feel really guilty about it like I'm like I don't want to drop the ball I don't want to dump my work on other people. But oftentimes if you delegate correctly it's not about dumping the work you don't want to do to other people it's giving other people a chance to shine right. So some concrete examples is I used to do do a lot of culture work and run like bug fix week like a lot of cultural initiatives like analyze our cultural survey like pretty involved with team culture initiatives. And I got I got violent told to run a giant organizational effort around sparkle week which is basically a week where we prioritize bug fixing and quality and we pause feature work. I think I've done before so I feel comfortable doing it I feel like I would do a pretty good job, but at the same time, I have so much stuff going on, I can't even find I don't know how I'm going to fit this into my schedule at all so instead like I offered to pass this off to pass leading this effort to a new PM who's never done this before. And she's doing a fantastic job and I'm still here like helping and being on the sidelines but it's been really great to like actually take a step back and delegate things and I think it's like it's really good for other people to experience this to right like when I was younger and if I have not had a chance to run a big group effort like this, this would have been a really exciting experience. Also one thing to note is passing off more things to engineering if you can. So PM at Microsoft is interesting because we don't really have TPMs we just have PM, and we end up doing a lot of the things and a lot of that can be tactical. So especially when you're earlier in career a lot of it is like sprint planning bug triage team tasking planning forecasting. These are things that engineering can do. And I think that especially as Microsoft grows the product discipline and thinks more about like how to best divide that work, you know, a big part of what I've been doing in the past year is looking at like how can we empower engineering to make these decisions and be more of an advisory role for planning. It's very easy to run planning it's very easy especially if you're really organized it's very satisfied. It's really satisfying, but for me I was like I'm not uniquely positioned to do this work. I can totally own it they there's many times where they have way more context on planning the need like, Hello, things take, what's the right sequencing of work, whereas, you know, I'm uniquely positioned to solve what we go build next. I'm the one with the context here so that was like a that's a good choice that that I made and it's been a really good choice to really focus my time. Next, I want to talk about advocating for yourself. So this one's really important. One thing is you really need to define your PM path. So, you know, now we're we figure it out scope or we're growing. We have the basics nailed down we know how to write specs we know how to ship. But now you need to start considering like, what is your direction of focus as a PM what's your flavor of PM. I talked to a lot of pms and we all do really different stuff like I work on video creation I'm very ux centric. I have a friend who's a machine learning PM and we have pretty much no overlap in the things that we do. Sure there's like the fundamentals are there but really like the tech we work on is very different and the problems we we take on a very different. So as you learn what you're interested in more like you should work really closely with your manager and you know reflecting on yourself on designing that right path for you. And it's it's such a broad field and I do find that we end up specializing in certain ways. For instance, my friend is way more technical than me she actually writes code. My other friend is very very data forwards and is like always like in the dashboards and stuff like I know growth PM friends like it's just it's different right so. I'm not sure that you're growing but make sure you're growing in the right direction that you want and always like reflect on. What are the next steps to get there and what sort of PM you want to be it's it's it's hard because a lot of us don't know. But if you have a sense of what you want just try to steer your just your career decision making in that direction. And for me it's like always talking to my manager about, I want to work on ux facing like I want to be a traditional future PM. I want to work on interesting ux challenges. And by being forward with her and direct on like this is the direction I want. I stayed in video creation and it's worked really well and it's really aligned with my interests and like where I think my strengths are and where I want to be in the future. The next tip I have is really like the worst you'll get is a no, I give this advice to interns all the time. And this is also one of the best pieces of advice I've gotten but really like, you should just ask for things, you need, whether it's mentorship, help on a project, a promotion, anything like a no doesn't really mean that much it make sure you ask nicely right, but a no it's just like oh this person doesn't have time or like maybe what you're asking for is the wrong thing. It doesn't actually mean that much. But the consequence of not asking I think is a lot worse than saying than getting a no like you might be missing out on many opportunities, missing out on on furthering your career. And just remember that like people at work, the large majority of people at work want you to succeed and we're all trying to build the right product and, especially as a new PM and a younger PM it's like you kind of have that newbie card where people just want to help you and help you grow so so don't think of asking for things as I'm going to burn in this person, they're not going to like me. It really isn't that serious and when people ask me for things. If I have to say no it's, it never reflects badly on them it's usually oh I feel really bad that I can't help right so just please like don't hold back and ask for what you need. Also it's important to have honest manager conversations and advocate for yourself right like it's not weird to talk about promotions and your career goals like we shouldn't have it feel weird. Direct with your manager and tell them what you want. Like, I want to get promoted in the next year that's a totally fine expectation to raise. That's an appropriate conversation to have. If you're like me and you spend a lot of your manager one on ones actually solving tactical problems. What I started doing is dedicating monthly check ins that are separate to my weekly manager one on ones on career growth specifically. It's really helpful if you find yourself kind of like having a lot of those like just tactical conversations that need help on and career will always be in the backseat just set up dedicated time to check in on your career and always be honest and forward about what you want to do because your manager wants to grow you like that's where they're there to do. The last section I wanted to talk about is up leveling yourself. This is really important and up loving up leveling yourself not just with the work you do, but there's other things that really help in growing your career. The first thing is mentorship. This is like a pretty straightforward one I think everybody knows is by now but it's one of the most useful tools in your career, regardless if you're a PM or not, but just a reminder, you know, do commit to mentorship it's very hard to put that at the top of your list, especially when things are really busy, but seek out those PM mentors and a variety of areas you want to learn from. This is really interesting. You know, getting one mentor is nice but you can even seek out different mentors for different things like oh this person's really good at making tactical decisions. This person has really good executive presence. This person is working in a field that I'm really interested in but they're not my product area. Find those, those things you want to learn from these people and prioritize that mentorship time and, you know, use your mentors as a way to like up level your skill set. If you're older and more senior, it's also like really great to mentor people it's really rewarding. It's, it's really nice to see someone grow and help them out and you can actually learn a lot from your from your mentees as well. Like they can teach you a lot of new perspectives. So definitely like fold that into your like weekly habits at work. So this is also really important. So this is just learning as a part of your job. My org is very learning forward and I think Microsoft is really learning for it as well. RPM group, like, our yeah RPM, I guess yeah group I don't know what's called. Anyways, we have monthly learning sessions, where we just like share best practices and stuff like that. And we also have learning weeks and it's very, very clear from leadership that we should carve out time for learning. I took I got a chance to take the Dale Carney class on leadership work was really supportive that my manager was really supportive of that and that was like several hours a week, coaching on like executive presence leadership, public speaking, all of that stuff and that that really makes you better PM. Also, what I enjoy is keeping tabs on product news. So, if it's a podcast or if you're reading like, stretchy or something like that, or just keeping on tabs on product hunt, it's really good to like stay sharp on product sense, especially if you're working on something that's like, fairly new and in a competitive space like it's always good to keep an eye on what your competition is doing and like get a sense of the industry as a whole and where like trends are going. So, I'd say it's a combination of like, keeping your, your product knowledge sharp, and then also identifying like what are the areas that you need to work on as a PM and finding that time whether it's a class or a book or an online, online workshop or whatever it is like prioritize the time to learn. It's very easy to just get into the rhythm of work and not kind of think like how can I, like what are some weaknesses that I need to work on. This also brings me brings me to the next point of iterating so it's a little bit different from learning, but it's really helpful to check in regularly on your work and see how you can improve it see how you can improve the way you work. Whether it's a slow process that's getting away getting in the way or if you're finding like you're stumbling on high stakes presentations like I definitely had like one of my weaknesses is I get stressed out with like presentations with partner teams and people that I'm not used to working with and I realized that was an area that I need to work on and just really keep analyzing and reflecting on your style of work and find ways to improve. And then you can flip back to the learning and or back to the mentorship or whatever it is but also budget that time to always be refining your style of work. So, we're almost at 20 minutes but I wanted to summarize like these are my key lessons from my three years of three or something years and being a full time PM key skills to growth to get you here. So, learn to be an expert in your in your domain like prioritize that time to be an expert. Don't be afraid to offer insights and speak your mind especially when you're really early like it's easy to be shy it's easy to feel like you're out of place but you're hired for a reason because you're smart and you're capable so just like be bold and and and don't be afraid to like answer questions that leadership asks you and and speak up when you think things don't seem quite right. Be an expert on prioritizing and delegating this is just as important for prioritizing your time as it is for prioritizing your map. This is probably one of like the most most important skills to have as a PM advocate for your career and know your direction of growth definitely spend time thinking about like what what kind of PM do I want to be what's my style what's my focus and also always be prioritizing learning and improving. Yeah, that's all I got. Thanks I hope that this session was useful. If you have any questions about anything that I talked about or PM life at Microsoft, whatever just find me on LinkedIn, LinkedIn, my name is mercedes ang reach out send me a message. But yeah, hope this was useful and best of luck on your PM careers.