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Bonnie Wolfe edited this page Oct 31, 2024 · 69 revisions

This guide is a working document and anyone may contribute to it by submitting an issue here. It should be used as a guide and modified to fit your project.

Contents

  1. Getting Started - needs a review and edit
  2. Project Assignment - needs a review and edit
  3. Project Team Tasks
  4. Tools
  5. Product Documentation
  6. Good Meeting Practices
  7. Working With Team Members
  8. Recruiting New Members
  9. Stepping Up For The Organization
  10. Passing The Baton

Getting Started

New Product Managers will join the Product Management team on the Product Management repository and learn through shadowing other product managers.

The steps for onboarding are as follows:

  1. Join the #product-management Slack channel.
  2. Get an invitation to the Product Management repository by filing up the team roster. If you have not done so, refer to the ReadMe and follow the instructions.
  3. Create your Product Manager Experience Profile card by creating an issue using this template.
  4. Attend project meetings as an observer to shadow a product manager. You can find a list of all projects here. To shadow a project, join the Slack channel for that project and attend their weekly meetings.
  5. Attend the weekly Product Manager community of practice meeting on Fridays at 12 pm PST. The Zoom link is in your calendar invite. If you do not have an invite, please message in the #product-management Slack channel.
  6. You will be assigned an issue during the Product Manager meeting. Do the homework as it is part of the learning process before you get your project assignment.
  7. When you are ready for your project assignment, you can take a look at the open roles available on this board.

Project Assignment

Once you have contributed to the Product Management repository and are ready to take on your own project, you will be assigned to a project. Sometimes you will be assigned to work together with other product managers and collaborate on an existing project. If there is a project you are interested in joining, be sure to shadow that project for at least a couple of weeks and understand the project before asking to be assigned. If you are assigned a new project, you will need to provision the project using this guide.

Your first task when you are assigned a project is to grab an issue from the prioritized backlog on the Templates and Guides board and find that asset on your project, document how it was created and how your team is using it. If there are no issues on the prioritized backlog, then bring that up at the next Product Manager meeting. If a template does not already exist, add a card to the icebox so that it can be created.

Project Team Tasks

The project board" HfLA: Project Team Tasks pulls in issues from task specific admin repos (e.g., admin-calendaring, admin-accomplishments, etc.). The issues on this project board are part of organization wide initiatives for all projects and CoPs. The issues for a specific project should also be on the project repos project board.

View Team Task Board, Program Area Epics Tab by Program Area
View Team Task Board, All tab by Project

Tools

  1. Google Drive
  2. GitHub - Guide coming soon
  3. Slack
  4. 1Password - Guide coming soon
  5. Figma - Guide coming soon
  6. Miro
  7. Timer (shared by creating your own url): https://cuckoo.team/

Product Documentation

Guides coming soon for

  1. Agenda Format
  2. Onboard / offboard issue
  3. Please update/removal
  4. Weekly Label Check
  5. Issue Formatting
  6. Branding Exercise
  7. Milestones
  8. Team Calendaring
  9. Size Labels
  10. Google Drive Migration
  11. Add Facebook Admin
  12. Communication Guide
  13. Research Plan Execution
  14. Mail Merge
  15. Recruitment
  16. Google Sheets
  17. On disability
  18. Icon and Emoji Legend
  19. SCORE example
  20. Agile Ceremonies
  21. Handy Google Sheet formulas
  22. GitHub Project Board Migration Issue
  23. One Sheet
  24. Initial Issues
  25. Competitive Analysis
  26. OKRs and WBS
  27. Presentation Deck
  28. Wiki
  29. User Personas and Journeys
  30. Website Requirements Gathering
  31. Story Points
  32. Acceptance Criteria

Professional Development

  1. Update your Product Management Experience Profile stored here
  2. PM Interview Guide Link

Good Meeting Practices

As the product manager, you are expected to run the project meetings efficiently so as to maximize the use of meeting time.

  1. Prior to each meeting, remind team members to update their issues in the project board. This has two benefits
    1. It allows for meeting time to be used for discussion instead of issue updating.
    2. Having members update their own issues also helps to automatically generate their contribution to the project. Members of the team with more contributions appear higher up on the contributors section of the project on the Hack for LA website.
  2. Before the meeting, organize the project board by grouping issues relating to the same types of roles together. The preferred sequence should be
    1. Developers
    2. UI/UX
    3. Product
  3. Begin each meeting with reminding team members to update their issues. Start with the Review column and move to the In Progress column after.
  4. Do not spend too much time on one issue. Timebox each issue to 10 mins and if it goes overtime, table the discussion and state that you will return to that issue at the end of the meeting.
  5. Once you've gone though the entire project board, make sure everyone has an assignment for the week.
  6. Create breakout rooms for any team members who need to have discussion time.

Working With Team Members

  1. When joining a team, make the effort to introduce yourself and your background.
  2. As the product manager, you are a combination of product owner and project manager. Therefore it is important to get to know the team and understand their availability, working style and build a rapport with them.
  3. Make time to connect with team members 1 on 1 and check in on them when they haven't been turning up for meetings.

Recruiting New Members

When there are roles you need to fill in a project, here are the available paths:

  1. Create an open role issue
  2. Add the issue to the HfLA: Open Roles project board
  3. Post in the Slack channel for the related Community of Practice

Stepping Up For The Organization

  1. Once you have eased into your role as the product manager of your project, continue to attend the Product Manager Community of Practice sessions and help to add documentation to the product management repository. Help improve the templates and guides available.
  2. As you become more familiar with your project, be a mentor and help new volunteers as they join.
  3. Approach the Hack for LA leadership team to find out how else you can help the organization to grow.

Passing The Baton

  1. When you find that life is getting in the way of volunteering, inform the Hack for LA team as soon as possible so they can start looking for a replacement.
  2. Recruit for a product manager to take your role and do it early enough (at least two weeks) so that you can walk them through onboarding.
  3. Ensure that your project has adequate documentation so that the next product manager is able to easily step into the role.
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