From overwhelmed to confident: your 90-day plan to thrive as a new PMM manager
- Yi Lin Pei
- Aug 27
- 12 min read
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Why being a manager is so hard:
It’s your first day as a new PMM manager. Slack is blowing up. Sales wants new battlecards. Product wants launch positioning. AI is spitting out draft messaging faster than you can review, and your team is staring at you for direction.
AI was supposed to make things easier. In some ways, it has: productivity gains are real. But the tradeoff is more noise, lower motivation, and less perceived control. Instead of freeing you, AI has created even more for you to filter, refine, and lead.
Meanwhile, executives are chasing AI strategies faster than managers can wrap their heads around them. The gap between their expectations (“Ship more, faster!”) and your reality (“We’re still figuring this out”) keeps widening.
These are the exact moments where most new managers stall out, spinning in uncertainty, second-guessing themselves, and wasting precious time on tasks that create less impact. The result is lower team momentum, less visibility with leadership, and more personal burnout.
Here’s the good news: no one is born a great manager. It’s a skill you can learn, and in the age of AI, it’s one of the most important ones. Because while AI can crank out content, it can’t lead people. That’s your job, and it’s the part that matters most.
The true job of a manager
In all the noise, it’s easy to forget what managers are actually for:
To maximize the long-term output and growth of the team in service of the business.
People lean on that Spiderman quote all the time, because it’s true: with great power comes great responsibility. The core of management is serving others, NOT wielding power over them. Managers who are primarily looking out for themselves will quickly fail (or be hated) because they are simply playing politics badly. They may succeed for a time, but their reputation won’t carry them far, because their goals are misaligned with what true leadership calls for.
For PMM managers, being successful requires 4 key foundations:
Purpose: Defining the narrative, priorities, and what “good” looks like for all the areas of responsibility when it comes to your role.
People: Coaching, setting standards, giving feedback, and helping each PMM do their best work.
Process: Installing cadences and systems so great work ships on time and with quality.
Performance: Determining how the team is measured, held accountable, and, importantly, celebrated and rewarded.
In an AI-heavy world, the “Process” lever matters more than ever. Without it, you just get faster chaos.
How people become managers (and why it matters)
So, how do you thrive as a new PMM manager? Before we dive in, let’s look at the main ways people become PMM managers. You’re probably finding yourself in one of the scenarios below, so keep that in mind as you continue reading. But one thing is for sure: whatever situation you’re in, you’re figuring it out as you go along.
I’ve been through all three scenarios myself and coached dozens of PMMs through them, and I know how disorienting they can feel without a roadmap.
Here are the three ways you become managers:
You were promoted internally.
Advantage: You already have social capital and have little learning curve
Risk: hard to reset expectations with peers-turned-directs
You were a founding PMM.
Advantage: You also have social capital and no learning curve
Risk: lack of role clarity, no one above you to guide you in terms of product marketing
You were an external hire.
Advantage: You have a clean slate/fresh start
Risk: zero context, high scrutiny… and longer learning curve
Since we can’t cover every challenge you’ll face in a single newsletter, we’re going to cover the most tactical situation: your first 90 days (who doesn’t like a 90-day playbook? 😉 ). This is a critical time that will make or break your success in this role and at this company. Messing this up is extremely hard to come back from.
But you’re not going to mess it up! You’re going to follow the plan I outline below, and absolutely crush it.
This plan works whether you’ve inherited the team or built it from scratch, and it’s designed for the messy reality of PMM (multiple stakeholders, ambiguous priorities, and the occasional low performer).
So let’s get started.
The 30-60-90 Day Plan to Thrive as a New PMM Manager
We’re going to look at each 30 days through a three-pronged lens:
Personally = how you measure, set up, and manage your own PMM leadership “system.”
For your team = what you put in place to grow, support, and structure the people.
Cross-functionally = how you align outwardly.
A note before we dive in: as a new manager, your company has made a big bet on you. For the first few weeks, it’s natural to consume value such as asking questions, drawing context, and leaning on others. But quickly, you must flip the balance and start producing value: delivering clarity, quick wins, and outcomes that prove the investment was right. That shift is the essence of this 30-60-90.
If you want help tailoring this playbook to your own messy reality, that’s exactly what I do with clients inside my coaching program.
Days 0-30
Goal: Gain clarity, build trust and start shaping what “good” looks like.
Your first month as a PMM manager isn’t about rushing in with fixes. It’s about listening deeply, absorbing context, and laying the foundation for how your team will operate.
Personally: Spend this time getting clear on the company’s strategy, KPIs, and GTM processes. Audit the assets and systems you inherit such as messaging docs, GTM plans, enablement materials, so you can see both the quality of past work and the current gaps. Start sketching a lightweight “Definition of Done” for deliverables (what makes a messaging doc or launch plan ready), but wait to finalize until you’ve invited your team’s input.
For your team: Build trust through 1:1s with every direct report. Ask about their goals, challenges, and preferred working styles. Begin to establish the right rhythms like standups, 1:1s, launch reviews, but resist the urge to overload the calendar. Make it clear your job is to help them succeed, not just enforce rules.
Cross-functionally: Schedule intro conversations with Product, Sales, CS, and Demand Gen leaders. Ask what their biggest pain points are with go-to-market today and where PMM could add value quickly. Look for one or two easy wins you can deliver in partnership, ideally small moves that prove PMM’s value without derailing your listening tour.
Key Deliverable: Business, team and stakeholder assessment summary
Questions to ask in stakeholder conversations One of PMM’s superpowers is cross-functional collaboration, and these early stakeholder conversations are your chance to uncover how things really work. 5 questions to ask: Of course, the information you uncover will only be as good as the questions you ask. Ask each of your “interviewees” the following questions to get to the heart of what matters to them:
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Example: A new PMM leader at a Series C SaaS company I worked with identified a troubling insight from her sales counterparts. She found the Sales team frustrated that every rep told a different story in the pitch deck. Instead of jumping into a full messaging overhaul, she partnered with a few AEs to identify three “must-say” value points. Within a week, she circulated a one-pager with those points for reps to test. It solved a real pain quickly, earned credibility, and bought her the trust to lead a larger messaging refresh later.
Days 31–60
Goal: Diagnose and tune the PMM operating system.
By month two, you need to start shifting from value consumed to value produced. With trust established, this is the moment to shape rhythms, tools, and expectations that make PMM’s impact visible.
Personally: Move from absorbing context to refining systems. Introduce lightweight tools or rituals that elevate quality, like a standardized launch brief for Tier 2–3 launches. Define success by aligning on PMM KPIs tied to business impact (win rate, adoption, pipeline contribution) while also clarifying process metrics you directly control. And don’t just delegate everything, keep one or two complex projects on your plate (e.g., pricing, segmentation, narrative) to model excellence and demonstrate your individual value.
For your team: Establish a clear mission statement and success metrics for PMM that connect back to company goals. Refine your operating rhythm, such as meeting cadences, planning cycles, and review structures, so everyone knows how work will flow. Decide what to tackle now vs. what waits until next quarter. Run a skills gap assessment for individual team members and start investing in development. Begin setting expectations for performance, but keep the emphasis on coaching and support.
Cross-functionally: Share your draft operating plan with Product, Sales, CS, and Marketing leaders. Frame it as a collaborative roadmap that reflects what you heard in your first 30 days, so partners feel invested and excited about where PMM is headed. This alignment builds credibility and smooths execution. Focus on getting 80% of the result with 20% of the effort, quick systems that solve most of the pain without creating bureaucracy.
Key Deliverable: Draft team operating plan
Example: When I joined Teachable as Director of PMM, there wasn’t a real function in place. My small team had little PMM experience, and launches were happening reactively with no framework. What I didn’t do was roll out a massive, theoretical process that would take months to implement. Instead, in my second month, I piloted a lightweight GTM brief (who, why, what, how, when) with a PM on a Tier 2 launch, paired with my messaging canvas. The launch went smoothly, the PM had a lightbulb moment on the value of PMM, and the simple framework quickly became the model for future rollouts. This is an example of an 80/20 fix that delivered impact fast.
Days 61-90
Goal: Deliver visible wins and cement PMM’s culture.
By the end of 90 days, you need to prove momentum and impact. Too many new leaders think they can “just learn” for three months, only to find their managers frustrated, and in today’s economy, I’ve seen people let go before they even found their footing. While I don’t want to scare you, I do want to make it clear that in today’s environment, you can’t afford to wait.
Most managers I work with admit this is the hardest part, but once they practice it with support, it gets easier, and they can provide results faster.
Personally: Step fully into leadership by shipping 1–2 visible outcomes tied directly to business impact — a refreshed product narrative, an adoption campaign, a competitive win-rate improvement. Track results with a simple scorecard so the org can see PMM’s contribution. Keep one high-complexity project on your plate — it reinforces your value and sets the bar for the team.
For your team: Delegate ownership of key PMM domains (competitive intel, research, enablement), giving each person space to lead. Cement culture by celebrating smart decisions, creating a “stop doing” list to cut unproductive habits, and modeling the behaviors you expect. If performance issues persist, clarify next steps with HR, while also identifying future hiring needs.
Cross-functionally: Elevate your partnerships by sharing both results and what’s next with senior leadership. Host a Q1 outcomes review and preview your strategic priorities for the next few quarters. Introduce a PMM charter that defines what the team owns, supports, and doesn’t cover. This positions you not just as a new manager, but as a trusted partner shaping the company’s growth story.
Key Deliverables: Refined 90-day team strategy
Example: By month three, one new PMM leader who had inherited a misaligned team knew it was time to show impact. After spending her first 60 days listening and aligning, she moved decisively into action. She reset the company’s launch cadence so teams weren’t shipping randomly. She introduced a messaging workshop that raised the bar for quality across functions and made tough but necessary calls on team structure. These visible moves not only delivered immediate wins but also signaled a cultural shift.
An important note on giving critical feedback
With the 90-day plan, you should have a clear blueprint to go from overwhelm to confidence and thrive as a PMM manager. But there is one mistake I see so many new managers make that is worth calling out.
When you step into management, it feels natural to want your team to think of you as approachable, supportive, even “the best boss they’ve ever had.” This can be especially difficult if you’ve been promoted internally and have gone from being a peer to a manager of your former PMM team members. But the danger is this: when being liked takes priority, you avoid the very conversations that make you effective.
And that avoidance doesn’t just impact one person. It quietly shapes your whole culture. If unhelpful or toxic behavior goes unchecked, people assume it’s tolerated. Over time, that erodes trust and performance across the board.
Your job is to build a team that respects you, trusts you, and performs at its best. And that requires giving clear, direct feedback, even when it feels uncomfortable. Most of us never learn how to do this! But the process below will help guide you. If you do this well, your team WILL probably end up liking you. But that should be the byproduct, never the main goal.
A research-backed framework for feedback Management literature has studied this problem for decades, and several frameworks converge on the same idea: feedback should balance care with candor. Taken together, these insights can be distilled into a six-step feedback flow. Here’s how this might play out in practice. Example: Imagine you notice someone taking credit for a teammate’s work. In your next 1:1, you might say:
Done consistently, this builds a culture where expectations are clear, feedback is normalized, and respect, not likeability, becomes the foundation of your leadership. |
Conclusion: your journey from contributor to multiplier
The transition from individual contributor to people manager is one of the most significant career shifts you’ll make. You’ve already proven you can do the work yourself; now the real test is whether you can make others better by setting standards, building trust, and creating systems so the team can deliver without your hand in every detail.
Of course, this requires unlearning old habits, building new skills, and changing how you measure success. And it’s not something you can figure out by reading articles or asking AI for advice. That’s why so many new managers feel stuck: second-guessing decisions, spinning in uncertainty, and wasting time on less impactful work.
Here’s what my New Job Coaching Program gives you:
Structure – Proven frameworks, roadmaps, and accountability that take the guesswork out of your first 90 days and beyond.
Solutions – Tailored advice on how to apply those frameworks to your business, team, and leadership context.
Partnership – A thought partner (yes, sometimes PMM therapist) to talk through the tough calls, with empathy and clarity, so you don’t have to figure it out alone.
This is why clients call me their “secret weapon” during transitions. Dozens of managers and leaders from companies like Square, Webflow, and SurveyMonkey have used this program to step into management with clarity and confidence, delivering results quickly while avoiding burnout.
If you’re stepping into management for the first time, or you’re already leading but struggling to get alignment, this program will help you navigate that critical transition with confidence.
👉 Ready to lead with clarity? Book a call to get started.
P.S. Here are the ways I can help you right now:
👉 For individuals:
Job Search – Land the right PMM role faster with my proven system for resumes, outreach, and interview prep. Choose the group program or 1-1 coaching.
Onboard (IC or Manager) – Hit the ground running in your new role with 1:1 coaching, frameworks, and support to deliver impact without burning out. Learn more.
Thrive – Already established? Get clarity on your next step, grow your leadership presence, and design the career you actually want. Work with me.
👉 For companies:
I partner with Marketing and PMM leaders to design and scale effective PMM teams, so they hire the right people, ramp them quickly, and establish product marketing as a strategic, valued function. Learn more.