#2: From Squeaky Wheel to Wallflower 🌱

Hey there, ladies and gentlemen!

Hope last week was kind, calm and a little productive.

Welcome to another edition of Product in Progress, where I try to keep it as real as possible. If first week felt like cocktails, second week was more chamomile tea.

Last week I was scheduling intros, asking questions, making sure people knew there was a new PM on the block. This week was more about listening, observing and scribbling in my notepad.

This week I realized that there’s no shortcut to context.

The shift from “what” to “why”

I spent much of this week meeting the broader leadership team, not to talk about features or Jira boards, but to understand purpose.

• Why are we building what we’re building?

• What’s the north star metric we’re chasing?

• What’s the expectation from me?

It’s so easy as a PM to get sucked into the what — the dashboards and the backlogs, that sometimes we miss the bigger picture. Understanding the why is not just a formality before you dive in. It’s the anchor you’ll keep coming back to, especially when priorities shift, and tradeoffs have to be made.

My first planning session - Wallflower mode

I joined the team midway, so a lot was already in motion. The roadmap was set and teams were shipping. And me? I barely knew who was building what.

So, instead of forcing myself in, I leaned into observing.

I took notes. I listened. I watched how decisions were made. I noted what got prioritized, and just as importantly, what got deprioritized.

Through it all, I was just being a wallflower. And that, folks, can be uncomfortable.

I’ve always associated value with contribution:

• Am I useful if I’m not speaking?

• Am I doing enough if I’m not jumping into the planning with suggestions?

I’m still not sure if that was the right approach. Maybe I could have chimed in, just to create some visibility.
But deep down, I knew that jumping in without context wouldn’t have added any real value, it would’ve just been noise.

Here’s what I did instead:
I sat with the discomfort, gathered my questions, and organized them in a Notion page, bucketing them by topic so I’d know exactly which team could help with what.
Then I reached out to the relevant people on Slack, one by one.

On Imposter Syndrome, and Finding Your Feet

I’ll be honest, Imposter Syndrome is real.
There are moments you feel like you’re not doing enough. You see others deep in execution mode while you’re still figuring out your next move.

But here’s the mindset shift that’s been helping me:
Instead of worrying, “Am I useful yet?”
I’ve started asking, “How can I lay the groundwork now so I’m ready when it counts?”

And that’s what I’m currently focusing on:

• Building a personal to-do sheet

• Drafting a project tracker

• Creating a lightweight capacity sheet for the engineering team

• Collecting my own thoughts on gaps, best practices, and small wins (more on that next week)

This is the foundational stuff that expedites everything later. And I think more importantly, it gets you out of your own head.

💡 For PMs and Aspiring PMs: A Reminder

It’s okay to feel lost in the first few weeks.
It’s okay to feel like you’re watching from the sidelines.
But the real shift happens when you give yourself space and time to build your own foundation.

Here are a few things I wish someone had told me:

• Don’t rush to prove yourself, rush to understand

• Show initiative, not just activity

• Anchor yourself in the team’s why before you chase the what

• Start creating your own roadmap of small wins

And remember:

Till next week...

Week 2 was about laying groundwork, building context, and quietly finding my footing. Next up - Getting my hands into the work, starting small, and turning observation into impact.

See you on the other side.

— Nihit

If you think this newsletter could add value to someone’s life, spread the word: Product in Progress