Our Genesis

Our journey as product managers started when we decided to signed up for the Sidehustle internship Cohort 7. That decision led to an interesting blend of theoretical and practical trainings by our instructor, for four weeks. It's no surprise that most of us proceeded to the bootcamp program after the internship—which is the focus of this article.

You see, the bootcamp started off very casual, with most interns from the internship cohort, and some people who started directly from this bootcamp. We were all sent an "invite" email to join the bootcamp channels on slack. Those of us who were not familiar with slack had to learn as we "played" with the app. My thought on it is: It feels like Twitter. At first, you might get confused on what is going on, but as you move around it, you will get the hang it. Although, our admin, Drey, was nice enough to offer tips on how to navigate the app, he still somewhat confused interns by creating multiple channels—at some point, I figured that he was testing out the limits to his "creation power". We all went through this awkward phase of introducing ourselves more than three times, to the same set of people! Picture this; you're added on four channels on Slack and there's this one person on all four channels saying, "Hi, my name is John Doe, I'm from Product Management team", now imagine nobody responding to that person, instead, they too introduce themselves. Again, on all four platforms—it was that awkward. Anyways, after the first day, the cringe reduced and people just started focusing on welcoming the interns they were familiar with from the internship, and soon, most "social" interns started interacting with other interns in the other departments, but some people preferred to remain "ghost interns".

After two days, we had our first virtual meeting, hosted by our admin, Drey. He highlighted what was expected in the bootcamp: an overview of the bootcamp, the team groupings among all departments, how we were expected to submit our tasks, why we will not have the "startup" package in this bootcamp—we were supposed to have two packages; Startup bootcamp and Portfolio bootcamp, to choose from.

From the groupings, all teams ended up with 7 members each, meaning, if the interns in the Product Management department were up to 70, there are 10 product management teams. The same applied to other departments like Product Design, Customer Relationship Management, Devs, etc.

Later that day, we were informed by Drey to elect a team lead, and an assistant team lead before the official commencement of the bootcamp. Our team, Product management team 1, produced a team lead, Collins and an assistant team lead, Chosen.

The team lead suggested that we should have our first virtual meeting, just to break the ice and get everyone warmed up for the tasks ahead. The meeting was held on Google Meet. We introduced ourselves, then played a "this or that" game. The night took a positive turn when Collins started going over some Product Management concepts we learnt at the internship.

Our First Task - Day One, April 10th, 2023

We got our first task from Drey in the morning. The task was a collaborative task with the Product Design team. We were tasked to create a Product Requirement Document (PRD)for the food delivery mobile app that the Product team would design. It didn't look too difficult because we had done something similar during our internship, so the Team Lead delegated sub tasks so that all teammates will participate.

Day 2 - April 11, 2023

Our Team lead suggested that the Product Design Team lead, LadyCharm informed her team of our first collaborative virtual meeting so that we would discuss the task and how the two teams would tackle it. She agreed and relayed same to her team. The time set was 8pm that evening.

The meeting was going well and we discovered that another Product management team joined us, so the Product Management team/Product Design team was at a 2:1 ratio. Upon further enquiry, we were told that the number of Product Design teams were less than the number of Product Management teams, so we had to "share". We had some insightful suggestions from the other Product management Team lead, Chukwuebuka. He represented his team. Everybody's suggestions were noted and the meeting ended on a positive note. A recording of the meeting was sent on our channel by our Team lead.

Day 3 - April 12th, 2023

Exactly three days to the submission of our first task, all the sub teams in our team, submitted their delegated tasks in a Google docs format, to our Team lead. He acknowledged them and proceeded to find out how the Product Design team were faring and reminded them of the approaching deadline. The Product Design Team lead assured everyone that they were aware of the deadline and were still working on their task.

Drey hosted a general virtual meeting with all the interns but most of us couldn't access the meeting because the software had an "automatic" setting that could not be adjusted when the time set on it has started.

Day 4 - April 13th, 2023

Our Team lead reached out to the Product design team again and they assured everyone that they were aware of the deadline. He sent us a notice for a general meeting so that all members of our team could participate in the Product Requirement Document (PRD) compilation process. The meeting was scheduled to hold by 9pm.

Later that evening, while we were all deliberating the perfect time for our meeting, the Product Design team explained that they were not done with their part of the task. Of course, that didn't sit right with anyone considering the deadline, so, a little pressure was mounted on them till they produced what was required.

Almost an hour to the meeting, both the Team lead and the Assistant Team lead had engagements and could not make it in time for the meeting so it was communicated to the other teammates beforehand and the meeting was rescheduled to 10pm.

Day 5 - April 14th, 2023 (Submission day)

The finale of task one finally arrived! Every team was done with their task but they still added finishing touches here and there before the final submission deadline by 23:59pm.

Here's a link to the final Product Requirement Document (PRD) by Product management team one: docs.google.com/file/d/1aOFvXgvbZugRySGlwrD..

Written by: Chosen Royalty Olukanwi

Contributors of the task are: Chosen Royalty Olukanwi, Aishat Subair, Olorunsola Favour, Olajumoke Olajide, Agudosi Oluchi, Eden Okerezi, and Collins Akpaka