PM Bet One-Pager + Day-90 Note

Two templates. The bet one-pager is how you propose your first real bet, around day 60. The day-90 note is the half-page that closes your first quarter and sets your reputation. Both are built to be falsifiable, because a claim someone could check is worth ten claims nobody can.

Part 1: The bet one-pager

One page, five fields. Send it as a doc, not a deck. The fields force the discipline; the discipline is the product.

# Bet: [Name the bet as an outcome, not a feature. "Cut time-to-first-value
for new workspace admins in half" not "Build onboarding checklist"]

**Owner:** [You]
**Date proposed:** [Date]
**Decision needed by:** [Date. A bet without a decision date is a wish.]

## Claim

[Two or three sentences. The causal claim you are betting on. "New admins who
reach [milestone] in week one retain at roughly twice the rate. Most admins
never reach it because [obstacle]. Removing [obstacle] moves the retention
number." Each sentence should be checkable, which means each could be wrong.]

## Evidence

[Three to five bullets. Where the claim comes from. Mix sources: one analytics
finding, one or two verbatim customer quotes with dates, one observation from
your signal map or decision archaeology. Label each bullet with its source.
A bet supported only by quotes is anecdote; only by analytics is a guess about
why. You want both.]

- [Analytics: ...]
- [Customer, verbatim, dated: "..."]
- [Signal map / support themes: ...]

## Measure

[One primary number, with today's baseline and the target. One guardrail
number that must not degrade. "Primary: % of new admins reaching milestone
in week one, baseline 18%, target 35%. Guardrail: activation-email opt-outs
stay flat." If you cannot name the baseline, the bet is not ready, go get
the number first.]

## Date

[When we look at the measure and call it. Pick a date close enough that the
team remembers placing the bet. Six weeks is usually right. Put the review
on calendars when the bet is approved, not after.]

## What would change my mind

[Two or three sentences. The evidence that would make you kill this bet
mid-flight. "If the cohort that reaches the milestone retains the same as
the cohort that does not, the causal claim is wrong and we stop." Writing
this before you start is what separates a bet from a commitment to be
right. It is also the sentence that earns the most trust from engineers,
because it proves you will not move the goalposts.]

Filling guidance

• Small enough to call in six weeks. First bets earn the right to bigger ones. A bet whose result arrives in two quarters teaches nobody anything about you in quarter one.
• The claim is the hard part. If your claim has no "because," you have a task, not a bet. Go back to the evidence.
• Pre-wire it. Your decision archaeology told you who really decides and what evidence level sticks. Shape the one-pager to that, and walk the real decider through it before the meeting.

Part 2: The day-90 note

Half a page, sent to your manager (and skip-level if that is normal here) in week 13. Five sections, one to three sentences each. The note does two jobs: it closes the contract you wrote in week one, and it is the artifact people forward when someone asks "how is the new PM doing?"

# Day-90 Note: [Your name], [Team]

## Found

[Two or three sentences. The most important things your first 90 days
surfaced that the team did not already know it knew. From your signal map
and decision archaeology, stated as findings with a number or a source
attached. "Support themes show [X] recurring weekly; nobody was routing
it." Resist listing everything. The two best findings, sharply stated,
beat ten soft ones.]

## Shipped

[One or two sentences. What is live because of you. Small is fine, real is
required. Include the one thing you improved about how the team works, if
there is one: a digest, a review format, a template that stuck.]

## Bet

[Two sentences. The bet you placed (link the one-pager), where it stands
against the measure, and the review date. If the early read is bad, say
so plainly. Reporting a struggling bet accurately at day 90 builds more
credibility than reporting a vague success.]

## Killed

[One or two sentences. What you stopped, descoped, or escalated to die.
Every team carries inherited zombies; naming the one you handled signals
judgment. If you killed nothing in 90 days, either the team is unusually
clean or you avoided the hard call. Know which, and say which.]

## Measure me on

[Two or three numbers for the next quarter, with baselines, pulled from or
updating the manager contract. This section converts your review from a
conversation about impressions into a conversation about a scoreboard you
chose. "Next quarter: [primary metric] from [baseline] toward [target],
[guardrail] flat, bet review on [date]."]

Filling guidance

• Write it from the contract. Open your week-one manager contract. "What good looks like at day 90" is your rubric. Address every bullet, hit or missed.
• Numbers in every section. A day-90 note without numbers is a feelings memo. Even "Found" should cite counts, dates, or sources.
• Half a page, hard limit. If it runs longer, you are explaining instead of reporting. The bet one-pager and your worksheets carry the depth; link them.
• Send it before anyone asks. The PM who closes their own quarter, unprompted, with a scoreboard attached, has just taught the org what working with them will be like.