The Ultimate Guide to Getting a PM Job A No-BS Guide to Getting Your First, or Your Next, Product Management Job - Aakash Gupta

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Here is a summary of the key points from the book summary:

• The book provides tactics and strategies for landing a Product Management (PM) role, both for those with and without prior PM experience.

• The PM job market is very competitive currently due to an influx of talented PMs laid off from large tech companies combined with fewer open roles. This has made it much harder for PMs to get interviews and job offers compared to the past.

• The book suggests focusing on Sections 1 and 3 which provide advice on getting interviews, interviewing successfully, and negotiating offers. These are particularly critical skills in the current market.

• For those without PM experience, Chapter 4 provides guidance on breaking into PM roles. Experienced PMs can likely skip this chapter.

• Sections 2 and 3 provide more advanced skills and learning for experienced PMs, like roadmapping, OKRs, feature prioritization, A/B testing, and managing technical debt.

• The book aims to be more practical and focused on the current job market compared to other PM career books, which may be outdated or only cover interviews. It provides holistic advice from applying to negotiating.

• Applying the strategies in Chapter 1 on getting interviews could yield significant results, like the example of one PM getting interviews at all 8 jobs he applied to after reading the chapter.

Here is a summary of the key steps described for taking interviews instead of applying:

1. Adjust your LinkedIn profile to clearly demonstrate your fit for the types of roles and companies you want to target based on your experience and qualifications. Get feedback from advisors to optimize your profile.

2. Define your target job criteria and companies. Set up LinkedIn and other job board alerts to identify new opportunities that match.

3. Find your top job opportunity of the day that fits your criteria well. Re-customize your LinkedIn profile specifically for that role.

4. Research potential connection points at the company for that role, prioritizing referrals, hiring managers/recruiters, then others like Directors.

5. Craft a personalized cold outreach note via LinkedIn InMail or connection request to one of your researched contacts. Qualify yourself for the role and ask for a referral call.

6. Follow up frequently with contacts to progress conversations and try to secure interviews without submitting applications. The goal is to do enterprise sales-style outreach to get noticed for roles.

The overall strategy leverages a targeted LinkedIn profile and aggressive cold outreach to cut through excess applications and directly pitch yourself as an interview candidate for specific opportunities.

Here are the key points about interview preparation and success:

• The job market is very competitive now, so outdated strategies from previous years won’t work as well. You need an approach tailored to the current environment.

• Treat the interview like a sales process, where you are selling yourself, rather than just answering questions. Mindset is important.

• Before the interview, ensure your resume and LinkedIn profile properly market your skills and accomplishments for the role. This is what the interviewer will see first.

• Schedule interviews spread out over a few days, not back-to-back on the same day. This allows proper preparation for each one.

• Thoroughly research the company, role, potential interview questions, and your own experiences/stories to highlight what makes you a strong fit. Practice sharing them confidently.

• In the interview, ask insightful questions yourself to learn about the company/role and make a strong personal connection with the interviewer.

• Follow up promptly after with a thank you note reiterating your interest and strengths. This helps maintain engagement.

• Leverage tools like ChatGPT to help practice answers and frame stories, but ultimately you need to develop your own authentic responses.

The key is treating it like a sales process where you are marketing yourself confidently based on strong research and preparation for each stage of the process. Mindset, storytelling ability and follow through are important for success.

• Schedule no more than 1-2 company interviews per day, even if they have multiple interviews, to avoid zoom fatigue.

• Having fewer interviews allows for deep research on each company and leveraging preparation/sleep.

• Keep a prioritized list of ongoing interview processes and space out interviews accordingly.

• Stay targeted by only applying to roles that are a strong fit for your experience.

• Create a detailed research note on each company, role, product, potential questions, and interviewers.

• Master answering the “tell me about yourself” question in an impactful yet concise way.

• Proactively practice answering the top 10 potential interview questions.

• Consider building a draft product strategy or presentation for your strongest opportunity.

• Develop 3-5 compelling stories from your background that highlight strengths.

• On interview days, optimize your environment, energy levels, and preparation through activities like getting outside.

Here is a summary of the key tips provided:

• Take a walk before the interview to help calm nerves and think through answers. Meditation and breathing exercises can also help relax.

• Rehearse and practice telling stories you want to share in the interview. Film yourself practicing responses if possible.

• Login early to the video conference platform (Zoom, Google Meet) and test your camera, microphone, speaker settings to avoid issues during the actual interview.

• Optional advanced tip is to invest in a good webcam, lighting, microphone for better video and audio quality which can help you stand out.

During the interview:

• Position screens well so your notes and video are directly under your webcam when looking at it.

• Ask for time after questions to structure thoughts and write down key points before responding. Practice keeping this to around 1 minute.

• Observe the interviewer for signs they may not be connecting with you and look for ways to course correct if needed, such as addressing concerns directly.

• Record the interview for later review and use transcription tools to analyze yourself.

• Actively work in stories and examples you prepared into answers and questions.

• Consider sharing a virtual whiteboard for interactive questions.

• Keep asking the interviewer questions to remain engaged and end on a positive note.

• Common behavioral questions are covered with tips and templates for responding.

• For product cases, focus responses on specific actions taken, results and business impact.

Here is a summary of the key techniques described for doing well in product case interviews:

1. Ask for time to build a framework. Present an organized structure with relevant sections like company mission, user needs, potential solutions, etc. Tailor the framework to the case specifics in terms of number of sections.

2. Write everything down. Don’t try to keep it all in your head - writing helps reinforce your thoughts. Ask for time to write as you progress through the framework.

3. Take time to suggest creative ideas, especially for potential solutions. Don’t just rush through ideas - make sure to come up with creative, innovative suggestions.

4. Practice case interviews with other job seekers over several months. Live practice interviews with feedback are essential to get better at case interviews.

5. Recognize the randomness inherent in case interviews. Success can depend on irrelevant factors like prior experience in that product area. Don’t take failure personally.

For the “questions for the interviewer” part, prepare specific questions in advance. Good questions probe the role, team, culture, challenges and constraints. Ask follow ups to get “real” insights. Use all the allotted time to demonstrate curiosity.

After the interview, debrief on what went well/poorly, analyze feedback, and send a polite thank you note within a day or two.

Here is a 60 second Loom video summarizing and expanding on something from the passage:

When negotiating a job offer, the most important thing to focus on is your base salary. In the current economic downturn, prioritizing your base over other components of compensation like bonus or equity makes the most sense.

While bonus and equity can be large parts of total compensation, they are also more uncertain and out of your control. A bonus depends on both your own performance as well as the overall performance of the company. If the economy turns down further, bonus funds may shrink across the board through no fault of your own.

Equity is even more unpredictable. The stock market has seen huge declines in 2022, wiping out much of the paper value of stock grants from the last year. And it’s impossible to predict where the market will go in the future. The value could rebound, but it’s unwise to count on that.

For these reasons, negotiating the highest possible base salary should be the top priority. The base is what you can depend on receiving each paycheck regardless of what happens with company performance, markets, or unforeseen challenges on the job. Strengthening your base sets you up with more stable, reliable compensation no matter what twists and turns may occur. That’s why focusing negotiations on base is the low-risk, high-confidence approach right now.

• The equity allocation percentages recommended are: Mid-cap 50%, Small-cap 30%, Growth stage 20%, Seed stage 10%

• The optimal negotiation strategy is usually to ask for more equity rather than a higher salary, as it is harder for companies to increase salary but more equity is possible.

• FAANG companies are currently barely hiring so these negotiation tactics may not apply

• Signing bonuses should not be valued too highly as they are a one-time expense, whereas career progression and compounding salary increases over time are more valuable

• Other negotiable items besides total compensation include learning/training budget, days off, working with certain counterparts, phone bill, career growth plan

• Paid time off can be effectively negotiated by calculating its value based on daily rate of total compensation

• Assessing negotiating power depends on factors like experience, other job opportunities, company/role characteristics, and offer details

• Based on a scorecard, different levels of negotiating strength and appropriate negotiation strategies are recommended

• Key to negotiation is researching accurate compensation data from sites like Levels.fyi and developing a data-backed ask based on relevant comparables

Here are the key points about negotiating compensation at companies like Netflix, Google or Meta:

• At these top companies, you should aim for compensation at the 99th percentile for your role, level of experience, and location.

• Smaller companies tend to pay lower, around the 40th-65th percentile on average. So you may have less negotiating room if their typical pay range is lower.

• Even if you’re above the company’s average pay, you can still negotiate. You just need to emphasize why you’re an exceptional candidate worth paying more.

• Research the company’s typical pay ranges before negotiations so you have target numbers in mind.

• Get feedback from your trusted network on your compensation ask before making it official. They can help identify any flaws or areas to improve.

• Consider your “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement” or BATNA, like other job offers or your current job, which gives you more leverage.

• Make your ask confidently and be prepared for potential objections from the company with counterpoints backed by market data. Having scenario plans can help you feel prepared.

• Don’t just acquiesce to the company’s first response. Reiterate your value and why you deserve the compensation requested. Be willing to negotiate aspects of the offer beyond just salary.

• You want to resolve the negotiation decision in the next few weeks instead of dragging it out over emails. Have a backbone and make a decision, then move on. However, using time to your advantage can help you win the negotiation if truly possible.

• Understand the other side’s alternatives to know how much leverage and time you have. Ask recruiters and hiring managers about other candidates and where they are in the process. Their responses can indicate your level of leverage.

• Be willing to shift your requested terms to alternatives that are lower priority if the other side isn’t budging on your top asks. Suggest things like more PTO or remote work flexibility instead of just cash if needed.

• Common negotiation pitfalls to avoid include setting yourself up poorly in early interviews, not acting excited about the role, neglecting the time element, and forgetting that negotiations involve humans on both sides. Treat it as a cooperative discussion rather than a competition.

• The passage discusses negotiation tactics and advice from recruiters. Some key points:

• Your biggest leverage is before receiving an offer, during the interview process, by impressing the hiring manager and going above and beyond with extra work.

• You are replaceable, so don’t get too puffed up. Recruiters can always find someone else to do the job.

• Not everything is negotiable - some companies have strict salary bands or policies that can’t be changed.

• The biggest opportunity to negotiate is equity, since cash compensation has tighter limits.

• A hypothetical example walks through assessing a candidate’s negotiating power, gathering market data to inform their ask, developing an appropriate counter-offer based on the research, and communicating the counter-offer to the hiring manager.

• The goal is to be data-driven, realistic but also ambitious in your ask, and position yourself as an ally to the hiring team rather than an adversary in the negotiation. Preparation, research and a good communication strategy are emphasized.

• Jane, a job seeker, reached out to a hiring manager about a potential role. She provided her availability and asked the manager to float an offer.

• On the call, Jane confidently asked for a $230k base salary and 10 extra PTO days, citing comparable roles at other companies. The manager said this was high for their company.

• Jane backed up her request with data about her experience and credentials. The manager agreed to try and get approval but said it has been difficult before.

• A few days later, the manager called back with approval for the extra PTO days but not the higher salary. Jane said she needed to think about it and asked for more time.

• On the deadline, Jane called back and again pushed for the higher salary, sharing comparable salary data. The manager agreed to try again.

• In the end, the company approved a $220k base salary and keeping the extra PTO days. Jane negotiated a better package than her initial request by confidently following up multiple times.

So in summary, Jane negotiated successfully for a higher salary and more PTO by standing firm in her requests, backing them up with data, and following up even when not fully approved initially. Her confidence and persistence led to a better outcome.

Here is a summary of the key points needed for a Google Cloud PM position based on the information provided:

• The top two gaps identified are working with cross-functional teams to ship features, and building out milestones.

• A long-term plan is needed to turn weaknesses into strengths over 6-12 months. This includes things like learning to code and build your own product, starting a mini-startup with designers and engineers, writing product documents, studying business/tech courses, etc.

• Internal transfers are the easiest way to become a PM, but don’t move just for that purpose. Pursue skill and experience development first.

• Specific gaps like working with teams can be addressed by getting operationally involved with a product team, doing hackathons, building a mini-SaaS, or redesigning an existing product.

• Having a “failed simulation” wow factor like coding an #1 ProductHunt app, winning a hackathon, or publishing on HackerNews can help overcome the lack of direct PM experience.

• A CS degree opens doors to volunteering for PM work or reconnecting with technical skills like building a product. Product-adjacent roles need to emphasize strong skills and fill gaps through extra work, learning, and skill projects.

Here are the key points summarized from the provided text:

• Practice your PM skills by doing a prioritization exercise of the gaps in your experience and education. Only focus on the top 2-3 items, not everything.

• Find PM internships and side projects to gain hands-on experience. Offer to help startups for free to build your portfolio.

• Treat executing your plan like a product - create a roadmap, set milestones, and track progress.

• Make your goals public to gain accountability. Find an accountability buddy. Don’t worry about setbacks, focus on consistency.

• Prominently feature your new experiences on your LinkedIn and resume. List side projects as job experience.

• Customize your profile for specific roles by adding relevant keywords and details.

• Find managers and companies that are open to candidates without formal PM experience. Focus on roles where your unique background is a good fit.

• The job search funnel will be difficult initially without experience, but your side work can impress hiring managers over just your resume.

The key advice is to practice PM skills through prioritized side projects, gain hands-on experience however possible, publicly commit to goals, and showcase your work to overcome the lack of a traditional PM background. Customizing your profile for specific roles and companies is also important.

Here is a summary of the key points from the chapter:

• There are typically 5-9 levels in a PM career ladder, divided into an individual contributor (IC) track and managerial track.

• Skills needed evolve as you progress - early focus is on feature execution, later is more on vision/strategy. Execution ability is still important throughout.

• There are three key phases: 1) Progressing seniority from associate to senior PM, 2) The “Product Leader Canyon” jump from senior PM to product leader, 3) Moving from product leader to product executive managing multiple products.

• Phase 1 focus is on driving significant impact with shipped features, collaborating well cross-functionally, and high quality work products.

• Phase 2 is the difficult transition to more visionary product leader role, requiring the ability to guide strategy, delegate well, and influence without direct authority.

• Phase 3 as an executive involves managing entire product portfolios at a higher level beyond just PM responsibilities.

The chapter provides an overview of the progression of skills and responsibilities at different stages of a PM career path.

Here is a summary of the key points from the Leader Canyon article:

• As product managers transition from individual contributors to managing other PMs, many struggle because success is no longer judged on their own work. Managing requires influencing others, managing meetings, providing input with less context, etc.

• When transitioning from manager to executive roles, the scope expands beyond just product management to anticipating long-term investable areas and prioritizing the top priorities.

• Five techniques are recommended for career progression: understand your strengths/weaknesses, operate across departments, make friends with others at your level, produce high quality work, and drive focus/prioritization.

• Operating models differ between companies focusing more on feature delivery, metrics movement, or business ROI. Context also varies in B2B vs B2C and inbound vs outbound product roles.

• Common anti-patterns include focusing too much on career ladder, limiting yourself based on current resources, and doing what worked at the prior level instead of adapting to new responsibilities.

The article provides analysis of the different stages of a product management career, strategies for progression, and pitfalls to avoid. The focus is on understanding how the role changes and adapting one’s approach accordingly.

The passage discusses the history of product management as a profession. It breaks the history down into several phases:

1. Pre-Role - Product management-like roles existed as far back as antiquity, but the specific title and role of product manager is more recent.

2. Hewlett Packard - In the 1940s, HP was the first to formally create the product manager role, taking responsibilities from engineering managers.

3. SCRUM Comes - In the 1980s, the HBR article popularized the agile SCRUM methodology. In the late 80s/early 90s Ken Schwaber and others refined SCRUM practices and processes.

4. Dot Com Era - In the 1990s, the proliferation of tech startups and venture capital funding expanded product management roles and the profession significantly.

The passage provides more detail on the people and events that helped shape and defined the product management profession over time, starting earlier but really emerging as a distinct role in the 1940s at HP and growing since. It traces the influence of brand management, agile practices like SCRUM, and the tech boom in shaping the field.

• The rise of the internet and startups enabled much smaller teams to have a larger impact, as they no longer needed expensive manufacturing facilities and mainly needed a few programmers and servers.

• Product management was implemented more commonly at startups founded by alumni from HP, where the role existed earlier on. However, it was still not universally adopted and was often a later-stage role.

• Intuit helped establish the customer-centric approach to product management through products like Quicken. They identified specific user needs to design effective products.

• The Agile manifesto in 2001 promoted collaboration between business and engineering teams, empowering product managers further. It helped spread product management practices.

• Google’s creation of the Associate Product Manager program in the early 2000s helped popularize the role among new graduates and establish product managers’ influence in the industry.

• Product management emerged as its own dedicated function reporting to the CEO, rather than other teams. Academics and practitioners like Marty Cagan emphasized the strategic role of product managers.

• As tech companies like Amazon and Netflix hired large product teams, it proliferated the role across major tech firms and startups aiming to emulate them.

• Schools like Product School and programs from Reforge and CMU helped develop the discipline through dedicated education programs and online learning resources.

Here is a summary of that section:

• Corporatish is the language used by company leadership. They care about metrics like revenue, profitability, market share, MRR, ARR, customer/revenue churn, lifetime value, cost of acquisition, payback period, ARPU, gross margins, and net margins.

• When speaking to leadership, PMs need to communicate how product efforts will impact these business metrics using the relevant terms.

• Good Corporatish involves naming the metrics, while great Corporatish builds trust by explaining how the product roadmap and features will specifically move the metrics.

• The conversation should establish consensus on how products are prioritized and built to achieve the corporate metrics.

• Other languages include Marketindi used by marketing, Salesian by sales, Designese by design, Techugu by engineering, and Analytian by analytics. Understanding these languages helps PMs communicate and collaborate more effectively with different stakeholders.

B2B Marketing/Sales:

• Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) - Leads passed from marketing to sales
• Sales qualified leads (SQLs) - Leads sales pursues after speaking with potential customer
• Marketers measure gap between MQLs and SQLs to optimize handoff

B2C:

• Landing pages (LP) - First page users see, marketers optimize to drive conversions
• Site copy - Words on page, changing can impact conversions

Both:

• SEO - Getting organic search traffic from Google

• Cost per click (CPC) - What paid ads on Google cost

• Impressions - Number of times an ad is shown

• Open/click rates - Percentage of impressions that open/click an ad

• Marketing/sales qualified leads - Definitions may vary but generally separates marketing from sales prospects

• Key info around B2B sales processes like discovery calls, close rates, win ratios, sales productivity and lead scoring systems.

• For B2C touched on channel strategies to reach customers through different avenues like retailers.

• Common terms for both like best alternative to negotiated agreement (BATNA) and sales quotas.

The summary focuses on common digital marketing and sales terminology for both B2B and B2C contexts based on the provided information. Let me know if any part needs more clarification!

• The sales team hit their quota so the company is adding a dedicated customer service representative to their sales pitch to motivate doctors to try out their product.

• The goal is to provide better customer service support as part of the sales process in order to persuade more doctors to use the company’s product. Adding a customer service rep to the sales team can help address any questions or concerns doctors have during the sales process.

• Providing quality customer support is being presented as a way to encourage more doctors and make the company’s product more appealing in the sales pitch. The dedicated customer service representative will be part of communicating the sales message to help motivate doctors to try the company’s solution.

• PMs often need to communicate effectively with different teams like engineering, design, analytics, legal, customer support etc. This requires knowing the specialized language and terminology used by each function.

• Some of the key “languages” or terminologies PMs should be familiar with include Techugu (engineering), Analytian (analytics), Producti (product terminology).

• When speaking Techugu with engineers, PMs should help provide business and user context for decisions, clarify requirements, and remove blockers.

• Important Analytian terms include metrics like DAUs, MAUs, bounce rate, conversion rates, and how to analyze traffic sources.

• Core Producti terms center around product strategy concepts like jobs-to-be-done, user needs, roadmaps, backlogs, and product management best practices.

• While expertise in Producti is important, PMs should not neglect communicating effectively with other functions using their specialized languages.

• The goal is to be versatile communicators who can translate needs across different teams, not just focus on proving Producti expertise.

• Roadmapping is one of the core responsibilities of a product manager as it is a key work product they own.

• While many advocate abandoning roadmaps, they remain widely used across companies like FAANG. However, most roadmaps are not hitting goals in today’s environment.

• Common roadmap types are spreadsheets, now/next/later formats, and visual tools. Advanced spreadsheets specify exact metrics like revenue increase instead of vague impacts.

• Key tips for effective roadmapping include having a single metric like revenue to unite teams, incorporating sizes for design/research not just engineering, and mapping dependencies.

• Customizing further like adding themes and tabs for different teams takes it to an advanced “301” level roadmap. The goal is to increase the chances of roadmap goals actually being hit through rigorous prioritization and planning.

• The Now, Next, Later roadmap format helps avoid putting dates on roadmap items which can cause missed commitments. It emphasizes continuous discovery over just checking off completed work.

• Visual roadmap tools can help enforce a single source of truth, driving organizational adoption as part of a digital transformation. They also help with tracking progress.

• Popular roadmap tools include Aha, Productboard, and Jira roadmaps.

• Advanced tips include measuring the success of impact sizing, building the roadmap after identifying OKRs and strategy, periodically changing the roadmap format, and focusing on maximizing impact given resources rather than prioritization frameworks.

• Common roadmap mistakes include not doing enough planning before the roadmap, having a roadmap without strong conviction on big bets, and including many small items without validated hypotheses for large initiatives. The roadmap should highlight the most important work being done.

The key recommendation is to customize the roadmap format and process to best fit your organization’s needs, with an emphasis on continuous learning, high-impact work, and clear accountability for results.

• The engineering team shared a half-year roadmap with 25 items, which indicates they have gone into too much detail and are using the roadmap more as an execution planning document rather than a communication tool. Roadmaps should outline big strategic features, not little tasks.

• Roadmaps should leave some “wiggle room” - the items on the roadmap should drive at least 10% of the OKRs, not hit them exactly. Things happen and features get delayed, so a cushion is needed.

• When done well, roadmaps can inform senior stakeholders, help with dependency planning, focus on the top 3 initiatives per team rather than every detail, and only require 5% of team time each quarter to maintain instead of constant updates.

• Some common mistakes are framing items as outputs rather than outcomes, refreshing roadmaps at an inefficient cadence, developing roadmaps only top-down without team input, and not evaluating if the sum of roadmap items will achieve the overall business goals.

The key points are that roadmaps should communicate strategic features, leave room for changes, involve the teams, and focus on outcomes over detailed execution planning or outputs.

• It is critically important for OKRs to help set ambitious yet achievable goals and ensure teams have the necessary skills and resources to achieve them.

• Teams may lack the skills needed, such as product managers to own the OKRs or data analysts to help measure progress. This makes it difficult to create and track OKRs effectively.

• There is also a lack of organizational value if the company does not act upon or recognize achievement of OKRs. OKRs won’t be effective motivators in this case.

• While OKRs can provide useful insight, some debate their use in direct employee evaluations, as it could incentivize less ambitious goals. Evaluation should consider attempts at big goals, not just outcomes.

• Proper implementation is important - OKRs should complement strategy, not drive it. Regular refreshing helps but too much undermines their purpose. Buy-in from all levels is also needed.

• When implemented correctly with the right teams and organizational support, OKRs can empower innovation by aligning goals and efforts across divisions. But bad implementation may seem to show OKRs as the problem rather than the execution.

• The pages users visited on average was 2.6. 32% of users remained on a page for over 10 seconds.

• 40% of those users opted into push notifications. An assumption was made that 30% of those users would set up alerts.

• Based on these numbers, it was calculated that approximately 9,984 users would enroll in new item alerts.

• To measure impact, assumptions were made about items added per month by stores (8) and the click-through rate of notifications (20%).

• Calculations estimated a 6.92% lift in daily/monthly active users (DAU/MAU) from this feature.

• Retention rate impact was estimated by modeling incremental engagements on day 30, showing a potential 2% lift.

• Revenue impact was modeled through item page visits converting to purchases based on historic rates, estimating $14k/month or $169k/year incremental revenue.

• Profit impact assumed the same profit margin as new items historically, estimating $138k incremental annual profit.

• Key assumptions like enrollment rate and click-through rate were identified as risks needing further data.

• Leverage points to improve impact were identified as increasing exposure, time on page, notification opt-in, and conversion rates. Significant lifts in metrics could be achieved by improving these areas.

The summary focuses on the key modeling steps taken to estimate user engagement, retention, revenue and profit impacts, along with calling out assumptions as risks and identifying leverage points to increase the feature’s overall impact.

Here is a summary of the key points from the provided text:

• Rk (rock) is actually a material that teams are moving towards using. The text does not provide any details about what rk is or why teams are adopting it.

• The text mentions that sizing estimates are not always accurate or appropriate during the pre-product/market fit stage, when metrics are unstable. It can also be challenging to do sizing when there are significant technical or design debts to address first.

• The boundary between a product manager’s role and a product analyst’s role depends on the culture of the organization. Generally, PMs are responsible for creating the initial sizing models based on key data, while analysts provide the underlying data and refine the models for important prioritization decisions.

• More advanced sizing techniques include providing ranges and sensitivities rather than single point estimates, doing segmented estimates for different user types, calculating edge cases, and using an objective function to prioritize features based on their estimated impact, design costs, and engineering costs.

• Tips for improving sizing include collaborating with product analysts, maintaining a database of past estimates, getting feedback from colleagues, learning SQL, using ChatGPT to initially draft models or analyze data, and checking for confirmation bias.

• The summary focuses on outlining different approaches and techniques for estimating the potential impact or “sizing” of new product features, but does not provide much specifics on the material referred to as “rk.”

Here is a summary of the key points from the Global Launches (BG) section:

• BG (Big Global Launches) culture focuses on major product launches through events like WWDC, where a full suite of new features are unveiled at once.

• Approx. 20% of product managers and leaders follow this BG approach, prioritizing extensive testing of prototypes before a global launch over incremental testing and iterations.

• Prominent companies with this style include Apple and Tesla. Their launches are big marketing moments that need to be fully rolled out globally at once to capitalize on attention, rather than testing changes incrementally.

• The default tendency for BG teams is to extensively validate features through user testing before launching to maximize the marketing impact, rather than taking a “just ship it” approach and testing in production incrementally like SQ teams.

• BG prioritizes the launch event and marketing momentum over continual incremental testing and refinement that would be disrupted by A/B testing certain changes pre-launch.

So in summary, BG culture emphasizes major, polished global launches with new features unveiled all at once for marketing impact, relying more heavily on pre-launch validation than continual post-launch testing preferred by SQ teams. About 20% of companies and leaders follow this global, event-driven launch approach.

• A/B testing can be useful, but it also has costs that should be considered, like taking up developer, PM, and analyst time and resources.

• The main benefits of A/B testing are validating strategies, resolving debates between teams, and building credibility for future projects by proving impact.

• However, A/B testing everything just for the sake of data could be counterproductive. It’s important to focus on experiments that truly advance the strategy or resolve important debates.

• Common mistakes include launching features just because they don’t hurt metrics, having imbalanced sample sizes between variants, and not properly restricting analysis to only those exposed to the variants.

• When considering an A/B test, it’s important to enumerate the costs in terms of resources as well as the potential benefits. These costs and benefits should also be considered in the context of company culture and priorities. Any proposal should highlight these factors to the team.

• In summary, A/B testing can be useful but also requires careful consideration of the costs and alignment with strategic priorities, rather than just doing tests for the sake of data collection. The focus should be on high-value experiments, not endless optimizations.

• Conducting additional analysis and break-downs of A/B test results takes time and energy away from other important PM tasks like identifying user problems, understanding metrics, and figuring out the next feature.

• In the past, teams often overestimated the benefits of A/B testing and underestimated the costs. Now the opposite is true, with many teams underestimating the costs of running and analyzing tests.

• Running and measuring an A/B test takes time, which is an important cost consideration. Moving metrics and hitting targets happens faster if features can be rolled out quickly without testing.

• Testing can slow progress towards a product’s ultimate vision, as time spent on tests is time not spent on other initiatives. Goals and priorities often shift over time as well.

• When considering running an A/B test, PMs should weigh the potential benefits like clear results, precision of impact data, and proof of impact, against the costs of time, resources, and slowing overall progress.

• It’s important to discuss pros and cons with the core team and consider factors like company culture and priorities when deciding whether a test is worthwhile for a particular feature or change. Not all features require testing.

Here is a summary of the key points about solving a critical bug:

• When a critical bug is affecting users in a significant way and causing negative user experience, it needs to be fixed immediately.

• Critical bugs should not be A/B tested, as that would delay fixing the issue and potentially lead to more user dissatisfaction and churn.

• Once the fix is deployed, monitor user feedback and metrics closely to ensure the bug is fully resolved and didn’t cause any unintended issues.

• The goal with a critical bug is to fix it as quickly as possible to improve the user experience. A/B testing would only delay getting the fix out.

• It’s important to prioritize fixing critical bugs over other work to minimize negative impacts on users from significant issues. User experience and trust should take priority in these situations.

So in summary, when a critical bug is affecting users, the approach is to “just ship” the fix right away rather than A/B test it, in order to resolve issues and improve the user experience as quickly as possible. Post-deployment monitoring is still important to validate the fix worked as intended.

• Technical debt occurs when engineers take shortcuts or make expedient design decisions that compromise system quality in the interest of rapid development. This can further entrench itself in an organization’s culture and processes over time.

• As a product manager, addressing technical debt is important for maintaining development speed and ability to scale. Not addressing it can make future feature development 10% slower or prevent scaling altogether.

• PMs should prioritize technical debt by properly assessing each item, understanding strategic impacts, and considering developer and business perspectives. They must understand when to address debt vs defer it based on tradeoffs.

• PM strategies to manage debt include tracking it in the same backlog, empowering developers in identification and solutioning, having regular technical debt conversations, advocating for debt work internally and externally, measuring debt levels, and prioritizing debt reduction initiatives. The goal is to optimize processes and motivate teams to continuously minimize debt.

• The team is discussing what to cut to fit a new feature. Tech debt is brought up as one of the first things to reduce.

• PMs should speak knowledgably about problems and estimated impacts when discussing issues with stakeholders.

• Teams should prevent tech debt from piling up by planning reasonable sprint workloads. Creating too much work leads to more tech debt.

• Act quickly if tech debt seems to be accumulating. Consider dedicating full sprints to reducing it if needed.

• Approaches need to consider each company’s context. Responsibility for tech debt prioritization varies across companies.

• Key questions for a PM include why tech debt is generated, if engineers feel it’s addressed enough, and if it’s prioritized sufficiently.

• Tracking tech debt centrally and empowering developers can help transform a team to better handle these issues and pursue “tech wealth” over the long run.