Jackie Bavaro

Framing promotion goals as future-dated growth opportunities makes managers allies rather than gatekeepers.

"Have a conversation with your manager and say, 'I would really like at some point in the future to grow into whatever this goal is... What do you suggest that I work on now so that I'll be ready when..."

The transition to management involves a significant social and emotional shift that many ICs are unprepared for.

"Being a manager is not as much fun as being an IC. It's a lonely job. When your team goes out for drinks, they treat you differently when you're the manager than when you're one of the other ICs. It's..."

Career growth and financial success do not strictly require moving into people management.

"I think understanding that there's different ways to grow your impact and grow your career, other than getting promoted to people management... you can make a lot of money without getting that promoti..."

Early career success is built on reliable execution of narrowly scoped tasks rather than reinventing the wheel.

"One mistake I see people make early in their career is they are trying to overdo it... A lot of times you've been assigned a problem where a huge creative solution is a bad idea. If you're in one of t..."

PMs can maintain alignment and collaboration by validating the problem behind a stakeholder's request rather than reflexively saying 'no' to the solution.

"For the next two weeks, say yes to everything... I think you can find a way to do your job and still say yes to people. You can say, 'yes, I agree. That is a real problem. Yes. I think we could test t..."

Persistent tactical disagreements are usually symptoms of unaligned high-level strategy or principles.

"Anytime you have these disagreements that feel really torny or they feel like a disagreement in values, that's a sign that really have a disagreement in strategy and that it's worth it to write down w..."

Interviewers should look past structured communication styles to evaluate the actual quality of the candidate's ideas.

"And immediately I noticed there was this real difference in how people would answer the questions. And some people didn't seem to understand what the question was trying to get at. And some people sou..."

Product design interview questions are often tests of user-centric methodology rather than personal preference.

"That's how I feel about this interviewing. Is that the reason that some people don't do as well as they could on interviews is just because a lot of these interview questions are trick questions. When..."

Behavioral questions should allow candidates to showcase their peak performance and specific contributions.

"I love to ask, 'Tell me about a recent project that you're proud of.' I feel like a lot of interviews don't give people enough chance to shine, to talk about something that they did really, really wel..."

The PEARL framework (Problem, Epiphany, Action, Result, Learning) is a superior way to structure behavioral interview answers.

"I have a framework for this. The pearl framework for answering questions like this is problem, epiphany, action, result and learning. It's a little bit like the star framework, but I want it all like,..."

To gain access to high-level decision-making forums, frame your participation as a way to reduce your manager's workload.

"After a little bit of that, I was like, 'It might be easier if I just go, I might be able save you some time and some energy if I just joined you.' And it was a way that I took myself into this higher..."

A complete product strategy must integrate an inspiring vision, a logical framework for winning, and a feasibility-checked roadmap.

"I basically realized that there's three key components to strategy... Vision: This is your inspiring picture of what the future looks like... Strategic framework: This is where you're saying, 'Here is..."

The core of strategic thinking is the ability to link high-level business objectives to specific product features.

"I think a good strategy is all about connecting the dots. Connecting the dots from this high level business goal of, 'We want to increase revenue by this much' to, 'This is the feature we're going to..."

Strategic frameworks can be borrowed and adapted from entirely different product categories.

"One of the great ways to learn strategy is to cross apply strategy from other places... consistency versus comprehensiveness. They said 'Is our product the kind of product where it's better to have co..."

The primary strategic value of a roadmap is as a 'reality check' for the feasibility of the product vision.

"A roadmap in strategy is not a commitment. Instead, it's a way to double check if your plan makes any sense at all and is even anywhere near feasible. Because what happens to every team I see do these..."