The document discusses optimizing learning early in one's product management career. It recommends setting long-term learning goals, breaking them into milestones, prioritizing milestones, taking action by choosing opportunities aligned with goals and setting measurable key results and deadlines, evaluating progress, and repeating the process. The framework - called HALO - involves setting goals, taking action to learn, evaluating learning, and repeating. The overall message is that continuous learning should be optimized and treated as a priority to propel one's career forward.

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Optimize to Learn Early in Your PM
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5. Product School
How to optimize for learning early in your PM career
Anthony Emberley
Twitter: @anthonyemberley

6. | Introduction
| Why optimize for learning?
| Determining what you want to learn
| Taking action to learn what you want
| Evaluating your learning (& repeat)
| Summarized framework
HALO
Contents

7. My journey in product
2013-2017
Studied CS at MIT
Summer 2016
Software + PM internship at Addepar (startup)
2017-2020
Uber APM program + Uber PM
June 2020
Started a company

8. Why is optimizing
for learning so
important?

9. Learning is your
flywheel.
If you aren’t
learning rapidly,
you aren’t
maximizing your
potential.
Learning propels our careers, but we
rarely optimize for it
When you feel your rate of learning
slowing down, make a change
Learn as much as you can now, so you
know what to focus on in the future

10. Learning is a continuous process that we rarely prioritize
Evaluate
Set goals Take action
Set goals
How to set goals
How to break them down
How to prioritize learnings
Take action
Choose your opportunity
Set KRs & Deadlines
Learn!
Evaluate
Check in on your goals
Evaluate at deadlines
Repeat the process

11. Determining what you want to learn

12. Treat learning like a product vision
01
Set a long term goal
What do you want to accomplish in
the next 3-5 years?
Goal examples
● Start a company
● Become a Senior PM
● Get into PM management
● Become an industry expert
02
Break it down
Come up with learning milestones
necessary to accomplish it
Milestone examples
● Learn how to launch
● Learn how to be a PM 2
● Learn how to mentor
● Learn about an industry
03
Prioritize
Determine prioritization inputs and
rank each learning
Input examples
● Importance to goal
● PM competencies
● Time urgency
● Milestone dependent

13. Start a company
Personal example
Long term goal: Start a company as a product founder
“Become a full stack PM”
Launch and test marketplace products quickly
Roadmap planning + strategic thinking
Marketplace expert
Operational excellence
Team product thinking
P0
P0
P0
P1
Prioritization framework
● Most important for starting a company
● Dependencies on future milestones
● Minimize weaknesses
● Build off existing strengths
Note: Keep a list of things you can’t learn in your current role
Milestones
● Launch a consumer centric product
● Launch and test marketplace products quickly
● Become a successful PM lead for a large team

14. Taking action on what you want to learn

15. Take action, set deadlines, and learn!
Choose an opportunity
Create a matrix and rank opportunities
based on alignment with your learning
goals
Other factors to consider
● Manager
● Team
● Personal growth
● Problem space
KRs + Deadlines
Set key results for your learnings.
Make sure they are measurable!
Set personal deadlines for your
learning goals
Learn!
From people: seek out mentors
that are experts on the topic and
read a lot!
By doing: Ask to take on projects
that people don’t want that align
with your learning goals

16. Roadmap
planning
Operational
excellence
Marketplace
expert
Personal example
Choose an opportunity
Rider Promotions
Uber Transit
Rider Loyalty
Bikes & Scooters
KRs & Deadlines (6 months)
● Roadmap planning: Lead planning for our PM area
● Operational excellence: Launch at least 3 A/B tests per
month
● Marketplace expert: Present to VP of Product 2 times
Learn!
● Roadmap planning: Volunteer to lead. Past examples + retros.
How are my peers / mentors doing this?
● Operational excellence: Take over weekly launch schedule.
Spend 2+ hours / week with product operations
● Marketplace expert: Spend time with existing experts.
Present learned concepts. Regular meetings + jams with DS

17. Evaluate your learning

18. Check in, evaluate, repeat.
02
Deadline evaluation
Rate how well you learned compared to
the KRs you set for each learning
Work with your manager + peers to see if
your rating matches theirs
03
Repeat the process
Add your identified strengths and
weaknesses to your backlog
Re-prioritize, take action, and learn more!
Evaluate your environment:
“Can’t learn” > “Can learn” = Change
01
Goal check ins
Set a recurring meeting to check on
your goals in between deadlines
Questions to ask
● Are you on track?
● What’s blocking you?
● Who can help?

19. Review: Optimize for learning framework

20. Framework review
Evaluate your learning
Goal check ins
Deadline evaluation
Repeat the process
Take action
Determine what you want to learn
Set a long term goal
Break it down
Prioritize
Choose an opportunity
KRs + deadlines
Learn by doing and from people
Evaluate
Set goals Take action
Learning is your personal flywheel, so optimize it!

21. Thanks!
Twitter: @anthonyemberley

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