I worked for a few years at the CIA as a political analyst covering East Asia. Since then, I’ve worked in several fields, from data science to product management. On the latter, I’ve found that some lessons from my time at the Agency have helped me navigate issues I come across. Here are a few:

Speak Truth to Power

Always tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. At the Agency, this meant providing dispassionate analysis about world affairs, regardless of the US government’s preferred policies. In product management, not every idea will work — even if a hypothesis has been validated (definitely a best practice) there’s no guarantee of user adoption.

This doesn’t mean feedback has to be brusque or tactless. A good way to speak truth to power (often the client) is to just cite the evidence — if user research indicates certain patterns, cite them to show why a certain UI/UX design or feature set is the best way forward.

“… All truths that are kept silent become poisonous.”
– Nietzsche

Keep Learning

When I was finishing my analyst training, I was speaking to a experienced officer in the Directorate of Analysis. After working there for decades, he observed that when he joined, he thought he knew a little something about his chosen field. Decades later, he said, he realized how much there was still to learn about it. His humility greatly impressed me.

A growth mindset is essential in any career. Product management (and Agile) is a field with a proliferation of opinions — many of which conflict with each other. For me, relying on scientific methods as much as possible is key. Frequent user feedback to make sure things are on track is important — and can include things like A/B tests or the multi-armed bandit. I try to apply a skeptical, scientific perspective to the many ideas out there to keep learning and growing from evidence-based best practices.

Intensely Surveil Your Competitors

OK, this one was just to see if you were still paying attention. You probably shouldn’t try to do this. But competitive intelligence is real, and PMs do need to know what is going on in the market to make sure their product remains competitive. Just try to stay legal.

Always Be Prepared

At the Agency, I had the opportunity to write a few President’s Daily Briefs on East Asian political stability. After writing it and going through a long editing process, it was time to brief the briefers (who would then brief senior members of the government, potentially including the president.) The day of the PDB, I woke up at 3:30am and went into work. Anticipating questions about my product, I reread hundreds of pages of intelligence reports and news articles to ensure I knew everything. I definitely overprepared, but I didn’t want to be stuck on a simple question.

In product management, the preparation is not quite as intense, but still of vital importance. Preparation can involve reviewing the metrics to see how the usage or engagement is going for a particular product, talking to end users, and doing market research (with or without tapping the competitors’ phone lines.*) And if you don’t know the answer, another CIA lesson was: just admit you don’t know and say you’ll get back to them.

* That’s really the NSA, though.