PM Promotion Strategy Navigator

Pro v1.0.0 1 view

Create personalized PM promotion strategies with timeline working backward from company budget cycles.

What You Get

Get a complete promotion roadmap with month-by-month milestones, conversation scripts, and a promotion case template tailored to your situation.

The Problem

Product managers often miss promotion cycles because they don't understand budget timing, don't know when or how to have career conversations, struggle to build compelling business cases for promotion, or come across as entitled when discussing advancement. Many PMs ask too late (during performance reviews when budgets are already set) or too aggressively (the 'gunner' label).

The Solution

This skill creates personalized promotion strategies by working backward from your company's budget cycle. It calculates the optimal timeline, generates conversation scripts for each milestone (initial conversation, mid-point check-in, pre-budget submission, post-decision follow-up), builds a promotion case template reframing your accomplishments as strategic impact, and provides stakeholder alignment plans. The strategy adapts based on context: startup vs enterprise timelines, standard cases vs complex situations like undefined roles or unsupportive managers.

How It Works

  1. 1 Gather context about role, company, budget timing, manager relationship, accomplishments, and challenges
  2. 2 Assess feasibility (GREEN/YELLOW/RED) based on role clarity, tenure, company size, and manager support
  3. 3 Calculate timeline working backward from budget cycle with appropriate lead time
  4. 4 Generate conversation scripts for each milestone adapted to user's communication style
  5. 5 Build promotion case one-pager with accomplishments reframed as strategic business impact
  6. 6 Design evidence-building framework to demonstrate next-level capabilities
  7. 7 Create stakeholder alignment plan identifying who to involve and when
  8. 8 Provide risk mitigation guidance to avoid the gunner label

What You'll Need

  • Current role and target role (e.g., PM to Senior PM)
  • Company context: size, stage, industry
  • Budget timing: when budget planning happens
  • Manager relationship details
  • 2-3 key accomplishments with business impact

Get This Skill

Requires Pro subscription ($9/month)

Have Feedback?

Help us improve this skill by sharing your ideas and suggestions.

Request Improvements

Examples

PM to Senior PM at Series B SaaS

Standard promotion path for a PM with 18 months tenure at a mid-size SaaS company with clear budget cycles and supportive management. Demonstrates the complete workflow with month-by-month milestones, conversation scripts, and promotion case template.

View example

Senior PM to Director at Series C Fintech

Complex case with unclear budget timing, engineering-focused VP, and strong peer competition. Shows YELLOW feasibility assessment, VP education strategy, differentiation tactics, and stakeholder alignment for Director-level promotion.

View example

Staff PM at Early-Stage Startup (Role Undefined)

Edge case where the target role doesn't exist, tenure is short (14 months), and CEO lacks PM background. Demonstrates two-phase approach: first define the role with business case, then pursue promotion. Includes recovery strategy from missed previous cycle.

View example
View all examples