A Group Product Manager posted this on LinkedIn, in Portuguese. Translated:
“In my last post, I talked about the STAR method, which works for any situation you’ve lived through and need to explain clearly. But when the context is a product case, there’s a method built specifically for that: CIRCLES, created by Lewis C. Lin, which goes through 7 steps:
Comprehend the situation: Really understand the problem. What’s the question? Is there ambiguity? What’s the context?
Identify the customer: Define who the user is. Who are you solving this for? Which segment makes the most sense?”
That’s the real signal: she’s not using CIRCLES to pass an interview. She’s using it on the job, for an actual product decision, and teaching it to others.
I invented CIRCLES more than ten years ago to fix one problem: people freezing on open-ended product questions, whether in an interview or at their own desk. A decade later, in a language I don’t speak, it’s still solving that same problem.