Free tools · Competency frameworks
Know exactly where you stand.
Four frameworks, one ladder. Every competency has five written levels, so you pick the paragraph that sounds like your week instead of guessing whether you are a three or a four. Score yourself, hold it against a real role, and see the gaps ranked.
All four are free and stay free. No sign-up, no email, no paywall halfway through. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is stored on a server, and nothing leaves the page unless you share a link.
Pick your framework
Product management competency framework
Fourteen competencies scored on the same five-rung ladder, from customer and market through data, business acumen, technical aptitude, design partnership, agile delivery, leadership and developing others. Then it holds your scores against the real profile of eight roles, junior PM through Director.
Use it to see the gap between where you are and the role you want, and to walk into your next development conversation with something specific to talk about. Have your manager score you too and compare.
Start the check-inUX competency framework
For UX and product designers. Twelve competencies across the double diamond, discovery, definition, develop and deliver, plus process, agile delivery and the human side. Scored on the five-rung ladder and held against seven roles, junior UX through Director.
Use it on yourself to plan your next move, or across a design team to see where the craft is thin and who should be teaching whom.
Start the check-inProduct marketing competency framework
Fourteen competencies covering positioning and pricing, go-to-market strategy and execution, lean delivery, customer and market insight, data, business acumen and the leadership side. Scored on the five-rung ladder against five roles, junior PMM through Director.
Use it to find the two or three gaps actually holding you back, then take them into the Development Plan instead of a vague list of things to get better at.
Start the check-inBusiness owner AI competency framework
A free interactive check-in on the AI skills that actually run a business. Fluency, daily use, judging output, data and privacy, and how AI shows up in marketing, sales, operations, finance, and picking the right problems. Same five-rung ladder as the diagnoses.
Use it to see which of those you can already do, which you are faking, and what to learn next. Get a partner or manager to score you too and compare.
Start the check-inHow the ladder works
One to five, the same on every framework. One means you have little understanding of it yet. Three means you do it reliably without being prompted. Five means you are the person others come to, and you are lifting everyone else’s practice while you do it.
Scoring against a written level rather than a number is the whole point. It is much harder to flatter yourself when you have to pick the paragraph that actually describes your week, and much easier to have the conversation afterwards when you and your manager are reading the same words.
Who made these
I spent nearly twenty years building product teams, most recently as VP Product at the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchisor, and I now work with businesses and people on product, AI and careers from Vancouver. These are the levels I used to run real development conversations, refined over years of actually using them, not a framework I found in a book.
Fill one in and send it to me if you want a second read. I read them myself and reply.