A free tool · Product management
The product manager competency framework.
Most PM career ladders are a list of adjectives. This one gives you fourteen competencies with five written levels each, so you are picking the paragraph that sounds like your week rather than guessing whether you are a three or a four.
Score yourself, then hold it against the profile of the role you want. The gaps come out ranked, and you can take the top two or three straight into a development plan.
Free, and it stays free. No sign-up, no email, no paywall halfway through. It runs in your browser and nothing leaves this page unless you choose to share it.
Fourteen petals, one per competency. The pale outline is the role you are aiming at.
What it covers
14 competencies, each with five written levels, so you are picking the paragraph that sounds like your week rather than guessing at a number.
- Customer and market understanding
- Data gathering and analysis
- Business acumen
- Product design
- Technical aptitude
- Agile product delivery
- Domain expertise
- Leadership
- Collaboration
- Building relationships
- Effective communication
- Deliver on commitments
- Own the results
- Developing others
What you measure against
Your scores get held against the real profile of each role, so the gap you see is the gap to a job rather than to an average.
- Junior Product Manager
- Product Manager
- Technical Product Manager
- Senior Product Manager
- Senior Technical Product Manager
- Principal Product Manager
- Group Product Manager
- Director, Product
Who it is for
PMs who want a straight answer about what is between them and the next level
Anyone going into a review or a promotion conversation without much evidence
Managers preparing a development conversation for someone on their team
People moving into product from another discipline who want to know what is missing
What you walk away with
A ranked list of your gaps against a real role, not a vague sense of weakness
Language for the conversation, taken from the level descriptions themselves
A shareable link so your manager can score you and you can compare
A direct handover into the development plan, with your scores carried across
Who made this
I spent 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 using them, not a framework I found in a book.
Fill it in and send it to me if you want a second read. I read them myself and reply.
Next in the same garden
Know exactly where you stand.
It takes about the length of a cup of tea, and nothing is stored anywhere.