A free tool · Product marketing
The product marketing competency framework.
Product marketing gets judged on launches, which tells you almost nothing about whether the underlying craft is there. This scores fourteen competencies, from positioning and pricing through go-to-market execution to the leadership side, with five written levels each.
It is the same ladder used for product and design, so if you sit across those functions the scores are comparable rather than three different scales.
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.
- Positioning and pricing
- GTM strategy and execution
- Lean delivery
- Customer and market understanding
- Data gathering and analysis
- Business acumen
- 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 Marketing Manager
- Product Marketing Manager
- Senior Product Marketing Manager
- Manager, Product Marketing
- Director, Product Marketing
Who it is for
PMMs who keep being measured on launches rather than on craft
Marketers moving from campaigns into product marketing properly
Leaders working out whether they need a senior PMM or two junior ones
Anyone whose positioning work keeps getting overruled and wants to know why
What you walk away with
A ranked read of the gaps between you and the role above
A shared scale with product and design, so cross-functional reviews line up
Level descriptions you can quote in a promotion case
A direct handover into the development plan
Who made this
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 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
The development plan
A choices exercise, not a wish list. Bring in your competency scores and your goals, pick the two or three that are actually blocking you, and set the measure, the named people, the real steps and where each sits in the sequence of now, next and later.
Use it for yourself, or with someone you are developing.
Open the toolProduct 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-inKnow exactly where you stand.
It takes about the length of a cup of tea, and nothing is stored anywhere.