Competency Definition APM

Product Competency Matrix by Level

v1.0.0
This spreadsheet is part of the Product Competency Toolkit, a system
of 12 product manager competencies you can use to level up your
team and yourself. It provides detailed expectations for each of the 12
competencies at every level of a typical product organization.

Download the toolkit @ https://www.ravi-mehta.com/toolkit

Product Execution Define, build, and launch exceptional products

The ability for a PM to gather requirements, You are able to write a clear specification
define functionality, and set goals in a clear, for a minor feature and contribute
actionable format that can be used to meaningfully to specifications for major
communicate with the team and drive product features. You work effectively with your
delivery. immediate team members to gather all
information that needs to be in the
specification. Your specs define a clear,
meaningful, and achievable goal. Your
Feature Specification specs describe functionality in sufficient
detail for stakeholders to understand the
feature and for engineers to build the
feature. You effectively spec for the devices
and international points of sale targeted for
your feature.

The ability to work closely with one’s immediate You are able to develop effective working
team (engineering, design, etc.) to iteratively and relationships with your immediate team, and
quickly deliver product functionality that can effectively articulate the goals and
accomplishes pre-defined goals. business justification for your current
project. You can work with your manager to
make the right implementation trade-off
decisions in getting your project built and
Product Delivery launched on schedule with a low incidence
of bugs.

The ability to identify, prioritize, and resolve You are able to effectively QA a project to
technical, functional, and business quality ensure a high-quality launch, across all
issues across all devices, points of sale, devices, points of sale, and applicable use
and use cases that are applicable to the cases. You can triage and prioritize the
Product Quality product. severity of bugs and make
Assurance recommendations for whether something is
a launch blocker or not.

Customer Insight Understand and fulfill customer needs

 The ability to use data to generate You are able to effectively define proper
actionable insights, to leverage those instrumentation for a project, to analyze the
insights to achieve goals set for the product, results post-launch, and to work with your
and to connect those quantified goals to manager to make recommendations on the
meaningful outcomes for the business. right next steps for the feature. You have a
basic understanding of general analytics
best practices and internal company tools.
Fluency with Data

The ability to leverage user feedback in the You work with your manager to identify
form of usability tests, focus groups, when to gather feedback from users to drive
surveys, and other forms of research to more effective decision making. You
understand how users engage with the understand the benefits and tradeoffs of
product, make better decisions, and drive using various user feedback channels
meaningful outcomes for the business. including surveys, focus groups, usability
tests, customer support analysis, app
reviews, and other forms of research. You
Voice of the Customer are proficient at using those channels both
directly and working in coordination with
supporting teams. Working with your
manager, you are able to distill user
feedback into an actionable understanding
of user sentiment for your product area.

The ability, both as an individual and You are able to assess the quality of an
working with the design team, to define existing user experience and make concrete
requirements and deliver UX designs that recommendations for how to improve that
are easy to use, leverage UX best practices, experience. Working with the design team,
and dovetail with the predominant UX you are able to create a UI that is high-
patterns present in the product. quality, meets the project's business
User Experience Design requirements, and abides by the design and
style standards of the company. You are
able to create wireframes both on your own
and in coordination with the design team.

Product Strategy Deliver business impact via product innovation

The ability to drive meaningful outcomes for You clearly-articulate the goals of your
the business by connecting product current project, follow through with analysis
functionality and goals to the strategic post-launch, and understand how those
objectives of the PM’s team and the results tie to the goals of your team.
company overall.
Business Outcome
Ownership

The ability to define an overall vision for the You clearly understand and can articulate
PM’s area of the product that connects to how your current roadmap ties to your
the strategy for the team and the company. team's goals and those of your pillar. You
The ability to define a clear roadmap of are comfortable escalating to your manager
highly prioritized features and initiatives that when that connection isn't clear.
Product Vision and
deliver against that vision.
Roadmapping
 The ability to understand and contribute to You make an effort to understand the
the business strategy for a PM’s team and overall strategic direction of your product
the company overall. The ability to bring area and the company, and you understand
strategy to fruition through the consistent how the work you are doing connects to that
delivery of business outcomes. strategy.

Strategic Impact

Influencing People Rally people around the team’s work

The ability to proactively identify You can effectively identify teams and other
stakeholders impacted by the PM’s area of stakeholders directly impacted by your
ownership and to work with those current project, gather their feedback, and
stakeholders to factor their requirements work with your manager to appropriately
into product decisions. integrate that feedback.

Stakeholder
Management

The ability to manage and mentor direct Not applicable.

reports with the goal of enabling them to
successfully deliver on their product areas,
continuously improve against these
competencies, deliver meaningful business
outcomes, and achieve their career
Team Leadership objectives.

The ability to leverage senior managers and You know when to ask your manager for
executives in the organization to help help. You quickly and effectively escalate if
achieve goals, deliver meaningful business you are unable to make progress. You are
outcomes, and positively influence the adept at quickly communicating the results
strategic direction of the PM’s team and the of a launch. You proactively seek out
company overall. feedback from your manager, as well as
peers across the organization to help
Managing Up develop your Product Management skill set.
 PM Sr. PM GPM

You are able to write a clear specification You understand how and when to use You can review specs created by your team
for major features. You are able to multiple specs to describe complicated and give effective feedback at the
effectively think through and specify and/or interrelated functionality. You appropriate level of detail for the audience,
complex functionality. You are able to determine the right order for specs. You guiding your team to clearly-written
determine the right level of detail for a spec consider the impact to all devices and requirements documents. Each spec
- you do not under-spec or over-spec a international points of sale when spec'ing produced by your team should be more
feature. You are able to leverage different your feature regardless of whether your effective than the last.
spec formats, comps, and working feature initially targets a subset of those
prototypes as necessary to describe cases. You have a feel for the level of effort
functionality in sufficient detail to required for a feature you are defining, and
successfully drive product implementation. take that into account when drafting your
You proactively get feedback at each phase requirements.
of the project.

You are effective at negotiating the You understand technical and design trade- You enable your team to take a "speed
implementation of your current project, and offs, and can work with your team to find wins" approach to building and shipping
making the right trade-off decisions in order creative solutions that strike the right features that strikes the right balance
to launch your project in a high-quality balance between speed and quality. You between move quickly and delivering
manner. You know when to escalate know how to motivate your team to push effective functionality. You can make tough
decisions to your manager. Working with through challenges, and do whatever it trade-off decisions that result in both a
your team, you can make recommendations takes to get your project out the door. successful initial launch and quick, data-
that deliver maximum value to the end user driven iteration. You can clearly connect
as quickly as possible. your team's work back to objectives the
management team cares about, helping the
project team to clearly understand the
importance of their work.

You not only can identify and triage issues You are efficient at assessing the quality of You are not only efficient at QAing a feature
with a specific feature, but also understand a release and making a decision on whether yourself, but can effectively rally additional
how multiple features are interrelated and it meets the bar for release. support for your team (from relevant
catch more complex problems. You can stakeholders) when a feature or release is
make the right decision in triaging issues especially complex or risky. You are
that impact the quality of a launch. Where effective at coaching your team to deliver
necessary, you can organize a broader bug high quality features.
hunt to ensure the quality of the release.
You have a strong grasp of the company's When assessing a product opportunity, you You can use insights you gather from the
internal analytics tools. You are able to use know how to formulate the right business data to help drive roadmap planning and
these tools not only to analyze results of questions that should be asked, and then quarterly goal setting. You proactively think
projects, but to proactively gather insights how to track down data that can inform a about how to present progress against
from ad hoc queries, and to use those decision. You can connect project-level those goals (e.g. building the right
insights to drive product recommendations outcomes to key metrics that drive your dashboards and reports) to a broad
and set realistic goals for upcoming product area, and that are meaningful audience. You help to guide your team's
projects. outcomes for the business. use of data and emphasize its role in
decision-making. You can effectively
translate insights into an understanding of
the causal factors that drive product
success.

You understand when it is critical to gather You foster a close relationship with users of You can effectively leverage user feedback
user input to help make a decision, and the product, and leverage feedback from to uncover unmet needs, to validate a new
when it is not relevant to the decision at multiple sources to help prioritize roadmap concept, or to improve an existing product.
hand. You can determine which method of decisions. You can effectively balance You are an effective example to your team
user feedback is most effective for the task feeback from users with the business needs for the importance of user input. You can
at hand, and work with the tools and teams of the company, and make the right trade- effectively leverage user feedback to not
at the company to execute on that plan. You off decisions. only get feedback on individual projects, but
are able to distill user feedback in order to to help inform your team's roadmap.
make recommendations for future product
enhancements.

You can independently assess a product You can use low-fidelity tools (whiteboard, You can articulate a product vision in visual
design and make specific recommendations Balsamiq) to outline a design approach for a form, sketching out the basics of a new
for how to improve it. You can articulate project, and then work with your team to product idea. You can critically assess your
visually how to solve a particular product translate that into a higher-fidelity team's design work, and give clear and
problem, and help guide the design team's representation of the feature. You under the constructive feedback to help improve its
direction. You can observe design decisions role that design plays in explicating product usability. You understand the value of
made by other company's products as a functionality to the user, and you work with consistent design across the company, and
helpful point of reference and drive design to create products that are easy to are an advocate for effectively using design
consistency across the company's products. understand and use. systems to make products consistent and
understandable for customers.

You can articulate the goals of a series of You can not only assess results and define You are responsible for the outcomes driven
projects that build towards a broader team next steps, but also can make decisions by your team, and are effective at making
goal. You understand how your current that take into account team and company adjustments to direction or process to
project helps to drive toward the goals of level trade-offs. You can clearly articulate to maximize those team outcomes. You can
both your team and your pillar. Your post- your peers why your current work is identify when your team is hitting
launch analysis not only summarizes important to the company. You can identify diminishing returns, and recommend where
results, but also recommends next steps. when you are hitting the point of diminishing to shift that investment. You are consistently
You strive to acheive 100% of your returns and can make the case to slow/stop able to set and achieve meaningful OKR's
commitments and proactively communicate investment. for yourself and your team.
when commitments can't be achieved.

Not only can you articulate how your current You are responsible for crafting a near-term You are able to consolidate similar themes
work connects to your team's goals, you product roadmap that aligns with the into an investment thesis that resonates at
can also make proactive recommendations broader team and company goals. You the company level; you can guide more
on how to better achieve those goals understand how to make trade-off decisions junior team members in their work. You can
through your forward-looking roadmap. You that maximize value. You define a clear identify and describe new opportunities that
influence the roadmap for your team. vision for your product area. help to further those goals and work with
peers to translate that into a coherent
roadmap. You connect your product vision
and feature roadmap to company strategy.
You understand the overall strategic You can effectively take into account team You understand how to tie your team's
direction of your pillar and the company. strategy when making roadmap decisions, efforts to company strategy, and can make
You seek to make a meaningful contribution and can effectively communicate those product roadmap recommendations based
to that strategy via your product work. strategic ties to more junior team members. on those factors in order to maximize team
You make a meaingful impact to the outcomes.
strategy through day-to-day product
execution and through your contributions to
the roadmap.

You are fully aware of the broad set of You can not only identify the stakeholders You help members of your team identify and
stakeholders you need to align behind not that must be consulted on your project, but manage project stakeholders. You use good
only your current project, but any planned can predict their feedback and make sure judgement to find the right balance of
follow-on work. You can integrate their you have a plan to address it before stakeholder needs: either incorporating
feedback and make recommendations for reaching out. You seek to find product feedback when approrpriate or effectively
the best path forward, escalating when solutions that strike the right balance of advocating for what you've determined to be
necessary. stakeholder needs. You can effectively the best direction for the product and the
escalate when a solution cannot be found. company. You take steps to proactively
learn about stakeholder needs and are
generally aware of other teams' product
plans, and how they might interact with
those of your team.

Not applicable. You seek opportunities to provide support You are responsible for helping members of
and advice to more junior members of the your team identify areas of strength and
team, helping them to more effectively opportunity, and work with them to find
deliver on project goals. You seek out ways to build their skills and improve
informal opportunities to mentor more junior against the relevant product competencies.
members of your team, helping to guide the You are a proactive manager of your team's
project execution. careers at the company, and are
continuously looking for opportunities to
help them improve and develop into product
leaders.

You effectively communicate status, You are able to build buy-in and support for You are able to effectively influence
progress, and outcomes to senior your projects from senior managers both strategic decisions with senior managers
management. You proactively highlight any within and outside the product organization. within and outside the product org. You are
issues blocking your forward progress on a You mentor more junior team members on able to influence prioritization and
project, and ensure you are setting accurate how to do the same. You work with your resourcing decisions to give your initiatives
expectations with your manager on your manager to put together a concrete, the support they need. Your team's
current set of work. You proactively work actionable career development roadmap. progress and outcomes have VP-level
with your manager to get feedback on your visibility and support.
work. You work with your manager to
identify career development opportunities,
and discuss your career path at the
company.
 Director Sr. Director VP

In addition to mentoring your team on more You leverage lessons learned on your own You work to continuously improve the
effectively specifying their features, you also team to influence product management best functional specification proceses for the
critically assess the effacacy of your team's practices at the company, with the aim of company's product teams including both the
specificiation process, and make changes at making the entire Product group more process to create specifications and the
the team level to increase efficiency. effective. process to review and provide feedback on
specs.

You can make tough trade-off decisions You can effectively and proactively identify You ensure the right processes are in place
between projects or investment areas to upcoming team needs based on future to maximize the speed and quality of
maximize value delivered. You can identify roadmap, and work to ensure the team has execution for all of the product org's teams.
creative ways to better leverage your team what it needs to successfully execute on You proactively identify and solve execution
and deliver projects more efficiently. You upcoming projects. issues and change the people and
can proactively identify unmet needs for processes necessary to efficiently deliver
your team, such as a specific engineering or product.
data analysis skillset.

You create a quality first culture to ensure You ensure that your teams deliver high You build a quality first culture that values
that your team consistently delivers high quality products that are an asset, not a the role that quality plays in the company's
quality products. liability, to the company's strategic success and takes pride in shipping product
objectives. that meets the company's performance,
stability, design, and business quality goals.
You can effectively use data not only to set You use data to help inform and drive You have a broad and deep understanding
and communicate quarterly goals, but also roadmap planning, and you use it effectively of the metrics that drive the business and
to uncover new opportunities or roadmap as a tool to keep senior management use that understanding to guide the product
direction. You use data as a tool to identify informed about your group's progress. You strategy. You create a data-centric product
and then bolster your case for investment. proactively seek out ways to make your culture that understands how to translate
You effectively help your team to build up team's use of data more effective, and you test results and product insights into a
their data fluency, making them more look to raise the skill level of not only your causal understanding of the levers that
effective decision makers and efficient team but peers within and beyond the drive the business and uses that
communicators. product org. understanding to build impactful products.

You make user research a key part of You make user research a key part of You build a customer obsessed culture that
developing the roadmap for your area of the defining product strategy. This includes values customer empathy and is committed
product. You lever user research to assess deeply understanding the role your product to making products the provide value in
the impact of the roadmap, assess new play's in users lives and how people use customer's lives. You encourage a balanced
areas of opportunity, and guide product adjacent and competitive products. You use approach to decision making that
interation with the goal of maximizing that understanding to guide product strategy synethsizes data and user research into a
customer value. You instill strong user and discover new product opportunities. complete picture of the short-term results
research skills in your team. You foster a culture that values user and long-term impact of product
research. developments. You are the voice of the
customer on the executive team, making
sure that all members of the team
understand the role the product and
business has in people's lives.

You foster a design-centric culture on your You work with the design team to make You create a culture that enables the
team that understands how to work with great design a key success factor for the product , design, and engineering teams to
design to build aesthetic and functional product. You can make assessments on work as a single unit to build products that
products. You proactively seek to optimize how to appropriately resource the design look & feel exceptional. You work with the
the relationship and work between your needs of your team, and how to make design team to deliver a product that
team's PMs an designers. You understand difficult trade-off decisions. You help reinforces the company's brand and
stay up to date on best practices in design, discover and hire great designers. positioning. You understand the role that
and encourage your team to understand design plays in creating effective user
and adopt those practices. experiences that hit success metrics and
deliver business impact.

You are responsible for the outcomes driven You are responsible for the outcomes driven You foster a culture biased towards
by your team, and proactively make by your teams, and in addition to making outcomes, not output. This includes making
changes to strategy, roadmap, or process in effective changes within your teams, can sure that all projects are outcome driven,
order to maximize outcomes at the team influence changes at the company level to ensuring that outcomes are meaningful to
and company level. You can foresee when maximize outcomes. You connect outcomes the business, instilling a sense of
your team will likely hit the point of driven by your team to company strategy commitment at all levels of the org to deliver
diminishing returns and can plan to shift that and use product outcomes as a lever to outcomes, connecting outcomes to
investment. achieve that strategy. company strategy, and building executive
team support for the outcomes delivered by
the product team.

You are responsible for clearly defining In addition to defining your teams' You enable your team to define impactul
what your team should be focused on, the roadmaps and narrative, you can tie those roadmaps for their product areas, and you
narrative of why the investment is important, current investments back to a broader synethsize those roadmaps into an
and setting clear expectations for what company strategy. You actively identify overarching vision for the product. The
outcomes will be delivered for the company. novel areas for investment that further this vision and roadmap clearly ladder into the
product vision. company strategy. You work with your team
and executives across the company to
make effective prioritization decisions and
deliver the vision.
You contribute meaningfully to defining You are responsible for setting strategy for As owner of a significant part of the product,
strategy at the company level. You can a significant set of initiatives within your you are key contributor to the company's
clearly articulate the "so what" behind the area. You effectively make the case for strategy and progress towards that strategy.
team's investments that tie to outcomes that investments in strategic initiatives that had You foster a product culture that prides itself
matter to the executive team. not previously been on the roadmap (i.e., on moving the needle for the company's
net new strategy). strategy, and you personally ensure that
product development translates into
meaningful prgcess towards strategic goals.
You work with the executive team to set
strategy, define product's role in that
strategy, and achieve the strategy.

You proactively build relationships across You foster relationships with peers across You foster a culture that doesn't just
the company and keep key stakeholders up the organization and factor their goals and manage stakeholders, but includes them as
to speed with upcoming product plans that needs into roadmap plans and strategy. critical teammates in product development.
may impact their areas. You actively You understand other groups' goals and You encourage your team to tap into the
manage these relationships to minimize the objectives, and can effectively influence diverse ideas of people around the
potential for surprise or that a project is decision making across groups to maximize company to build better, more effective
derailed by last-minute feedback. You build the value delivered across the company. products. You personally, and with your
broad support for your team's projects, team, triage stakeholder feedback, make
include stakeholders in key decisions, and tough prioritization decisions when
make stakeholders an extended part of the necessary, and rally everyone, including
team. dissenters, around those decisions.

You proactively work with members of your In addition to building the skills of your You create a leadership culture that values
team to develop career development plans team, and helping them to visualize and learning, development, coaching, and
that not only focus on relevant skills walk a meaningful career path at the growth. You ensure that the team has the
building, but also in identifying a career company, you are proactively identifying skills that it needs to effectively deliver
growth path that maximizes value delivered skills gaps on your team. You recommend todays roadmap, while also scaling the
to your direct report as well as for the ways to fill those gaps, resulting in a team's experitise to grow with the company.
company. This may include identifying stronger overall Product team. You identify You excel and growing both IC PM's and
opportunities for growth outside of your overall areas that could use additional PM leaders. You think proactively about org
direct group. training/skill development across the entire structure, hiring, and team placement to
product organization.You play an active role setup the product team for maximum
in hiring great PMs into the team. success.

You proactively help drive prioritization and You influence your VP and CPO on You effectively work as an extension of the
resourcing for the companyl, even when company-wide strategy, prioritization, executive team helping to define strategy,
that means diverting resources from your resourcing, and headcount planning. You communicate strategy to the product team
team's initiatives. Your team's progress and work with the executives in other functional and across the company, and understand
outcomes have support and visibility at the areas to align goals and resourcing plans. how product work is reinforcing strategic
executive team level. objectives. You are able to marshall
devleopment resources to accomplish the
most important strategic objectives, and you
proactively help resources flow to the most
important priorities.