Self-Assessment Template here.
| Stages | Communication | Discovery | Development | Delivery |
| /pm/1 Trainee PM | With Team Identify opportunities to use PUTT Uses PriM to communicate project statuses Practices effective note taking skills by volunteering to record key points and action items at team meetings Agendas Announcements Notes Follow up Scheduling eg doodle and follow up | Records questions/ideas Watch what user do; be in environment Questions what should be part of "MVP" Whiteboarding/ brainstorming sessions - attend Attend a User Interview & debrief with PM buddy Shadow a user while they're using the product | Understand What is Agile Able to Use Jira Board Lead weekly jira review of new cmty tickets: clear definition, triaged to the right people, labelled with relevant labels Able to create ticket Understands why regular releases are important Writes draft user stories that may not be fully clear Observes & contributes thoughts to Sprint Planning & Backlog curation Observes priotization process & contributes quesitons about priority levels Review backlog of ref app tickets Write two gherkin workflows | Release: Support drafting release notes QA: Manual workflow testing |
| /pm/2 Associate PM | Customer focus Use PUTT to communicate specifics w Team and Devs Supports PM with updates to stakeholders, can independently share updates in Squad. Learning: Reads 1-2 intro PM books. Attends 1-2 Product-related webinars or conferences. Shares & discusses articles with PM. Meets Product Manager(s) from other organizations to learn about their Product Management experience. - "Because" - Summarize the busines/user/industry needs you're hearing, and the user feedback (e.g. themes) - Identifies cultural dynamics in sharing ideas | UX: Basic Sketches (handdrawn) Persona development, User Shadowing - NIHITO, User Interviews (with PM or on their own as they get more confident) Contribute persona-based thoughts to designs Identifies in-scope for pre-defined MVP vs out of scope Whiteboarding/ brainstorming sessions - participate Can define an MVP that will add value to users & allow experimentation, without being complex Can briefly explain Style Guide & Design Systems - what they are - Wireframes - UAT: Build protocols - User Interviews: Review examples of UX testing - Referencing style guides (Material) | Dev Understanding: Basic understanding of different environments (e.g. local --> prod) Issue Tracking: Creates clear tickets with clear User Stories (& prioritizes the "why"), Organizes tickets within epics, follows up on their tickets and tries out features as their built to give team feedback. Sprints: Participates in Sprint Planning & Backlog curation led by other(s), supports with bug triage Prioritizing: Suggests priority levels based on understanding of personas & MVP goals. Calls out scope creep. Prioritizing problems basedon what you hear from users with minimal input from PM. Roadmap: Can assemble a basic roadmap for a few weeks to a few months in the future. Owns a roadmap for a product they're owning. Metrics: Suggests & ideates possible metrics for products or features they're supporting | QA: UAT, Acceptance Testing for the tickets they create, Basic understanding: What can be automated Release: Drafts release notes independently, focusing on value-added to users. Proudly share feature updates with users & team, & tie back to pain points. Marketing: Join sessions with higher level PMs to observe & contribute marketing material ideas Metrics: Identify ~2 product metrics & set up a lightweight dashboard. |
| /pm/3 Intermediate PM | Leadership: Engages their teams & colleagues around a vision & clear roadmap (Resource: Done/Now/Next) Relationships with Engineering & Design Colleagues: checks in regularly to unblock developers & designers, expresses interest in their work, looks at their work and gives feedback quickly Stakeholder Communication: Keeps users & stakeholders up-to-date, outside the OMRS community as well Voice of the User: Regularly asks and answers, "What can we do to ground this in the customer's needs?" Frequently reference personas, user stories - bring problems to life for the team. Clearly communicates key problems the team needs to solve. Roadmap: Lead creation & communication of roadmap, from 1 month to 1 year ahead User and Customer Knowledge – Is the product manager a company acknowledged expert on her target users/customers? Product Operational Knowledge – Is the product manager considered an acknowledged expert on how her product actually works? Would she be able to effectively demo to a prospective customer, train a new customer on how to successfully use, and handle live customer support inquiries? | Ownership User Interviews & User Research & more thorough with User Testing protocols User Testing, regularly communicate with Design members about findings Wireframes (PPT, Balsamiq) Build & review metrics Dashboard(s) Leads MVP roll-outs and experimentation Regularly references Style Guides & Design Systems - consistency, components Whiteboarding/ brainstorming sessions - facilitate Discuss and decide Vision with users, stakeholders, manager Business and Company Knowledge – Does the product manager understand the various dimensions of your company’s business – marketing, sales, finance (both revenue and costs), services, legal, privacy, etc.? And do the stakeholders believe that the product manager understands their concerns and constraints? | Dev Understanding: Basic understanding of CI projects & build processs Releases: Set Timelines reasonably, Communicate timelines to team & customers Sprints: Leads Sprint Planning & Backlog curation with some oversight Prioritizing: Can organize work by priority with minimal guidance. Repeatedly calls team attention to "the Big Rocks". Metrics: Plan metrics to set up & prepare to track before release | Release: Can independently create & distribute release notes --> proudly shares feature updates & communicates how the features help solve users' problems Marketing: Materials with value prop in that resonates with Personas; Strategize how /where people should hear about product Metrics: Identifies and tracks a small suite of impact metrics QA: Communicates with team about QA plan, overall product acceptance testing, idenfities some automation opportunities (Understands importance of automation for smooth and regular release) |
| /pm/4 Independent PM | Starting Management: Oversees Entry, Associate, and PM level peers Team Collaboration Skills – How effectively does the product manager work with her developers and product designer? Is it a collaborative relationship? Is there mutual respect? Is the product manager involving the developers and designer early enough and providing them direct access to customers? Is the product manager fully leveraging her team’s skills and minds? Stakeholder Management Skills – How good is the product manager at managing her stakeholders across the company? Do they feel like they have a true partner in product that is genuinely committed to their business success? Has she established mutual respect and mutual trust with each stakeholder, including the senior leadership of the company? Evangelism Skills – Is the product manager able to effectively share the product’s vision and strategy, and motivate and inspire her product team, as well as the various stakeholders and others in the company that must contribute to the product in one way or another? Leadership Skills – While the product manager may not actually manage anyone, she does need to influence and inspire people, so leadership skills are important. Is she an effective communicator and motivator? Do her team and her stakeholders look to her for leadership especially in stressful situations? | Look for ways to capture kpis Use existing metrics Workflow documentation (process diagrams, user flow diagrams) Strategic Planning Discuss and decide Vision with stakeholders strong understanding of the product risks and how to address each of them? Does she understand how to tackle risks up front, before engineers are asked to build? Does she know how to solve problems collaboratively? Does she focus on outcome? Does she understand and utilize both qualitative and quantitative techniques? Data Knowledge – Is the product manager skilled with the various data tools and considered by her product team and her stakeholders as an acknowledged expert in how the product is actually used by users? Industry and Domain Knowledge – Is the product manager knowledgeable about the industry and domain? Does she understand the competitive landscape and the relevant industry trends? | Jira management: Keeping clean and relevant Understand how to communicate needs to QA team, early Product Development Process – Does the product manager have a solid understanding of the broader product development process including discovery and delivery, as well as the product manager’s administrative responsibilities as the team’s product owner? | Knows impact metrics Success Review Shares impact Product Delivery Techniques: While the product manager’s primary responsibility is discovery, she still has an important supporting role to play in delivery. Does she understand her responsibilities to the engineers and to product marketing? Product Optimization Techniques – Once a product or new capability is live and in production, does the product manager know how to utilize optimization techniques to rapidly improve and refine her product? |
| /pm/5 Senior PM | Summarize your value prop Builds Relationship with Stakeholders Clear value prop across team: Devs, Mktng, QA | User Research QUANT: DATA INFORMED QUAL: |