Defining “Good”: A Guide to Competency Levels
What does it mean to be “good” at something? This can be a tough question to answer. But if you’re trying to coach your product managers on their professional development, it’s essential to help them conduct an accurate self-assessment.
In a team setting, product managers may also be inclined to benchmark themselves against their peers. Sophia Höfling, Head of Product at Babbel explains that this was what the PMs on her team tended to do until she stepped in. Trying to benchmark yourself against peers may be tempting, but it can easily lead you astray. Professional development is a personal journey, not one that’s dependent on the skills of the people you happen to work with at the moment.
That’s why I’m sharing this guide to competency levels. It will help your team members to rate themselves with more honesty and self-awareness. You can use these competency levels on their own or in tandem with another tool like the PMwheel.
The Competency Levels
I have basic knowledge about the topic (e.g. I’ve read blog posts, seen a talk, chatted with colleagues, or attended a training on it)
I understand and have applied it once
I have applied it in various settings (e.g. on various teams, for various products, in different companies).
I'm known for this skill (Others are reaching out to me regarding this, I can give feedback to others).
I can help others to build this muscle as well and teach them how to apply it.
I'm able to create new frameworks and I’m known as a thought leader in this field.
Now let’s dig in with a more specific example. If the topic is user interviews, here’s how you would interpret each level.
The PM has read about user interviews and knows that they are a thing.
The PM has prepared and conducted user interviews once and has worked with the insights.
The PM has run several rounds of user interviews for two different products and three different user groups.
This PM is the ONE person everyone asks if they want to conduct user interviews to pick their brain on how to set them up. They’re able to share best practices.
This PM is THE go-to person when new colleagues need to be onboarded. They run trainings for other departments so that they understand the value of user interviews.
This PM came up with their own framework to work with the customer insights and now the whole company is using this framework. They are even sharing it at conferences.
I hope this framework makes your coaching conversations with your product managers much easier to manage. And if you’d like to further develop your product leadership skills, I offer a range of coaching packages for product leaders. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch!