The product management career framework your team deserves

Build out these 4 components in your product management career framework

This article outlines four key components of a great product management career framework. (1) Career path (2) Product management skills (3) Performance review process (4) Personal development and growth process.

This article is for you if you want to grow as a product manager, program manager, or product owner (PM). If you are already leading a team of product managers, it can help to develop your product organization and team in a scalable way.

What is a product management career framework and how can it be used for professional growth?

A career framework describes:

1. Your career path, or what career levels you or members of your team can expect to reach in an organization.
2. The skills you should expect to see at each career level (see the full product management skill book with 5 dimensions and 27 skills).
3. The performance review process: How and when are people assessed on the career framework?
4. The personal development and growth process: How your product managers will be able to grow based on your performance assessment.

I’ll give you more details about each of these dimensions later in this article.

A good career framework is the foundation for professional growth of all the product managers in your organization

There are several positive outcomes that stem from this framework if it’s used correctly. These include the following:

• successful alignment of your company’s interests and the personal development of your PMs
• better performance from your PM organization, higher quality products, better outcomes
• increased tenure of your product managers with your organization
• a bigger talent pool from which to “grow” product managers

Limitations of this career framework

Nothing works for everybody and this is also the case with this career framework. There are numerous variables — the type of business, technology, people, the whole environment — so it’s important to use your own judgment about what can work for you, your team, and your company.

In addition, establishing a career framework might not be high on your list of priorities if “product things” are not working in your organization. For example, if you are working in a large IT department instead of a dedicated technology organization; if you your priorities are handed down to you from above rather than driving your own priorities in dialogue with your stakeholders, then that should be your priority. A career framework won’t fix it.

With those provisions in mind, let’s move on and take a detailed look at each element of the framework.

1. Product management career path

What are the career levels an individual can follow in an organization?

Examples of career paths, excluding C-levels. These levels can serve as a rough guideline about how different companies compare to each other. Source: levels.fyi

The career path represents the job title measured in terms of career level. Almost all companies use some kind of hierarchy, which is also generally tied to benefits and payment. If you are an early-stage company, you won’t need all these levels. But even if you are a startup founder looking to recruit your first product manager it’s good to understand whom you are recruiting.

Problems can arise because different companies interpret product management differently so direct comparisons from one company to the next become difficult. To deal with this difficulty at Forto, we map out how the different titles and levels we use correspond to other companies. This helps us when we are recruiting from top companies and it also gives our own product managers a reference point for their own level.

For example, if you are a principal product manager at Amazon and are interested in applying to Google, you should be looking at product manager 3 or senior product manager roles.

I recommend taking a look at levels.fyi to check-out how your own company or your potential employer compare. It can be a very valuable resource during recruitment negotiations, whether you’re a recruiter or an applicant. However, if you are job hunting it’s important to keep in mind that you should use this level comparison as rough guidance only. Not all companies apply them rigorously and some business units might be more flexible with titles but less flexible with salaries. You should do everything possible to understand the scope of your potential position and then negotiate within those boundaries. If you are applying to a very large organization, ask for the grading of the position you are applying for as this will give you an exact level.

2. Product management skill set

The skills you should expect to see at each career level

The product management skill set defines the skills you expect your product managers to develop. I wrote in detail about this aspect of the career framework in a previous article, “The product management skill book,” so I won’t duplicate the information here. (It has 5 dimensions and 27 skill levels with maturity levels, all free to copy for you.) It’s enough to re-state that we use this Framework at Forto and validated it with various PMs from top companies. Skill development is a crucial piece of the career framework because product managers tend to be growth-oriented and curious people.

The special thing about this framework is the maturity levels for each career level. Maturity levels can help product managers (and their managers) to drive more conscious personal growth journeys.

This is an example of the skill “Think Customer” and the maturity levels.

3. The product management performance review process

How and when are individuals assessed on the career framework?

To setup a professional performance review process you first need to decide on the frequency of performance assessment. This should include guidance on potential promotion and salary increases. After that, there should be clear and transparent guidance on how to assess performance.

1. Frequency of performance assessment

In most companies performance reviews happen once a year. Opportunities for promotion usually depend on the respective departments and on the situation of the person in question.

At Forto, we have performance reviews twice a year. Everybody gets a comprehensive performance review, but not everybody gets promoted or receives a salary increase each time. This depends on what stage of the career path they are on. For example, we have salary reviews every 12 months (we also make adjustments based on market compensation), while opportunities for promotion are less frequent and depend on targets and results as well as personal development.

2. How to assess PM performance:

This is a complex task and needs a careful approach. However, in the interests of keeping this particular article short I’ve provided just a short overview of the process. It will be the topic of a later article.

• Impact: What did the PM achieve for the company?
• PM skills & development: Does the employee develop their skill-set to ensure repeatable performances & successes?
• Scope and complexity: How hard is the problem space the PM is working in? Is the challenge appropriate to the career level of the employee?

Avoid this ;) Source: https://dilbert.com/

4. The personal development/growth process

How your product managers will be able to grow based on your performance assessment.

It may seem like an obvious thing to say, but defining a clear personal development and growth process ensures that people actually grow. It is there to make sure product managers can improve their skills, broaden the scope of their work and increase the impact they have through their products. It’s only through personal growth that people can move ahead on their career path and start the cycle again. There are four main steps to the process.

Set personal development goals

The first step of the personal development and growth process is to conduct a full performance review, including the skill set. After this, setting personal development goals should be easy. It’s important to be clear about the top areas an employee should tackle in the next 6–12 months. This should be a dialogue where priorities can be set and agreed on by the product manager and his or her line manager.

Actively develop opportunities for personal growth & development

This is the responsibility of both the product manager and his or her manager. People must be given the right opportunities in order to develop their skills. For instance, if someone in your team wants to learn how to support recruitment then they should, for example, learn how to conduct interviews. Both the PM and line manager should share this commitment.

Regular personal development chats

Feedback should be provided regularly. Saving feedback for the performance feedback process and metaphorically slapping people in the face with their mistakes of the previous 6 or 12 months is not good practice. Instead, give specific evidence-based feedback as soon as possible.

Susie, thank you again for your presentation yesterday. I noticed your stakeholders seemed to be missing the higher-level context of this meeting. They were asking a lot of clarifying questions. How could you optimize preparation with your stakeholders in the future?

Training

If you are serious about the growth of your team you must provide them with training that compliments learning on the job. There are no rational excuses for not doing this. Finding the money to do this can be a challenge for some companies, but there are ways around this.

• Startup without funds: as a startup company you will be short of funds. Instead you can set aside time for personal development. Resources such as Medium are invaluable to give people opportunities to learn something new.
• If there is a little bit of money available: your product managers could invest it wisely in one of the many courses provided by Udemy. Courses on product management or communication, for example, can often be found for as little as US$9.99. In addition, the more senior and experienced people could provide training to your more junior people. It will help them to codify their know-how, make them better managers, and level up your organization.
• In a bigger, more established company: money will be available for training. You can think about leveraging external coaches, coaching programs, or even build your own training organization.

Whatever approach is used, the fundamental of good training remain the same — it should be focused on important dimensions for personal development and should translate into action in everyday work. There is no point in having a training day and then going back to doing things the way they were.

Summary

This article covers a full product management career framework with 4 components:

1. Career Path
2. Skill Set
3. Performance Review Process
4. Personal Development Process

This career path can help you develop personally, challenge your manager to improve your product organization or framework or build your own great product organization.