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Product Management Assessment Tool
PM leaders, such as VPs or Director of Product Management, worry about the health of their teams and processes, not just the health of their products. (See my recent post on metrics.) There’s a shortage of tools to help us evaluate how well we’re doing as PM organizations.
I created this simple assessment tool based on a diagram I’ve been using for several years. The diagram highlights three key relationships for a (tech) product manager: with Development, with Marketing/Sales/Customers, and with Executives. (This point of view is not unique. See, for instance, Pragmatic Marketing’s triad model.)
This tool provides a few indicators as to whether we’re meeting our core obligations to these three groups. A fourth category pulls together indicators of good process. Simple 1-to-5 self-ratings roll up into intermediate scores and a RADAR diagram. Consider a working session for the PM team to rate itself and (safely) identify opportunities for improvement.
Comments, improvements and brickbats appreciated. Thanks to Scott Gilbert for his encouragement on this.
It is a good start on how to evaluate a team as well as self on areas to work on for improvement or focus to move to the next level of product management if you are doing a partial PM function.
Posted by Aneesh on 05/25 at 12:17 PM
Thanks for this great evaluation tool - I think it would be very helpful to any Director of PM trying to get a handle of the strengths and weaknesses of his/her team.
A minor quibble… the percentage score are skewed higher than they really are because the absolute minimum score you can get is 20% (if you answered “1” for everything).
Posted by Sue Raisty-Egami on 06/29 at 11:46 PM