Developing Strong Product Managers

Marty Cagan argues that product leaders must actively develop their product managers, since strong teams are essential and people leave managers rather than companies. He presents a gap-analysis tool for ongoing skills assessment, where each dimension gets two ratings: how important the skill is for a role and how well the person currently performs it. Skills are grouped into knowledge, process skills, and individual skills, with suggested importance weights for a mid-level PM that managers should adjust by level, culture, and product. The development plan focuses on the top three gaps, reviewed at least monthly, and he suggests that annual performance reviews are of little use for real development.

01Key takeaways

• Treat developing product managers as a core leadership responsibility, since talented people leave weak managers.
• Rate each skill on both how important it is for the role and how strong the person currently is.
• Adjust importance weights to your culture, industry, product, and seniority level rather than using defaults.
• Focus development efforts on the three largest gaps before moving to lesser ones.
• Review development progress with each PM at least monthly, and update the assessment as skills grow.
• Use the framework to show PMs what the next level requires so they can prepare for promotion.

02Key sections

Why Developing PMs Is Urgent

Cagan stresses that product leaders must invest in their teams because competitors will hire talent that is not developed. He notes that people join companies but leave managers.

Gap-Analysis Skills Assessment

Each skill is rated on importance and current ability on a 0-10 scale, grouped into knowledge, process, and individual skills. The importance weights are a starting point for managers to tailor.

Development Plan

Managers pick the largest gaps, usually the top three, and define training, reading, or exercises to close them. Once gaps close, the same framework shows what the next level requires.

Cadence and Coaching

Managers should meet with each PM at least monthly to review progress and adjust ratings, with strong managers meeting weekly.

Relation to Annual Reviews

Cagan finds typical annual reviews focused on compliance and pay rather than growth. Active ongoing development makes the annual review far easier.

03From the post

“A partnership dedicated to teaching best practices to product teams and product leaders”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.