Product Competency Toolkit
Build products customers can’t live without.
Master the 12 competencies that turn good product builders into remarkable ones.
For anyone building products—whether you work in product, design, engineering, or marketing, lead a team, or are building something of your own.
The complete toolkit is free. Enter your email to unlock every competency; this also subscribes you to Top 1% Builder.
Inside the toolkit
Understand the competencies, assess your shape, and put your strengths to work—for your customers, your company, and your own growth.
Section 1
Start Here
Understand the competency system, why your shape matters, and how to use the toolkit.
- How to Use This ToolkitBuild the product skills that matter in the AI era — whatever your role.
- Overview of the CompetenciesWhat great product builders do — and how AI changes the work, not the foundations.
- Product Competencies at a GlanceA quick reference to the skills behind great product work.
- About RaviThe experience behind the toolkit — from leading product teams to helping companies navigate AI.
Section 2
Product Execution
Define, build, and launch exceptional products.
- Product DefinitionThe ability to define requirements, functionality, and context in a clear, actionable form that enables humans and agents to deliver the right product.
- Product DeliveryThe ability to work with a cross-functional team to quickly and iteratively deliver product improvements that achieve established goals.
- Product QualityThe ability to set the quality bar, continuously evaluate against it, and maintain technical, functional, and business quality throughout a product’s life across all relevant platforms, markets, and use cases.
Section 3
Customer Insight
Understand and deliver on customer needs.
- Fluency with DataThe ability to turn data into actionable insights, use those insights to achieve product goals, and connect those goals to meaningful business outcomes.
- Voice of the CustomerThe ability to use customer feedback in all its forms — from casual conversations to formal studies — to understand customer needs and behavior, make better product decisions, and drive meaningful business outcomes.
- User Experience DesignThe ability to apply usability principles, design patterns, and interaction models — independently and with design partners — to make it easy for people and agents to access a product’s full value.
Section 4
Product Strategy
Drive business impact through product innovation.
- Business Outcome OwnershipThe ability to drive meaningful business outcomes by connecting product improvements to the strategic objectives of the team and the company.
- Product Vision & RoadmappingThe ability to translate company and product strategy into a compelling vision, then bring that vision to life through a roadmap of highly prioritized features and initiatives.
- Strategic ImpactThe ability to understand and contribute to the strategy for the team and the company, and to bring that strategy to fruition through the consistent delivery of business outcomes over time.
Section 5
Influencing People
Rally people around the team’s work.
- Stakeholder InclusionThe ability to build relationships with the right stakeholders, understand their requirements, and create the alignment needed to deliver the best possible product.
- Team LeadershipThe ability to manage and mentor direct reports with the goal of enabling them to successfully deliver in their areas of ownership, continuously improve against these competencies, deliver meaningful business outcomes, and achieve their career objectives.
- Managing UpThe ability to leverage senior managers and executives in the organization to help achieve goals, deliver meaningful business outcomes, and positively influence the strategic direction of the team and the company.
Section 6
What's Your Shape?
Understand your strengths and gaps, then decide where to grow.
- Take the AssessmentFind your strengths across the 12 competencies and identify where to grow.
- The Recipe for GrowthBuild on your strengths and find the people who complement them.
- Knowing Your ShapeUnderstand your strengths, your gaps, and how your shape changes as you grow.
- Product Manager ArchetypesExplore the Project Manager, People Manager, Growth Hacker, and Product Innovator shapes.
- Put Your Shape to WorkTurn insight about your shape into a focused plan for growth.
Section 7
Use the Competencies With Your Team
Apply the competencies to coaching, hiring, promotion, and team design.
- Supercharge Your 1-on-1Create a shared language for strengths, gaps, feedback, and growth priorities.
- Hire Better Product ManagersUse consistent competencies to design interview criteria and evaluate candidates.
- Make Smarter Promotion DecisionsClarify expectations by level and make promotion discussions more consistent.
- Build More Balanced TeamsCombine complementary PM shapes to match the work your product organization needs to do.
Section 8
Toolkit Resources
Use the complete matrix, worksheets, one-pager, and original guide in your own work.