Leaders are driven to hit ambitious goals, scale businesses, and deliver results. But in the pursuit to achieve these outcomes, one critical aspect often gets overlooked: the growth and development of the people driving the progress.
Without clarity in roles, responsibilities, and expectations, questions start to arise:
How can I grow and advance here?
Am I meeting expectations?
What does success in this role look like?
When answers on these questions are vague, confusion sets in—leading to misalignment, inefficiencies in hiring, or disappointment during performance evaluations.
A competency matrix is a simple and practical solution. It helps align expectations, improve communication, and support both individual and team growth.
What Is a Competency Matrix
A competency matrix is a tool that maps the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required across roles within a job family. It provides a clear structure for hiring, performance evaluations, and career progression.
For example, a product management competency matrix might outline the progression from an Associate Product Manager to Chief Product Officer. It defines not only the skills needed at each level but also the broader competencies like strategy, leadership, and stakeholder management.
Why You Need a Competency Matrix
A competency matrix brings a few key benefits: Fair Evaluations, Spotting Skill Gaps and Improved Hiring.
Especially for product teams, where roles often differ between organizations, this framework can make a big difference. It aligns expectations and ensures everyone—from leaders to new hires—knows what success looks like.
How to Create a PM Competency Matrix
Here's how to create a competency matrix.
1. Identify Job Families and Seniority Levels
If you are building a competency matrix for your team, first start by defining the job families in your team. What job families do you identify? What are the progression levels for each of them?
Here are some examples of job families and their seniority levels:
Product Management — Associate PM → PM → Senior PM → Director of product → CPO
Product design — Junior Designer → Designer, Senior designer, Director of Design
Engineering: Junior Engineer → Engineer → Senior Engineer → Engineering Manager → CTO
A competency matrix refers to a specific job family.
2. Define Core Competencies
Now let’s get into the heart of building a competency matrix: defining the core competencies for the product management (PM) family.
What makes a competency?
A competency is more than just a skill—it’s a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors required to perform a role effectively. While skills are often technical or task-specific, competencies focus on how those skills are applied in real business contexts.
For example:
Skill: Using a roadmapping tool.
Competency: Product strategy and roadmapping—combining tools, vision, and decision-making to deliver a meaningful product plan.
Approach This Thoughtfully.
Creating a list of competencies isn’t something to rush. It should reflect your organization’s values and expectations for success at every level.
Collaborate with Stakeholders: Engage with team leads, peers, and leadership to align on what matters most. Competencies should reflect not just the role but also the culture and goals of the organization.
What does our organization value?
What do you expect from PMs at each level?
What baseline skills, behaviors, and mindsets are essential for success?
Keep It Flexible: Allow room for flexibility and iteration as your team evolves. If you review it in a few weeks, you’ll likely spot points to improve.
Here’s an example of eight competencies for the product management job family, classified in four categories: Strategy, People, Process, and Pproduct:
Note that some competencies, like product strategy and roadmapping, are unique to the product management job family. Others, such as leadership and stakeholder management, are more universal and apply across multiple job families, including both product management and engineering.
3. Build the Competency Matrix
If you're confident in the chosen competencies, it's time to build the competency matrix. This involves mapping out the responsibilities and proficiency levels required for each competency across different seniority levels.
Here’s a glimpse of what it could look like:
For the full Product Management Competency Matrix, including a downloadable Excel version, scroll to the end of this post.
How to Use a Competency Matrix
Now that you’ve built your competency matrix, it’s time to turn it into a practical tool that drives growth, alignment, and better decision-making. Here’s how to put it to work effectively:
1. Personal Evaluations
Most organizations already have a process for performance evaluation and development. Integrate the competency matrix in the existing process to make it more actionable.
Map Individual Progress: Assess where each team member stands within the matrix.
Are there gaps holding them back from achieving their goals?
Do these areas of improvement align with their aspirations?
Bring It to 1:1s: Use the matrix as a foundation for open discussions. Instead of vague feedback, you’ll have a structured framework to:
Highlight strengths.
Address areas for improvement.
Agree on next steps for growth.
Buy-In Is Key: Without the team’s agreement and engagement, the matrix risks becoming a checkbox exercise. Focus on collaboration, not just evaluation. When the process feels fair and actionable, it becomes a tool for empowerment rather than judgment.
2. Identifying Team Gaps
The matrix isn’t just for individuals—it’s a powerful tool to identify gaps at the team level.
Use these insights to address gaps. Consider targeted training, mentoring, or hiring for new roles.
Map the Team: Assess the current skills and competencies of your team against the matrix:
Are there key skills missing in the team in critical areas?
Are there gaps that could limit your ability to scale?
Define Actions: Use these insights to address gaps.
Invest in targeted training or mentorship programs.
Use the matrix to identify roles that could fill these gaps.
3. Improve Your Hiring Process
Try using your competency matrix in the hiring process. It will bring clarity and structure at every stage.
Before the Interview: Use the matrix to define exactly what you’re looking for in a candidate. This keeps the process focused on what truly matters for the role.
During the Interview: Use the matrix as a live guide to evaluate candidates:
Map their skills, behaviors, and experience against the required competencies.
Ask questions to assess how well they meet key expectations.
When candidates ask, “How can I grow in this role?” use the matrix to outline a clear growth path.
After the Interview: Use the matrix to align stakeholders on the candidate’s suitability. A shared framework reduces bias and ensures consistency.
How a Competency Matrix Helped Us Hire
When I introduced a new role to address a critical gap on my team, it quickly turned out to be more challenging than expected.
The role was highly collaborative, requiring coordination across multiple teams within the organization. Naturally, stakeholders from various departments were eager to provide their input in the hiring process, which added layers of complexity.
Finding the right candidate was difficult, but a deeper issue surfaced: a lack of clarity and alignment.
Each stakeholder had a different interpretation of the role’s responsibilities.
Finding a candidate who met everyone’s expectations was nearly impossible.
The misalignment was slowing the process down for everyone involved.
We introduced a competency matrix. It pushed us to revisit and refine the role’s requirements, clarify the key competencies, and formalize the position’s growth potential. The matrix became the foundation for a more aligned, efficient, and effective hiring process.
Here’s what changed:
Improved clarity: Everyone gained a clear understanding of the role’s expectations, purpose, and growth path.
Structured interviews: Discussions with candidates became more focused, consistent, and aligned with key competencies.
Aligned evaluations: Stakeholders assessed candidates using the same criteria, leading to better and faster decision-making.
Practical tips: Make your Competency Matrix a Living Tool
When used the right way, a competency matrix can be a powerful asset. But if it’s treated as a “check-the-box” exercise, its value quickly fades.
Keep it relevant, actionable, and impactful with these practical tips:
Use It as a Guide, Not a Box
The matrix is a tool—not a rigid rulebook. Respect individual talents and unique profiles.
Exceptional candidates and team members often don’t check all boxes but they have exceptional unique skills that can bring immense value.
Use the matrix to guide decisions, not to limit them.
Keep It Fresh: Regular Updates
Teams evolve, companies grow, and priorities shift. To stay relevant, revisit the matrix periodically. Every iteration is an opportunity to improve.
When to review it?
When new roles are introduced.
When teams expand.
When the business or strategy changes.
Involve Teams for Alignment
Engage relevant stakeholders to ensure alignment, especially for competencies that overlap across job families or teams (e.g., leadership or stakeholder management). While expectations for roles differ, basic ground rules should apply across the organization.
For example:
Leading a team of engineers should compare reasonably to leading a team of designers or analysts. While the specifics may differ, the core expectations should align.
Stay Aware of Industry Trends
Every company is unique, but benchmarking against industry practices keeps your matrix grounded.
Is your “Director of Product” role in line with similar companies at your scale?
Are you using language that resonates with both internal and external audiences?
Follow the trends to make the role understandable and appealing for both internal and external hires.
Share the Matrix
Make the matrix accessible to your team so they know what’s expected from them and how they can grow.
Sharing it also opens the door to valuable feedback, allowing you to refine and ensure it remains relevant.
Use Tools That Work For You
The matrix is quite simple, so there’s no need to use any advanced tooling.
Excel, Google Sheets, Miro, or Confluence, anything works perfectly well.
Choose what’s already accepted and familiar in your organization. Most important is to ensure adoption of the tool.
To Wrap Up
A structured approach to people development demonstrates maturity and professionalism.
If you’ve relied on gut feeling only when hiring or promoting, introducing a competency matrix can make a difference. It brings clarity for you, clarity for your team, and clarity for new hires.
That said, remember: the matrix is a guide, not a rulebook.
Exceptional people don’t fit into predefined boxes — their strengths and weaknesses are unique. This is what sets them apart.
Keep room for flexibility and let your talent shine.
Originally published at https://blog.logrocket.com/ on December 27, 2024.
📥 Download the Full Product Management Competency Matrix in Excel Format
This detailed matrix includes all the core competencies, progression levels, responsibilities and actionable examples (Available for paid subscribers).
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