My (Highly Opinionated) Guide to Product Maturity Assessment
Should you run a product maturity assessment for your product org? This is a topic on the minds of many product leaders, but it’s not as simple as a yes or no answer. There are reasons why you might want to conduct a product maturity assessment as well as risks for doing so.
In this post, I'll provide a comprehensive (and admittedly opinionated) overview of various assessment tools and approaches available in the market. My goal is to help you decide whether an assessment is really the right step for your product org, and if so, to give you a few ideas of how to move forward.
Weighing the Opportunities and Challenges of Product Maturity Assessments
Are assessments inherently good or bad? The answer is… it’s complicated! Assessments can be a helpful tool for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your product organization or product team, but they also carry certain risks.
Before starting an assessment, it's crucial to have a clear "desired ultimate" goal in mind. Good questions to ask are:
Why do you think an assessment is a good idea?
What do you want to use the results for?
Are you looking for external validation for your ways of working or org setup?
Looking for advice regarding efficiency gains or cost-saving suggestions?
Looking for benchmarking against other product organizations? If so, what do you want to assess your product organization or product people against?
There are many different ways to run a product organization, and it's essential to understand the context in which your organization operates. For example, does your company believe in empowered teams that can work on their own product strategy, own the business side of the product, and decide which opportunities to pursue in order to achieve their goals? Or do you run feature teams aka feature factory hell?
While pre-scripted assessments can offer valuable insights, they may not always capture the unique nuances and intricacies of your product organization. As a product coach myself, I believe that the advantage of working with external coaches lies in their ability to gain a more in-depth understanding of your organization and its specific context. And when companies are receptive to the observations and recommendations provided by external coaches and act upon them, they can bring about meaningful improvements in a manner that is less likely to have negative consequences.
I’ll be honest: I'm not a huge fan of pre-scripted assessments. I've seen too many of these assessments not landing well with employees. The beauty of working with external coaches is that they get a much more detailed impression of your organization, which can lead to better outcomes if you pay attention to their observations and recommendations and act on them.
Yet there are some cases when it makes sense to use an external assessment. External validation can help Product Leads to underpin the things that they are already seeing and saying but don’t seem to be catching on or capturing the attention of the rest of the org. It can strengthen your own arguments and be your amplifier as a leader. Or it can help the organization to become more self-aware. Individuals within organizations tend to fall victim to the "illusory superiority bias," also called "above-average effect." This occurs when they overestimate their team's abilities and leads to everyone becoming too comfortable with the status quo. It's problematic because it hinders further learning and development.
With this in mind, here's a list of some product maturity and skill assessments that you can explore. Remember: These assessments should be used as a starting point and adapted to fit the unique context and goals of your organization.
One note on Agile Maturity Assessments and other Software Development Process Assessments: I want to acknowledge that Agile Maturity Assessments and other Software Development Process Assessments exist and can be generally helpful in evaluating your organization's agility and development processes. Some of these assessments may touch on the product roles, but from my experience, none of them do so in an extensive, sufficient way. These assessments primarily focus on the software development process itself, and while product roles are integral to this process, they often don't receive the level of attention they deserve in these assessments.
One such assessment that I've used and found valuable is the "Prosci Agility Attributes Assessment." However, I’d caution that even assessments like this one may not fully address the complexities and nuances of product roles and their impact on your organization's overall performance.
Product Maturity Assessments on the Org Level
First, it’s helpful to understand that there are two broad categories of assessments. There are the ones other consultants or coaches will use to assess your organization and the ones that either external parties or product leads themselves can use to get more clarity on the “state of the product nation.” Since there are countless coaches out there, each with their own assessments, I won’t attempt to list all of them here. Just know that they exist and if you’re interested, you can spend some time exploring their individual offerings.
Now onto the ones I’ve seen being used by my clients:
Productboard's Five Levels of Product Excellence Maturity - This article outlines a framework that helps product teams understand your current level of maturity in product excellence, providing guidance on the necessary steps to move from one level to the next and achieve product success.
Productboard's Five Levels of Product Excellence Maturity
Product Management Maturity Model (PMMM) - Developed by the 280 Group, the PMMM evaluates your organization's maturity level across several dimensions, including product strategy, product planning, product development, and product lifecycle management.
AIPMM (Association of International Product Marketing & Management) Product Management Maturity Model - This model evaluates organizations' product management capabilities across several key areas, including strategy, execution, and organization.
Product Maturity Matrix - This assessment tool focuses on identifying strengths and weaknesses in product management processes, helping your organization to prioritize improvement initiatives and track your progress over time.
Product Maturity Matrix
John Cutler's Work - Though not a singular assessment, John Cutler offers numerous valuable perspectives on product management through his Twitter account and blog posts/newsletter. His insights cover various aspects of product management, ranging from practical tips and strategies to thought-provoking ideas that help product professionals reflect on their work and grow in their roles. Following John Cutler can provide product teams with a well-rounded understanding of the product landscape and inspire you to continuously improve.
Not a full assessment but a helpful framing - John Cutler’s Team Boundary Chart.
One big caveat: While the assessments listed above provide valuable insights into various aspects of product management maturity, they may not extensively cover certain crucial "human skills" such as:
psychological safety
good feedback culture, or
moral and ethics in software development.
These skills play a pivotal role in creating a thriving and effective product organization. It is essential for product leaders to be aware of these areas and ensure that they don't fall through the cracks while working towards building a high-performing product team. Addressing these critical human aspects will help you foster a more inclusive, resilient, and innovative product organization.
Product Maturity Assessments on the People Level
Another option is to assess individual product people on your team. As with the org-level assessments, you might enlist the help of an external coach or you as a product leader could run these assessments. If you’re interested in learning more about people development for product managers, check out my book, STRONG Product People, where I cover this topic in much more depth!
The PMwheel - The PMwheel is a comprehensive assessment tool (created by yours truly, Petra Wille!) that evaluates product managers' skills across eight dimensions, including customer understanding, strategy, execution, and leadership. I’ve also created a ton of resources to help you make the most of this tool. Check them out here.
Marty Cagan's Guide to Developing Strong Product Managers - This article by Marty Cagan provides insights and advice on how to develop and grow strong product managers.
Shaun Russell's adaptation of the Spotify model - This adaptation of the Spotify model presents a skills matrix for product managers, highlighting key competencies and areas for improvement.
Mind the Product's Product Management Skills Benchmark - This online assessment tool evaluates an individual's product management skills and provides personalized feedback based on their responses. The assessment covers areas such as product strategy, execution, and leadership.
Mind the Product's Product Skills Toolkit - This toolkit provides resources, guides, and assessments to help product managers develop their skills and capabilities.
Product School's Product Management Skills Assessment - This tool evaluates product management skills across various dimensions, including product vision, market research, product development, and go-to-market strategy.
Product Manager HQ's Self-Assessment - This resource includes a list of questions to help product managers assess their skills and identify areas for improvement. The self-assessment covers various aspects of product management such as customer discovery, product validation, and data-driven decision-making.
A Product Manager's Guide to Growing Yourself and Your Team - This guide helps product managers assess their skills and strengths, as well as identify areas for growth within their team.
The PM Daisy - The PM Daisy is a visual model that represents the various skills required of product managers, helping them understand their strengths and weaknesses.
FYI, while I generally recommend using my tool, the PMwheel, people occasionally ask me for alternatives, so I’ve been keeping a running list of these assessments in this blog post. But there may be other product maturity and skill assessments available on the market that aren’t included here. I recommend spending some time conducting thorough research and exploring various options to find the assessment that best aligns with your organization’s unique context and objectives.
Conclusion - Making the Most of Product Assessments
When embarking on a product maturity or skill assessment journey, your goal is to get as much value as possible out of the process. You could either work with an external party (a consultancy agency or a product coach), work with external or agile coaches, or conduct the assessment yourself by using the frameworks mentioned in this post.
Working with an experienced product coach (learn more about the different types of coaching here) can help you define "what good looks like" for your product organization and the capabilities of your product people. Their expertise can guide you in crafting an assessment that's best suited to your organization's unique needs and context.
Before initiating an assessment, you’ll also want to ensure that you and all participants and stakeholders involved have the necessary bandwidth to act on the findings. This includes dedicating resources to proper change management and addressing any identified areas of improvement. Remember: Assessments are only as valuable as the actions taken in response to their insights.
Finally, when conducting an assessment, involve the right people in the process. Embrace collaboration and self-organization by including the teams and individuals who will be directly impacted by the assessment's outcomes. This inclusive approach can foster a sense of ownership and commitment to making positive changes within your organization.
By keeping these considerations in mind, you can maximize the benefits of product maturity and skill assessments and actually drive meaningful improvements within your product organization.
Want to explore how I might be able to help your product org navigate this process? Get in touch and let’s chat about it!