deanpeters/product-manager-skills▌

Six-frame visual narrative that guides stakeholders through a user's problem-to-solution journey. \n \n Follows a classic storytelling arc: introduce character, escalate problem, trigger urgency, reveal solution, show breakthrough, and illustrate improved outcome \n Designed for alignment meetings, feature pitches, and concept validation rather than UI mockups or technical documentation \n Requires upfront clarity on persona, problem statement, and solution definition; includes seven guided ques

Systematic macro-environmental analysis across political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal forces. \n \n Structured six-factor framework (PESTEL) for identifying external opportunities and threats that could impact product strategy, market entry, or roadmap decisions \n Includes step-by-step guidance for scoping analysis, evaluating each factor with specific examples, and synthesizing insights into actionable strategic recommendations \n Designed for strategic planning h

Structured discovery cycle from problem hypothesis to validated solution, orchestrating framing, interviews, synthesis, and experiments. \n \n Guides product managers through six phases over 3–4 weeks: frame the problem, plan research, conduct customer interviews, synthesize insights, generate and validate solutions, and make go/no-go decisions \n Emphasizes continuous discovery practice (1 interview per week) rather than one-time research projects, with decision points between phases to pivot o

Match prioritization frameworks to your product stage, team context, and decision-making needs. \n \n Guides you through four adaptive questions about product maturity, team structure, stakeholder alignment, and data availability to recommend the right framework (RICE, ICE, Value/Effort, Kano, or others) \n Explains when each framework excels and when it fails, with implementation steps and scoring templates \n Helps avoid \"framework whiplash\" by matching approach to context rather than applyi

Orchestrate positioning, discovery, and roadmap planning into a validated product strategy in 2-4 weeks. \n \n Guides teams through six structured phases: positioning and market context, problem framing and validation, solution exploration, prioritization and roadmap planning, stakeholder alignment, and execution planning \n Includes decision points after problem validation and solution exploration to adapt the workflow based on uncertainty; skip discovery or experiments if assumptions are alrea

Geoffrey Moore positioning framework for clarifying target, need, category, and competitive differentiation. \n \n Structures positioning into two parts: a value proposition (for [target] that needs [problem], [product] is a [category] that [benefit]) and a differentiation statement (unlike [competitor], [product] provides [unique outcome]) \n Forces specificity on target customer, underserved need, product category, and outcome-focused benefits rather than feature lists \n Includes stress-testi

Structured discovery interview planning with adaptive methodology selection based on research goals and constraints. \n \n Guides product managers through four adaptive questions to define research goals, target segments, access constraints, and interview methodology \n Generates tailored interview frameworks with 5+ context-specific questions, follow-ups, and bias-avoidance guidance for each methodology (Mom Test, Jobs-to-be-Done, switch interviews, timeline mapping) \n Includes opening/closing

Structured canvas for evaluating AI product ideas across outcomes, hypotheses, risks, and positioning. \n \n Synthesizes 10 strategic components: business outcomes, customer outcomes, problem framing, solution hypotheses, positioning, assumptions, PESTEL risks, value justification, success metrics, and next steps \n Designed for AI-specific uncertainty; treats solutions as testable bets rather than commitments, with lightweight \"Tiny Acts of Discovery\" experiments built in \n Outcome-driven fr

Diagnostic onboarding protocol for VP and CPO transitions, structured as three phases of learning before action. \n \n Phases 1-2 (Months 1-2) focus on building an evidence base through interviews, pattern-matching, and reality-checking with your manager before making decisions \n Phase 3 (Month 3) begins acting on evidence: sharing your organizational assessment, establishing strategic direction, and addressing people situations with clear rationale \n Emphasizes the consultant mindset—observe

Structured market sizing framework for TAM, SAM, and SOM with adaptive questions and citation-backed estimates. \n \n Guides product managers through four adaptive questions covering problem space, geography, industry segments, and target customers to build defensible market size estimates \n Generates citation-backed TAM/SAM/SOM analysis with population estimates, industry data sources, and year-by-year projections grounded in Census Bureau, IBISWorld, Statista, and similar sources \n Includes

Evaluate acquisition channels by unit economics, customer quality, and scalability to decide whether to scale, test, or kill. \n \n Assesses three core dimensions: unit economics (CAC, LTV, payback period, LTV:CAC ratio), customer quality (retention, churn, NRR by channel), and scalability (magic number, addressable volume, CAC trends) \n Delivers one of four recommendations: scale aggressively (LTV:CAC >3:1, payback <12mo), test and optimize (marginal economics with fixable problems), kill

Diagnose whether your AI workflows are context stuffing or context engineering, then implement structured practices to improve output quality. \n \n Distinguishes between context stuffing (volume-based) and context engineering (structure-based), with five diagnostic questions to identify Context Hoarding Disorder \n Guides two-layer memory architecture: short-term conversational memory plus long-term persistent memory via vector databases for semantic retrieval \n Implements the Research→Plan→Re

Facilitate a structured workshop to map customer journeys, identify pain points, and align teams on experience improvements. \n \n Guides you through five adaptive questions covering persona selection, scenario definition, journey phases, actions/emotions/thoughts per phase, and opportunity prioritization \n Generates a complete journey map artifact with 4–6 phases, customer emotions and pain points per phase, and 5–7 ranked improvement opportunities tied to specific phases \n Designed for disco

Structured problem framing workshop using MITRE's three-phase canvas to challenge assumptions before solutioning. \n \n Guides teams through Look Inward (examine biases and assumptions), Look Outward (understand who experiences the problem and who's been left out), and Reframe (synthesize into actionable problem statement and \"How Might We\" question) \n Surfaces overlooked stakeholders, marginalized voices, and who benefits from the problem existing, ensuring equity-driven framing \n Produces

Guide Directors and senior product leaders through the specific challenges of the transition to VP or CPO using adaptive questions and targeted coaching. Diagnoses where you are in the journey and delivers practical, lived-experience coaching calibrated to your situation — not generic executive advice.

Guide PMs and Directors through the specific challenges of the PM-to-Director transition using adaptive questions and targeted coaching. Diagnoses where you are in the journey and delivers practical, war-story-backed guidance calibrated to your situation — not generic leadership advice.

Defines the two-axis mental model that distinguishes Director-level thinking from PM thinking: Altitude (how wide you zoom out) and Horizon (how far ahead you look). Use this to understand what actually changes in the transition, diagnose which transition zone is creating friction, and apply the Cascading Context Map when organizational direction is vague or absent.

Match the cheapest prototype to your hypothesis, not your tooling comfort. \n \n Guides you through five Proof of Life probe types (Feasibility Check, Task-Focused Test, Narrative Prototype, Synthetic Data Simulation, Vibe-Coded PoL) based on your specific risk and learning goal \n Uses adaptive questioning to identify your core validation question, then recommends the method that eliminates risk fastest without overbuilding \n Includes success criteria templates, timeline estimates, and disposa

Lightweight validation framework for testing risky hypotheses before expensive product development. \n \n Defines five prototype flavors (feasibility checks, task-focused tests, narrative prototypes, synthetic data simulations, vibe-coded probes) matched to specific learning goals, not tooling preference \n Emphasizes disposability and narrow scope: PoL probes are reconnaissance missions meant to surface harsh truths and be deleted, not scaled into MVPs \n Includes fill-in template with hypothes

Craft empathetic End-of-Life announcements that maintain customer trust during product discontinuation. \n \n Structured framework covering company context, rationale, customer impact, transition solution, support measures, and timeline to prevent confusion and reduce churn \n Emphasizes customer-benefit-focused messaging over business-centric justifications, with explicit acknowledgment of disruption before positioning change as progress \n Includes anti-patterns section (terse shutdowns, vague

Transform rough notes and workshop content into validated, repo-compliant PM skills. \n \n Guides you through six phases: preflight search, draft generation, tightening, strict validation, repo integration, and optional packaging \n Enforces a strict definition of done including frontmatter validity, metadata limits (name ≤64 chars, description ≤200 chars), and section compliance \n Provides three creation paths: guided wizard for ideas, content-first generator for existing source material, and

One-page facilitation tool for framing business problems, surfacing assumptions, and defining learning experiments before building. \n \n Guides teams through 8 adaptive questions (one per canvas box) covering business problem, outcomes, users, benefits, solutions, hypotheses, riskiest assumptions, and smallest experiments \n Combines assumptions from multiple boxes into testable hypotheses using the template: \"We believe [business outcome] will be achieved if [user] attains [benefit] with [sol

Assess whether your product work is AI-first or genuinely AI-shaped, and prioritize which capability to build next. \n \n Evaluates your maturity across 5 essential PM competencies: Context Design, Agent Orchestration, Outcome Acceleration, Team-AI Facilitation, and Strategic Differentiation \n Distinguishes between efficiency gains (AI-first: automating existing tasks faster) and transformation (AI-shaped: redesigning how teams operate around AI as co-intelligence) \n Identifies foundational ga

Write customer-focused press releases before building to align stakeholders on product vision. \n \n Follows Amazon's Working Backwards methodology: start with a press release and FAQ before engineering begins, forcing clarity on customer value and problem solved \n Structured template covers headline, problem statement, solution (outcomes not features), executive quote, supporting details, and call to action \n Serves as a planning and alignment tool, not a launch-day marketing document; helps

Fast lookup table for 30+ SaaS finance metrics, formulas, benchmarks, and red flags. \n \n Covers four metric families: Revenue & Growth, Unit Economics, Capital Efficiency, and Efficiency Ratios, each with formula, benchmark, and red flag \n Includes four decision frameworks for feature investment, channel scaling, pricing changes, and business health assessment by stage \n Organized for speed: scan the reference table, check red flags by category, apply the relevant framework to your deci

Structured workshop to discover and articulate product positioning through guided questions about target customers, unmet needs, category, benefits, and differentiation. \n \n Runs an interactive 5-question discovery process that outputs a Geoffrey Moore positioning statement backed by strategic choices, not guesses \n Adapts questions based on product context (B2B vs. B2C, new product vs. repositioning) and gathers evidence from marketing materials, customer feedback, and competitive intel befo

Structure epics as testable hypotheses with explicit assumptions, lightweight experiments, and measurable success criteria. \n \n Uses an if/then format to articulate the action, target persona, expected outcome, and validation method, making product assumptions explicit before committing to full build-out \n Emphasizes \"tiny acts of discovery\" experiments (prototypes, concierge tests, landing pages) that validate hypotheses in days or weeks, not months \n Defines falsifiable success criteria

Interactive workshop that transforms flat backlogs into visual story maps organized by user workflow and release priority. \n \n Guides product managers through five adaptive questions to define scope, identify users, generate backbone activities, prioritize user tasks, and plan release slices \n Produces a two-dimensional map with horizontal narrative flow (activities left-to-right) and vertical priority (must-have to nice-to-have top-to-bottom) \n Identifies the walking skeleton—minimal end-to

Structured one-step-at-a-time facilitation pattern for interactive workshops and guided sessions. \n \n Supports three entry modes: Guided (single question per turn), Context Dump (paste known details and skip redundancies), and Best Guess (infer missing context with labeled assumptions) \n Provides real-time progress visibility with labels like Context Qx/8 and Scoring Qx/5 , plus enumerated recommendations only at decision points to avoid interaction drag \n Handles flexible multi-select respo

Evaluate SaaS unit economics and capital efficiency to determine if your business model can scale sustainably. \n \n Covers 15+ metrics across unit economics (CAC, LTV, payback, gross margin), capital efficiency (burn rate, runway, Rule of 40), and GTM performance (magic number, operating leverage) \n Includes segment-specific analysis templates and quality checks for each metric to catch common pitfalls like high LTV:CAC ratios masking poor payback periods \n Designed for PMs to make scaling de

Structured template for creating hypothesis-driven user personas from available research and stakeholder knowledge. \n \n Synthesizes existing user research, market data, and team insights into a working customer profile without requiring months of validation \n Includes step-by-step guidance for defining persona identity, voice, context, and decision-making influences with quality checks at each stage \n Designed to align teams early, guide initial design decisions, and explicitly surface assum

Evaluate financial impact of pricing changes using ARPU, conversion, churn, and payback analysis. \n \n Quantifies revenue lift, conversion risk, churn impact, and CAC payback for price increases, new tiers, add-ons, usage-based pricing, discounts, and packaging changes \n Models three scenarios (conservative, base, optimistic) and identifies go/no-go decisions with supporting math \n Recommends implementation, A/B testing, modified approaches, or holding pricing based on net revenue impact and

Structure vague product requests into validated opportunities and testable solutions before building. \n \n Guides teams through a five-question discovery process: extract desired outcome, identify customer problems (opportunities), generate solution ideas, evaluate feasibility and impact, and select a proof-of-concept to test first \n Prevents \"feature factory\" syndrome by forcing divergence across multiple opportunities and solutions before converging on what to build \n Outputs a structured

Break down large epics into vertical-slice user stories using Humanizing Work's 9 splitting patterns. \n \n Guides product managers through sequential pattern application (workflow steps, CRUD operations, business rules, data variations, UI methods, major effort, simple/complex, performance deferral, and spikes) to identify which pattern fits \n Validates epics against INVEST criteria before splitting to ensure stories are independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, and testable \n Generates e

Evaluate feature investments using revenue impact, cost structure, ROI, and strategic value. \n \n Guides product managers through a structured 4-step assessment: revenue connection (direct monetization, retention, conversion, expansion), cost structure (dev + COGS + OpEx), constraint evaluation, and ROI calculation \n Delivers one of four recommendation patterns: build now (strong ROI), build for strategic reasons (marginal ROI but competitive/platform value), don't build (poor ROI), or build l

User-centered problem framing that captures who is blocked, what they're trying to do, why it matters, and how it feels. \n \n Structures problems around five dimensions: persona, desired outcomes, barriers, root causes, and emotional impact—ensuring you solve problems worth solving, not feature requests \n Includes a fill-in template, quality checks, and anti-patterns to avoid solution smuggling, generic personas, and symptom-level diagnosis \n Designed for discovery alignment, stakeholder buy-

Holistic SaaS health assessment across growth, retention, unit economics, and capital efficiency. \n \n Evaluates four interconnected dimensions—growth & retention, unit economics, capital efficiency, and strategic position—against stage-specific benchmarks (pre-$10M, $10M–$50M, $50M+ ARR) \n Identifies red flags by severity (critical, high priority, medium priority) and surfaces root causes rather than isolated metric problems \n Delivers a prioritized action plan with expected impact, fro

Break large stories and epics into smaller, independently deliverable increments using eight systematic splitting patterns. \n \n Provides eight splitting patterns: workflow steps, business rule variations, data variations, acceptance criteria complexity, major effort, external dependencies, DevOps steps, and Tiny Acts of Discovery for unpacking unknowns \n Emphasizes vertical slicing (each split delivers complete user value) rather than horizontal task decomposition or arbitrary chopping \n Inc

Hierarchical user journey visualization that breaks activities into steps and tasks, organized left-to-right as narrative flow. \n \n Structures work across two axes: horizontal timeline of user activities (backbone, steps, tasks) and vertical priority levels (MVP to future releases) \n Organizes around user goals and behaviors rather than features or engineering modules, enabling shared understanding across product, design, and engineering teams \n Includes segment, persona, and narrative conte

Structured framework for uncovering customer jobs, pains, and gains to validate product ideas and improve messaging. \n \n Breaks customer needs into three categories: functional jobs (tasks to complete), social jobs (how they want to be perceived), and emotional jobs (emotional states they seek or avoid) \n Identifies four pain types: challenges blocking progress, costliness in time/money/effort, common mistakes, and unresolved problems current solutions don't address \n Surfaces four gain type

Calculate and interpret core SaaS revenue, retention, and growth metrics to diagnose business momentum and product-market fit. \n \n Covers 10+ essential metrics: MRR/ARR, ARPU/ARPA, churn rate, NRR, expansion revenue, and Quick Ratio, with formulas and quality checks for each \n Includes cohort analysis and revenue mix frameworks to reveal hidden trends that blended metrics obscure (e.g., cohort degradation, concentration risk) \n Provides benchmarks for each metric (e.g., <2% monthly chur

Comprehensive company research brief extracting executive strategy, product vision, and organizational dynamics from public sources. \n \n Synthesizes executive quotes, product launches, and transformation initiatives across eight structured research dimensions to build strategic intelligence \n Focuses on product management perspectives and leadership thinking rather than financial analysis or surface-level company facts \n Includes anti-patterns guidance (what this is not) and common pitfalls

Transform strategy into a sequenced, outcome-driven roadmap that aligns stakeholders and guides execution. \n \n Orchestrates five phases over 1-2 weeks: gather inputs (business goals, customer problems, technical constraints), define epics with hypotheses and success metrics, prioritize using frameworks like RICE, sequence by quarter with dependency mapping, and communicate with strategic narrative \n Emphasizes outcome-driven epics over feature lists, with each initiative tied to business metr

Translate user needs into development-ready stories with Mike Cohn format and Gherkin acceptance criteria. \n \n Combines \"As a / I want / so that\" user story structure with \"Given / When / Then\" acceptance criteria for testable, outcome-focused work \n Includes quality checks and anti-patterns to avoid generic personas, vague outcomes, and scope creep \n Designed for backlog grooming, sprint planning, and shared understanding between product, engineering, and QA \n Emphasizes stories as con

Structured PRD creation from discovery notes to engineering-ready requirements document. \n \n Orchestrates 8 phases across 2–4 days: problem framing, persona definition, strategic context, solution overview, success metrics, user stories, and scope/dependencies documentation \n Includes problem statement with evidence, target personas, business goals, and competitive context to align stakeholders before engineering begins \n Breaks solutions into epic hypotheses and user stories with acceptance

Visualize customer interactions across all stages—from awareness to loyalty—with documented actions, touchpoints, emotions, KPIs, and team ownership. \n \n Maps five core stages (Awareness, Consideration, Decision, Service, Loyalty) with customer actions, emotions, touchpoints, business goals, and responsible teams for each \n Combines customer empathy with measurable KPIs to identify pain points and align cross-functional teams on the end-to-end experience \n Requires upfront persona definition