A competency framework sets out what is expected of employees in their current role, and at the next stage of their career.
It’s a structured system that defines the skills, knowledge, behaviors, and attributes that equate to performance for every level of seniority in the team.
As such it shows the pathway to getting a promotion. For this reason it is sometimes called a career ladder, career progression or growth framework.
The benefits of developing a competency framework as a leader include:
- Clarifying expectations - it makes it clear the level everyone should perform at day-to-day. This lays the foundation for on the spot feedback as well as annual performance reviews.
- Defining promotion criteria - it makes it really clear what team members need to do to get a promotion.
- Removing bias - it helps standardise titles and salaries across your team by giving clear and objective guidelines for pay and promotion decisions.
In this article we will walk you through competency frameworks: when to use one, how to engage your team with it, and how to keep this as a living document that serves a meaningful purpose.
We’re also providing a competency framework template for common product manager job levels. We’ll take you through how to adapt and use this template at your own company.
Hustle Badger competency framework template Why use a competency framework
A competency framework provides clear role expectations at every level, helping both individual and team growth.
Hustle Badger competency framework template The benefits of setting up a competency framework include:
- Performance - Lets everyone know what is expected of them. This reduces confusion and increases impact. This includes cases of underperformance, where you can set clear expectations of what needs to change.
- Promotion - Helps people understand what they need to do to get a promotion or pay rise.
- Hiring - Codifies the competencies that you want people to have when you hire them. There should be a tight fit between your competency framework and your hiring plan.
- Team balance - Allows you to identify skill gaps within your team, which you can then hire specifically for to balance out the team as a whole.
- Onboarding - Explains to new joiners what is expected of them. Especially helpful for new managers, as it can also be used as a way to get them up to speed on the performance of the team they will be leading.
Defining what "good" looks like is especially valuable in product management for two reasons:
- Variety between organisations - The PM role varies significantly from company to company, and is evolving rapidly. Having your own competency framework sets out what good looks like to you.
- Standardisation with organisations - Product orgs often have lots of people doing the same role - they are product managers. This allows you to benchmark and standardise across them in a way that is more difficult in teams like marketing where everyone might specialise on a different channel.
Competency frameworks are part of a suite of management tools which can meaningfully improve how you build, structure and retain your teams. They sit with tools like:
Each of these enable you to get the best performance out of your team, and succeed as a manager.
Limitations and downsides
As with any other tool or template, the value of your competency framework depends on your context and how well you’ve adapted it to the problems you face.
Watch out for the following downsides:
- Time consuming - Creating a career competency framework is a lot of work
- Team scale - These work most effectively in larger product organizations where the comparisons are clear, rather than small teams of 2-3
- Increased bureaucracy - The whole purpose of the framework is to reduce exceptions, and formalize the promotion process. The reduced flexibility should be fairer, but will constrict your options to act as a manager.
- Durable - This is both a strength and a weakness. Once created a competency framework has a long shelf life. Be sure this is something you want to live with for the next year or so.
- Promotion expectations - Competency frameworks create the expectation that you can be promoted and progress in your career. This might not actually be possible to your company.
Generally the benefits outweigh these costs, but creating a competency framework needs to be a conscious decision. You’ll want to do this in consultation with HR and the team itself to make sure the work you put in delivers the results you’re hoping for.
When to use a competency framework
The right time to build a competency framework will depend on your organisation. That said, here are some typical signals you might see that indicate creating one will be helpful:
- PMs asking when they can be promoted.
- PMs asking why peers have different titles (or salaries).
- The number of PMs is growing beyond ~4 (as you will likely soon get the questions above).
- People asking why new hires have a particular title (especially if this is more senior than other team members).
- Stakeholders outside of the product team asking what PMs do, or confusing their responsibilities.
What is a competency framework
At its simplest, a competency framework is a big grid, which describes for every job role and level of seniority the expected competencies.
Our template has 8 competencies grouped into 4 competency categories:
- Strategy
- Strategy & comms - How to pull together your insights into a coherent plan of action that delivers superior outcomes.
- Commercial positioning - How to position against competitors and deliver financial results.
- Insight
- User research - How to use qualitative research techniques.
- Analytical skills - Mastering quantitative analytical skills.
- Execution
- Accountability & ownership - Delivering real results on a consistent basis
- Delivery - Maximising team velocity and shipping on time.
- Stakeholder & people management
- Collaboration - Aligning with people around you to make high quality, efficient decisions.
- People leadership - Hiring, coaching and leading people around you.
These are described at each of 4 individual contributor levels, and 4 manager levels.
Individual contributor levels:
- Junior Product Manager (JPM, split into two sub-levels: I and II)
- Product Manager (PM, split into two sub-levels: I and II)
- Senior Product Manager (SPM, split into two sub-levels: I and II)
- Lead Product Manager (LPM)
Manager levels:
- Group Product Manager (GPM)
- Product Director (Director)
- Product Vice President (VP)
- Chief Product Officer (CPO)
Hustle Badger Competency Framework Template 
