SUNDAY REWIND: The PMwheel – a compass for the product manager development journey

This week’s Sunday Rewind goes back to a 2020 post from product coach Petra Wille that explains her framework “The PMwheel”, and how to use it to understand a product manager’s responsibilities.

Petra says the PMwheel is a reliable compass for people who want to navigate their product career or develop their direct reports.

The framework helps product managers understand their roles and responsibilities across a range of activities. It can help them to identify their next best personal and professional development steps and it can be applied in any product organisation, says Petra, anywhere around the globe. It can help heads of product to foster career conversations with their product managers and make better recruiting decisions.

The wheel measures eight key product management activities, all of which you can assess and score.

The eight activities are as follows:

1. Understand the problem
2. Find a solution
3. Do some planning
4. Get it done!
5. Listen and learn
6. Team
7. Grow!
8. Agile

You can see and download the PMwheel model here.

Next, Petra explains how to assess and score yourself on each of these activities. Then, she says, you should ask your line manager and peers to give you a score. You end up with a spiderweb diagram on the PMwheel graphic that gives you a clear picture of the areas you should focus on.

Lastly, Petra also explains how to use the framework as a manager and how to use it across teams. She says: “Whether you’re a manager looking for a way to refresh the career conversations you have with your direct reports or a practising product manager who’s keen to evaluate their own skills, the PMwheel will help you to better understand the product manager’s role and responsibilities, and create clear pathways for personal and professional development.”

Read the original post: The PMwheel – a compass for the product manager development journey.