product-management

What this skill does

# Product Management (Jan 2026)

This skill turns the assistant into an operator, not a lecturer.

Everything here is:
- **Executable**: templates, checklists, decision flows
- **Decision-first**: measurable outcomes, explicit trade-offs, clear ownership
- **Organized**: resources for depth; templates for immediate copy-paste

---

**Modern Best Practices (Jan 2026)**:
- Evidence quality beats confidence: label signals strong/medium/weak; write what would change your mind.
- Outcomes > output: roadmaps are bets with measurable impact and guardrails, not feature inventories.
- Metrics must be defined (formula + timeframe + data source) to be actionable.
- Privacy, security, and accessibility are requirements, not afterthoughts.
- Hybrid decision loops: AI surfaces anomalies, patterns, and forecasts; humans apply context, ethics, and long-term strategy.
- Accountability: product is often held responsible for business outcomes; confirm the operating model in your org and validate benchmarks with current sources.
- Portfolio diversification: a common heuristic is 70% core, 20% adjacent, 10% transformational; adapt to strategy and constraints.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user asks to do real product work, such as:

- “Create / refine a PRD / spec / business case / 1-pager”
- “Turn this idea into a roadmap” / “Outcome roadmap for X”
- “Design a discovery plan / interview script / experiment plan”
- “Define success metrics / OKRs / metric tree”
- “Position this product against competitors”
- “Run a difficult conversation / feedback / 1:1 / negotiation”
- “Plan a product strategy / vision / opportunity assessment”

Do not use this skill for:
- Book summaries, philosophy, or general education
- Long case studies or storytelling

---

## Quick Reference

| Task | Template | Domain | Output |
|------|----------|---------|---------|
| Discovery interview | `customer-interview-template.md` | Discovery | Interview script with Mom Test patterns |
| Opportunity mapping | `opportunity-solution-tree.md` | Discovery | OST with outcomes, problems, solutions |
| PMF survey | `pmf-survey-template.md` | Discovery | Sean Ellis + NPS + usage survey |
| Outcome roadmap | `outcome-roadmap.md` | Roadmap | Now/Next/Later with outcomes and themes |
| OKR definition | `okr-template.md` | Metrics | 1-3 objectives with 2-4 key results each |
| Product positioning | `positioning-template.md` | Strategy | Competitive alternatives -> value -> segment |
| Product vision | `product-vision-template.md` | Strategy | From→To narrative with 3-5 year horizon |
| Quarterly review | `quarterly-product-review.md` | Strategy | Keep / cut / double-down product audit |
| Prioritization | `prioritization-scorecard.md` | Prioritization | RICE/ICE scoring with kill criteria |
| Kill criteria | `kill-criteria-template.md` | Prioritization | Pre-defined stop conditions per initiative |
| 1:1 meeting | `1-1-template.md` | Leadership | Check-in, progress, blockers, growth |
| Post-incident debrief | `a3-debrief.md` | Leadership | Intent vs actual, root cause, action items |

---

## Decision Tree: Choosing the Right Workflow

```text
User needs: [Product Work Type]
    ├─ Discovery / Validation?
    │   ├─ Customer insights? → Customer interview template
    │   ├─ Hypothesis testing? → Assumption test template
    │   └─ Opportunity mapping? → Opportunity Solution Tree
    │
    ├─ Strategy / Vision?
    │   ├─ Long-term direction? → Product vision template
    │   ├─ Market positioning? → Positioning template (Dunford)
    │   ├─ Big opportunity? → Opportunity assessment
    │   └─ Amazon-style spec? → PR/FAQ template
    │
    ├─ Planning / Roadmap?
    │   ├─ Outcome-driven? → Outcome roadmap (Now/Next/Later)
    │   ├─ Theme-based? → Theme roadmap
    │   └─ Metrics / OKRs? → Metric tree + OKR template
    │
    ├─ Prioritization / Focus?
    │   ├─ What to build next? → Prioritization scorecard (RICE/ICE)
    │   ├─ What to stop? → Kill criteria template + quarterly review
    │   ├─ Scope too large? → Scope negotiation patterns
    │   └─ PMF check? → PMF survey + retention curve analysis
    │
    └─ Leadership / Team Ops?
        ├─ 1:1 meeting? → 1-1 template
        ├─ Giving feedback? → Feedback template (SBI model)
        ├─ Post-incident? → A3 debrief
        ├─ Stakeholder pushback? → Stakeholder management patterns
        └─ Negotiation? → Negotiation one-sheet (Voss)
```

---

## Do / Avoid (Jan 2026)

### Do

- Start from the decision: what are we deciding, by when, and with what evidence.
- Define metrics precisely (formula + timeframe + data source) and add guardrails.
- Use discovery to de-risk value before building; prioritize by evidence, not opinions.
- Write “match vs ignore” competitive decisions, not feature grids.

### Avoid

- Roadmap theater (shipping lists) without outcomes and learning loops.
- Vanity KPIs (raw signups, impressions) without activation/retention definitions.
- "Build-first validation" (shipping MVPs without falsifiable hypotheses).
- Collecting customer data without purpose limitation, retention, and access controls.
- Building for engineering elegance instead of user value (technical founder trap).
- Feature creep without kill criteria (every feature should have a pre-defined stop condition).
- Saying "yes" to stakeholder requests without trade-off analysis.
- Measuring PMF once instead of continuously across segments.

## Prioritization & Saying No

The most common founder-PM failure: building everything, killing nothing, and running out of time before impact.

### Prioritization Frameworks

| Framework | Formula / Method | Best For | Watch For |
|-----------|-----------------|----------|-----------|
| **RICE** | (Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort | Comparing features with data | Gaming confidence scores |
| **ICE** | Impact x Confidence x Ease | Quick gut-check prioritization | Over-simplification |
| **Opportunity Scoring** | Importance x (Importance - Satisfaction) | Discovery-driven, JTBD-aligned | Requires user research data |
| **Cost of Delay** | Value per unit time / Duration | Time-sensitive decisions | Harder to estimate accurately |
| **Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)** | Cost of Delay / Job Size | SAFe/Lean, flow optimization | Requires calibrated estimates |

Pick one. Use it consistently. The framework matters less than the discipline of scoring everything the same way.

### Kill Criteria

Every initiative should have pre-defined conditions for stopping:

- **Usage threshold**: If <X% of target users adopt within Y weeks, stop.
- **Cost ceiling**: If development exceeds X hours/dollars, pause and re-evaluate.
- **Time limit**: If not shipped within X weeks, kill or radically descope.
- **Metric guardrail**: If [guardrail metric] degrades by >X%, roll back.

Use `assets/prioritization/kill-criteria-template.md` to define these before starting.

### Feature Bridge Migration

When replacing an existing feature with a new one, don't hard-kill the old feature. Use a **bridge migration** pattern to prevent user loss.

**Bridge mode**: Run both old and new features simultaneously. Route users to the new experience by default but keep the old path accessible (via link, fallback, or settings toggle).

**Substitution-based kill rule**:
1. Define the absorption metric: % of old-feature users who now use the new feature for the same job.
2. Set the kill threshold: new feature absorbs ≥80% of old-feature users.
3. Set the duration: threshold must hold for 14 consecutive days with no retention regression.
4. Only kill the old feature when all three conditions are met.

```text
BRIDGE MIGRATION SEQUENCE:

1. Ship new feature alongside old feature
2. Default new users to new experience
3. Migrate existing users gradually (progressive rollout)
4. Monitor: absorption rate, retention by cohort, support tickets
5. Old feature absorbs ≥80% for 14 days + no retention drop?
   ├─ Yes → Kill old feature, remove code
   └─ No → Inv