Product Manager Skills Catalog
46 battle-tested skills + 6 command workflows that teach AI agents how to do product management work professionally—without you having to explain your process every time.
Three-Tier Architecture
These 46 skills are organized into three types that build on each other:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ WORKFLOW SKILLS (6) │
│ Complete end-to-end PM processes │
│ Timeline: 2-4 weeks │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↓ orchestrates
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ INTERACTIVE SKILLS (20) │
│ Guided discovery with adaptive questions │
│ Timeline: 30-90 minutes │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
↓ uses
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ COMPONENT SKILLS (20) │
│ Templates for specific PM deliverables │
│ Timeline: 10-30 minutes │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
🧱 Component Skills (20) — Templates & Artifacts
Reusable templates for creating specific PM deliverables (user stories, positioning statements, epics, personas, PRDs, etc.)
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
| altitude-horizon-framework | The core mental model for the PM-to-Director transition: altitude (scope) and horizon (time), the waiter-to-operator shift, four transition zones, named failure modes, and the Cascading Context Map. |
| company-research | Create a comprehensive company profile that extracts executive insights, product strategy, transformation initiatives, and organizational dynamics from publicly available sources. |
| customer-journey-map | Create a comprehensive customer journey map that visualizes how customers interact with your brand across all stages—from awareness to loyalty—documenting their actions, touchpoints, emotions, KPIs. |
| eol-message | Craft a clear, empathetic End-of-Life (EOL) message that communicates product or feature discontinuation, explains the rationale, addresses customer impact, provides transition support, and positions the change positively. |
| epic-hypothesis | Frame epics as testable hypotheses using an if/then structure that articulates the action or solution, the target beneficiary, the expected outcome, and how you'll validate success. |
| finance-metrics-quickref | Fast lookup table for 32+ SaaS finance metrics with formulas, benchmarks, and when to use each. Includes red flags and decision frameworks. |
| jobs-to-be-done | Systematically explore what customers are trying to accomplish (functional, social, emotional jobs), the pains they experience, and the gains they seek. Use this framework to uncover unmet needs, validate value propositions, and prioritize features. |
| pestel-analysis | Conduct a systematic analysis of macro-environmental factors—Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal—that could impact your product or project. |
| pol-probe | Define a Proof of Life (PoL) probe—a lightweight validation artifact that surfaces harsh truths before expensive development. Use it to test hypotheses with minimal investment. |
| positioning-statement | Create a Geoffrey Moore-style positioning statement that clearly articulates who your product serves, what need it addresses, how it's categorized, what benefit it delivers, and how it differs from alternatives. |
| press-release | Create a visionary press release following Amazon's "Working Backwards" methodology to define and communicate a product or feature before building it. |
| problem-statement | Articulate a problem from the user's perspective using an empathy-driven framework that captures who they are, what they're trying to do, what's blocking them, why, and how it makes them feel. |
| proto-persona | Create an initial, assumption-based persona profile that synthesizes available user research, market data, and stakeholder knowledge into a working hypothesis about your target user. |
| recommendation-canvas | Evaluate and propose AI product solutions using a structured canvas that assesses business outcomes, customer outcomes, problem framing, solution hypotheses, positioning, risks, and value justification. |
| saas-economics-efficiency-metrics | Evaluate unit economics and capital efficiency for SaaS. Covers CAC, LTV, payback, margins, burn rate, Rule of 40, and magic number. |
| saas-revenue-growth-metrics | Calculate and interpret revenue, retention, and growth metrics for SaaS products. Covers revenue, ARPU/ARPA, MRR/ARR, churn, NRR, expansion, and cohort analysis. |
| storyboard | Create a 6-frame visual narrative that tells the story of a user's journey from problem to solution, using the classic storytelling arc to build empathy, illustrate value, and make abstract product concepts concrete. |
| user-story | Create clear, concise user stories that combine Mike Cohn's user story format with Gherkin-style acceptance criteria. |
| user-story-mapping | Visualize the user journey by creating a hierarchical map that breaks down high-level activities into steps and tasks, organized left-to-right as a narrative flow. |
| user-story-splitting | Break down large user stories, epics, or features into smaller, independently deliverable stories using systematic splitting patterns. |
🔄 Interactive Skills (20) — Guided Discovery
Multi-turn conversational flows where AI asks you 3-5 adaptive questions, then offers smart recommendations based on your context.
| Skill | Description |
|---|---|
| acquisition-channel-advisor | Evaluate acquisition channels using unit economics, customer quality, and scalability. Recommends scale/test/kill decisions. |
| ai-shaped-readiness-advisor | Assess whether your product work is AI-first or AI-shaped. Score 5 competencies and recommend the next capability to build. |
| business-health-diagnostic | Diagnose SaaS business health using key metrics, identify red flags, and prioritize actions. Analyzes growth, retention, efficiency, and capital health. |
| context-engineering-advisor | Diagnose context stuffing vs. context engineering. Assess practices, define boundaries, and advise on memory architecture, retrieval, and the Research→Plan→Reset→Implement cycle. |
| customer-journey-mapping-workshop | Guide product managers through creating a customer journey map by asking adaptive questions about the actor (persona), scenario/goal, journey phases, actions/emotions, and opportunities for improvement. |
| director-readiness-advisor | Coaches PMs and new Directors through the transition from individual contributor to organizational leader across four situations: preparing, interviewing, newly landed, or recalibrating. |
| discovery-interview-prep | Guide product managers through preparing for customer discovery interviews by asking adaptive questions about research goals, customer segments, constraints, and methodologies. |
| epic-breakdown-advisor | Break down epics into user stories using Richard Lawrence's Humanizing Work methodology—a flowchart-driven approach that applies 9 splitting patterns sequentially. |
| feature-investment-advisor | Guide PMs through evaluating feature investments using revenue impact, cost structure, ROI, and strategic value. Delivers build/don't build recommendations. |
| finance-based-pricing-advisor | Evaluate pricing changes using financial impact analysis - ARPU/ARPA, conversion, churn risk, NRR, and payback. Recommends go/no-go on pricing decisions. |
| lean-ux-canvas | Guide product managers through Jeff Gothelf's Lean UX Canvas v2—a one-page tool that frames work around a business problem, exposes assumptions, and ensures learning every sprint. |
| opportunity-solution-tree | Guide product managers through creating an Opportunity Solution Tree (OST) by extracting target outcomes from stakeholder requests, generating opportunity options (problems to solve), mapping potential solutions, and recommending which to test first. |
| pol-probe-advisor | Select the right Proof of Life (PoL) probe based on hypothesis, risk, and resources. Use this to match the validation method to the real learning goal, not tooling comfort. |
| positioning-workshop | Guide product managers through discovering and articulating product positioning by asking adaptive questions about target customers, unmet needs, product category, benefits, and competitive differentiation. |
| prioritization-advisor | Guide product managers in choosing the right prioritization framework by asking adaptive questions about product stage, team context, decision-making needs, and stakeholder dynamics. |
| problem-framing-canvas | Guide PMs through MITRE's Problem Framing Canvas with structured questions across Look Inward, Look Outward, and Reframe to produce a clear, bias-resistant problem statement. |
| tam-sam-som-calculator | Guide product managers through calculating Total Addressable Market (TAM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) for a product idea by asking adaptive, contextual questions. |
| user-story-mapping-workshop | Guide product managers through creating a user story map by asking adaptive questions about the system, users, workflow, and priorities—then generating a two-dimensional map with backbone (activities), lanes (roles), and release slices. |
| vp-cpo-readiness-advisor | Coaches Directors and executives through the transition to VP or CPO across four situations: preparing, interviewing, newly landed, or recalibrating at executive level. |
| workshop-facilitation | Facilitate workshop sessions in a multi-turn, one-step flow with numbered recommendations at decision points and quick-select options for regular questions. |
🎭 Workflow Skills (6) — End-to-End Processes
Complete PM processes that orchestrate multiple component and interactive skills over days/weeks.
| Skill | Description | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| discovery-process | Guide product managers through a complete discovery cycle—from initial problem hypothesis to validated solution—by orchestrating problem framing, customer interviews, synthesis, and experimentation. | 3-4 weeks |
| executive-onboarding-playbook | A 30-60-90 day playbook for VP and CPO leaders entering a new role: diagnose before acting, surface unwritten strategy, assess people, and build the body of evidence that informs all decisions. | 90 days |
| prd-development | Guide product managers through structured PRD (Product Requirements Document) creation by orchestrating problem framing, user research synthesis, solution definition, and success criteria into a cohesive document. | 2-4 days |
| product-strategy-session | Guide product managers through a comprehensive product strategy session by orchestrating positioning, problem framing, customer discovery, and roadmap planning skills into a cohesive end-to-end process. | 2-4 weeks |
| roadmap-planning | Guide product managers through strategic roadmap planning by orchestrating prioritization, epic definition, stakeholder alignment, and release sequencing skills into a structured process. | 1-2 weeks |
| skill-authoring-workflow | Turn raw PM content into a compliant, publish-ready skill by choosing build/add paths, running conformance checks, and updating docs before commit. | 30-90 minutes |
📋 Skill Structure (Standard Format)
Every skill follows the same format:
## Purpose
What this skill does and when to use it.
## Key Concepts
Core frameworks, definitions, anti-patterns.
## Application
Step-by-step instructions (with examples).
## Examples
Real-world cases (good and bad).
## Common Pitfalls
What to avoid and why.
## References
Related skills and external frameworks.
🚀 Command Workflows (6)
Reusable multi-skill workflows that chain skills together:
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| discover | Complete discovery workflow: problem framing → customer interviews → synthesis → validation |
| strategy | Product strategy workflow: positioning → problem framing → solution exploration → roadmap |
| write-prd | PRD creation workflow: problem statement → personas → solution → metrics → user stories |
| plan-roadmap | Roadmap planning workflow: gather inputs → define epics → prioritize → sequence → communicate |
| prioritize | Prioritization workflow: framework selection → scoring → stakeholder alignment |
| leadership-transition | Leadership transition workflow: readiness assessment → interview prep → onboarding |
📁 Project Structure
prd-manager-skill/
├── skills/ # 46 individual skills
│ ├── component-skills/ # Templates for PM deliverables
│ ├── interactive-skills/ # Guided discovery flows
│ └── workflow-skills/ # End-to-end processes
├── commands/ # 6 reusable command workflows
├── catalog/ # Generated indexes
├── docs/ # Usage guides and platform-specific docs
├── scripts/ # Utilities for skill creation and management
├── app/ # Streamlit (beta) playground
└── research/ # Reference essays
💡 Quick Reference
Need to write a user story? → component/user-story
Need to choose a prioritization framework? → interactive/prioritization-advisor
Need to create a complete PRD? → workflow/prd-development
Need to run a full discovery cycle? → command/discover
Version: v0.65 | Skills: 46 | Commands: 6
Built by Dean Peters (Principal Consultant and Trainer at Productside.com) with Anthropic Claude and OpenAI Codex.
Helping product managers work smarter with AI.
