The Five Ingredients of Coaching Product People
A five-step loop for developing the product managers who report to you
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
A repeatable manager-as-coach system: know what 'good' looks like, locate where each PM is today, share a vision of their next challenge, co-create a development plan, then follow up consistently. It reframes people development as a lightweight, quarterly-refreshed practice rather than a heavy annual review.
Origin
Developed by Petra Wille and detailed in her book 'Strong Product People: A Complete Guide to Developing Great Product Managers', drawn from coaching ~130 PMs one-on-one plus corporate group coaching.
Core principles
- 01Consistency beats intensity — small weekly nudges outperform big-bang 360 reviews
- 02The development plan belongs to the PM, not the manager; you can't grow apples on someone else's branches
- 03Start where it's easiest (the development plan), not where it's most complete (the competency compass)
- 04Think bigger than the PM's current role and company when imagining their future
How to run it
- 1
Define what 'good' looks like
Reflect on and write down the personality traits and the skills/know-how you want to see in a product person in your context. Most leads carry this only as an implicit, experience-based feeling.
Pro tip Separate traits you must hire for (curiosity, empathy) from skills you can coach; the former are very hard to build in a corporate setting.
Watch out Don't wait for a company-wide or HR-aligned compass — start with your own team's compass and harmonize later.
- 2
Put a pin on the map and name the next bigger challenge
Assess where each PM currently is, then decide the next bigger challenge you'd assign them to help them grow. Block an hour in your calendar once a quarter, list your direct reports, and write down that next challenge for each.
Pro tip The right opportunity may not appear for a quarter or two — writing it down means you'll recognize and seize it when it arrives.
- 3
Share the vision and align
Have a conversation where you share the vision you hold for them. It may open up their own thinking, and their goals may differ from your assumptions.
Pro tip Treat this as encouragement and bringing out the best in them, not as handing down a verdict.
- 4
Co-create the development plan
Help them turn the gap between your definition of good and their current profile into concrete, small learning steps — a book, giving a conference talk, reflecting on how they prioritize. They own it; you inform and refine it.
Pro tip Give each plan a fresh headline/topic once a quarter or every four months so it's a small, ongoing time investment.
Watch out Personal development will never be the PM's number-one priority, and it shouldn't be — keep the steps small.
- 5
Follow up
Nudge them regularly — a water-cooler 'how's the development plan going?', a weekly reminder, or even a daily email, depending on the person.
Pro tip Ask each PM how they want to be reminded and how you can assist; the follow-up takes little time but makes the biggest difference.
In the wild
Lenny described pairing each six-month performance review with a Google doc listing three-to-five themes and very concrete things the PM should do, then holding a monthly coaching session where each of the ~10 agreed items got a color-code status update.
→ By the next performance review nothing was forgotten; regular check-ins beat big-bang reviews, which Petra affirmed as consistency beating intensity.
Common mistakes
Getting paralyzed building the perfect compass first
Leads try to align a company-wide competency compass with peers and HR before helping anyone, which takes ages; meanwhile PMs get no orientation. Start with the development plan instead.
Owning the development plan for them
If the manager dictates the plan, the PM doesn't own it and won't follow through. The PM should define what they believe they need to work on; the manager informs and follows up.
Is it for you?
Best for
New (or non-product-background) managers of product managers who want a concrete, low-time-cost system for developing their reports
Not ideal for
Individual contributors with no direct reports, or organizations wanting a formal company-wide leveling framework built top-down first
From the transcript
“number one is really having a solid definition of what a good product person looks like in your context”
“then step number two is having a clear idea where every PM currently is”
“what is the next bigger challenge I would love to assign this product person to”
“the development plan is something the person develops like here's what I believe I should be working on”
“consistency beats intensity so really the smaller Time Investments on a weekly basis”
“I usually advise people to start with the development plan”
From the episode
How to be the best coach to product people
Petra Wille (Strong Product People)