Product Manager expectations by level
These are the key areas of performance that are most important to product manager roles at Intercom along with the competencies and
expectations for each.
Here’s how to use this doc and get the most out of it:
● Review the competencies and expectations for your level and (at least) the level above yours
● Develop opinions about how your practice of each competency aligns with our expectations and where/how you can grow
● Discuss with your manager and, together, create a plan for improvement over each performance period
● Assess your performance in growth areas with your manager regularly
● Share this document with your peers to help them understand what to expect and how to involve you. Ask them to give you feedback
based on these expectations.
The role of PM at Intercom
There are many elements and facets to being a PM at Intercom, but ultimately it comes down to:
“Identify the most valuable problems to solve, enable your team to ship and iterate high-quality solutions quickly, and validate market impact.”
Underpinning this, there are 5 Skill Areas that we explicitly set expectations for and judge performance against. These are
1. Insight Driven
2. Strategy
3. Execution
4. Driving Outcomes
5. Leadership Behaviors
Skill Area 1: Insight Driven
Associate PM
PM
Senior PM
Principal PM
Customer focus PMs represent customer needs accurately and fairly to create the best possible value for Intercom. They use customer insight to ensure that they deeply
understand our customers’ problems, define the correct priorities to tackle and create a clear brief.
Customer informed. Talks to customers
using their area of product and has some
understanding of their needs.
Relies on Research guidance to
understand how research insights might
impact product direction. Effectively
partners with Research to validate
decision-making.
Customer focused. Talks to customers
using their area of product, always looking
for deeper insight. Understands their
needs and uses this insight to effectively
create the best possible value in their
product area.
Partners effectively with Researchers,
helping to define the problems we should
be seeking to understand and to validate
decision-making
Customer focused. Talks to a range of
customers using their area of product and
beyond, always looking for deeper insight.
Is recognised internally as an expert in
customer needs for their area of product.
Is able to use this insight to effectively
create the best possible value in their
product area.
Anchors decisions in research. Uses
research as a key input into problem and
solution definition. Proactively defines the
problems for their area of product we
should be seeking to understand and
partners effectively with Research to
execute these.
Customer focused. Talks to a range of
customers, across target segments and
use cases, always looking for deeper
insight. Is recognised internally and
externally as an expert in customer needs
for a range of use cases. Is able to use this
insight to effectively create the best
possible value across a range of use cases
and anticipate future product needs or
opportunities.
Research driver. Can effectively define the
research we need across a range of
product areas. Uses research as a key
input for product strategy for their product
area and relevant use cases. Partners
effectively with Research to uncover new
insights that help drive product strategy.
Drives improvements in how we work with
Research.
Analytics focus PMs use data to inform decision-making and uncover new product opportunities for Intercom.
Relies on Analytics guidance to anchor
decisions in data. Needs support to
evaluate and inform the story they tell from
the numbers. Relies on Analytics guidance
Anchors decisions in data. Uses data
insights to evaluate and inform the story
they tell. Partners effectively with Analytics
to understand how data insights might
Anchors decisions in data. Uses data
insights to evaluate and inform the story
they tell. Uses data insights to inform
product strategy and partners effectively
Data driven. Can effectively define the
analysis we need, independently seek and
evaluate data insights to inform product
strategy. Partners effectively with Analytics
to understand how data insights might
impact product strategy. Needs support to
seek data insights.
Needs support to understand FUARE
metrics for all areas of their product/use
case and use that data to inform decision-
making.
Needs support to define success metrics
for Intermissions
impact product strategy. Can
independently seek basic data insights.
Understands FUARE or similar usage
metrics for all areas of their product/use
case and uses that data to inform decision-
making.
Proactively identifies metrics to track and
measure customer and business benefit
for Intermissions. Partners effectively with
Analytics to refine these.
with Analytics to define the analysis we
need. Can independently seek and
evaluate their own data insights.
Is recognised internally as the ‘go to’
person for analytics insight for their area of
product.
Understands FUARE metrics for all areas
of their product/use case and uses that
data to inform decision-making.
Defines metrics to track and measure
customer and business benefit for
Intermissions. Proactively identifies
relevant Winning Strategy or relevant
strategic metrics and partners effectively
with Analytics to refine these.
to uncover new insights that help drive
product strategy.
Is recognised internally as the ‘go to’
person for analytics insight for their area of
product.
Drives improvements in how we work with
Analytics.
Understands FUARE metrics for all areas
of Intercom and actively uses that data to
identify new opportunities.
Defines metrics to track and measure
customer and business benefit for
Intermissions and relevant Winning
Strategies.
Competitive Insight PMs understand the competitive landscape and industry trends and use this understanding to identify sustainable competitive advantages for Intercom.
Awareness of what’s happening with our
competitors and within our industry for
their use case area.
Aware of what’s happening with our
competitors and within our industry for
their use case area. Is able to analyse the
problems our competitors are solving and
use this to inform product strategy.
Understands the competitor landscape
and industry trends for their use case and
is the ‘go to person’ for competitor insight.
Uses this insight to inform product strategy
and identify sustainable competitive
advantages for their use case.
Is deeply curious about their product area
- not because they have to but because
they want to.
Understands the competitor landscape
and industry trends across a range of use
cases. Thinks proactively about this
competitor insight to uplevel the team’s
thinking and to inform product strategy.
Can identify sustainable competitive
advantages across a range of use cases.
Is deeply curious about a range of
product areas - not because they have to
but because they want to.
Skill Area 2: Strategy
Associate PM
PM
Senior PM
Principal PM
Strategy definition & influence PMs set strategy and influence others to think big about where we are headed and how we will get there.
Seeks to understand product area
strategy. Typically works alongside a PM
on a part or component of product
strategy.
Contributes and influences at the team
level.
Responsible for shaping product area
strategy with close support from a
manager.
Can create/clarify strategy within
unambiguous areas with guidance.
Contributes and influences at the group
level.
Responsible for shaping product area / use
case strategy with light support from a
manager.
Can create/clarify strategy within
ambiguous areas with limited guidance.
Contributes and influences across groups
of teams.
Responsible for shaping the most
ambiguous & impactful strategies across
teams, decomposing them and giving
teams dedicated remits
Can create/clarify strategy within very
ambiguous areas with no guidance.
Contributes and influences at company
level.
Roadmap creation & rationale PMs are responsible for taking in a range of inputs and perspectives and clarifying and prioritizing problem focus areas for their teams. Why we are
pursuing one set of priorities versus another should be clear from the rationale (both for readers and roadmap review participants.)
Contributes to team’s roadmap.
Owner of the team’s roadmap. Develops a
point of view based on our roadmap inputs.
Creates a clear & logical rationale that’s in
line with product area strategy and is easy
to consume.
Owner of team’s roadmap.
Develops a confident point of view from
roadmap inputs and other insights.
Creates a top class, compelling rationale
that drives product area / use case strategy
forward and inspires.
Reviewer of teams’ roadmaps. Ensures
that roadmap rationale is clear and in line
with strategy.
Support teams’ roadmap creation when
there is significant ambiguity.
Alignment & Evangelism As important as creating strategy & roadmaps is ensuring that these are understood and internalised by all. PMs are responsible for driving this alignment
across teams & stakeholders.
Creates alignment within the team.
Understands the strategy for their product
area, and can describe this clearly.
Creates alignment within the team and with
critical stakeholders (cross functional
partners & manager)
Gets team buy in on strategy & roadmap
rationale.
Understands each stakeholder’s
perspective and ensures that they have
been appropriately considered in strategy
setting & roadmap creation.
Creates alignment across teams and with a
broad range of stakeholders (cross
functional partners, manager, R&D
leaders)
Inspires and motivates the team and
related teams on strategy & roadmap
rationale.
Understands each stakeholder’s
perspective and ensures that they have
been appropriately considered in strategy
setting & roadmap creation.
Creates relationships and builds trust with
a broad range of senior stakeholders
across the business (managers, R&D
leaders, cross-functional leaders)
Co-creates strategy with these
stakeholders.
Drives alignment across R&D teams and
throughout the organisation.
Skill Area 3: Execution
Associate PM
PM
Senior PM
Principal PM
Start with the problem: PMs are most directly responsible for ensuring their teams live and breathe this principle. To do it well, you must have a stubborn focus on understanding,
refining, articulating the problem (or opportunity) your team is solving. When done well, the whole team is oriented around the problem and able to explain it themselves. And the
PM ensures this understanding and articulation is continually evolved and improved.
Gathers inputs to define a problem. Able
to create simple problem statements.
Contributes to, rather than drives,
problem articulation and alignment.
Synthesises inputs from various sources
to craft a single narrative.
Demonstrates clarity when articulating
the problem and aligning the team to the
problem.
Meticulously ensures Intermissions are
up to date.
Articulates a problem statement,
including complex ones, with exceptional
clarity.
Continues to refine understanding of the
problem as we learn more.
Meticulously ensures Intermissions and
Winning Strategies are up to date.
Clearly articulates the most ambiguous
problem spaces, across a range of
product areas and use cases into coherent
narratives
Continues to refine understanding of the
problem as we learn more.
Meticulously ensures Intermissions and
Winning Strategies are up to date.
Think big, start small. PMs are most directly responsible for ensuring teams constantly fight to scope smaller to learn faster, balancing an ambition to think expansively about the
opportunity.
Actively contributes to the exploration of
multiple solutions to the problem
statement.
Needs support to make strong scoping
decisions.
Actively contributes to the exploration of
multiple solutions to the problem
statement.
Effectively represents various inputs &
tradeoffs to drive accurate scoping
decisions.
Facilitates effective scoping sessions
with team, clearly documents decisions
made.
Ensures teams are focused by default on
scoping small.
Steers team explorations of multiple
solutions to the problem statement
efficiently
Anchors explorations to a clear
understanding of the problem area.
Challenges the team to question their
assumptions about what’s actually needed
and sharpens the entire team’s thinking
about what’s essential, and when.
Consistently integrates the story and
GTM input into scope.
Facilitates concept explorations with
high ambiguity and complexity.
Works across multiple teams to form
coherent think big and start small
approaches.
Ship to learn. PMs identify the biggest assumptions and risks to build clear hypotheses for learning. PMs are hungry for insights, open to proving themselves wrong, and most of
all, share
and act
on the learning to deliver valuable product.
Understands what we need to learn.
Can effectively run a beta and gather
learnings.
Shares learnings with immediate team.
Needs support to define actions emerging
from learnings.
Defines what we need to learn and the
best way to learn that.
Consistently runs efficient and effective
betas.
Gets teams to quickly adapt to results,
both quant and qual.
Consistently creates close-out reports,
shares them with the team, and makes
decisions based on them.
Creative at figuring out quicker ways to
learn faster.
Particularly strong at exposing hidden
assumptions and product risks.
Uses hypotheses to focus a team on
what and how to run a beta (or equivalent).
Actively shares relevant learnings across
teams and with product leadership.
Applies this skill to most ambiguous and
complex problem areas.
Able to think coherently across multiple
teams work to define what we need to
learn and how best to learn it.
Ship the whole
customer experience. PMs need to drive not just the development of a new feature or improvement, but the entire experience that surrounds it. This includes
working across the business to determine: how new & existing customers find out about it, what the monetisation approach is, how sales will sell and how CS will support it...
Understands the Interstory, launch plans,
pricing and packaging approach.
Needs support to identify and consider
the broader customer experience beyond
their immediate area of focus.
Collaborates with PMM to define the
Interstory, launch plans, pricing and
packaging approach.
Defines new and existing customer
feature onboarding.
Ensures docs are updated and CS + Sales
are sufficiently enabled.
An influential and early collaborator with
GTM, where there is a fluid exchange of
how GTM considerations impact product
decisions.
Defines impactful new and existing
customer feature and use case
onboarding.
Very proactive with enablement to
ensure the product has the best chance of
success.
Helps shape our GTM approach for
significant product releases, working in
partnership with GTM stakeholders.
Defines our onboarding strategy for
significant parts of the product.
Skill Area 4: Driving outcomes
Associate PM
PM
Senior PM
Principal PM
Shipping is our heartbeat. There can be no changed outcome and limited learning without shipping. Great product teams demonstrate a consistent shipping cadence; PMs help
drive this. But it’s not just the speed at which we ship, it’s also the quality of the product.
Adapts to existing team shipping rhythm
Facilitates and contributes to QA of core
features
Establishes and drives a consistent
shipping cadence.
Ensures product quality is high, with few
bugs and issues. Contributes to QA of
product features.
Ensures the team has a consistent,
reliable shipping momentum, PM really
drives this. As a result, the team is
humming with efficiency and progress,
and demonstrates this with demos and in
high team morale.
Spots product quality risks across the
broader Intercom system, not just the local
product area.
Motivates multiple teams to find creative
ways to continue to ship frequently even
for complex, high-dependency projects.
Inspires and encourages multiple teams
to push for a higher bar for quality across
the broader Intercom system.
But outcomes ultimately are all that matter What impact did your team have? All teams don’t have to demonstrate bottom-line (ie revenue) impact, but teams should be hungry to
uncover and react to actual customer and business impact.
Needs guidance to deliver outcomes at a
project level.
Can demonstrate meaningful impact to
customers and our business.
Aligns the team around outcomes they’re
fighting for.
Consistently delivers meaningful impact
to customers and our business.
Delivers impact at a winning strategy
level (aggregate impact of multiple
projects).
Aligns the team and key stakeholders
around outcomes they’re fighting for.
Motivates multiple teams to deliver
significant impact to customers and our
business.
Aligns multiple teams, key stakeholders
and R+D leadership around outcomes
they’re fighting for.
Skill Area 5: Leadership behaviours
Associate PM
PM
Senior PM
Principal PM
Communication PMs inspire and motivate others to work towards a clear, compelling vision. They communicate clearly, concisely and assertively. And by building confidence,
through being opinionated and persuasive.
Communicates with the team frequently
and consistently. Ensures the team are
aware of initiatives and priorities.
Pro-actively seeks information that might
help the team communicate more
effectively.
Communicates with the team, product
leadership and key stakeholders
frequently and effectively. Can take a
variety of diverse inputs and synthesise
these into a compelling story. Ensures all
involved are aware of the team strategy,
initiatives and priorities.
Actively works to ensure their product
team is aligned and engaged.
Communicates with the team, product
leadership and key stakeholders
frequently and effectively. Can clearly,
concisely and assertively articulate the
problems being solved, the roadmap, its
benefits and tradeoffs. Can take a variety
of diverse inputs and synthesise these into
a compelling vision and goals. Able to
anticipate common feedback and address
it proactively.
Actively works to ensure teams are
aligned and engaged.
Develops an opinion and can argue
persuasively without being defensive or
combative.
Crafts a clear narrative to gain buy in and
inspire others. Sets clear context and
framing, shares thinking, uses reasoning,
rational, and enthusiasm when
communicating. Takes a strong stand and
builds confidence.
Actively works to ensure teams are
aligned and engaged.
Improves how we communicate and
helps others to improve how they
communicate through defining best
practices.
Expresses their opinion externally,
through writing for the blog and speaking
regularly.
Collaboration PMs build engaged, high-performing collaborative and inclusive teams, ensuring that they fully leverage the best from those around them.
Collaborates effectively within the team.
Is open to, and reacts well to, feedback
and looks for opportunities to improve
how to work well together within the team.
Collaborates effectively with team, peers
and stakeholders. Is warm and
empathetic and communicates openly.
Consistent and predictable, which means
they’re easy to work with because there
are no surprises.
Looks for opportunities to improve how
to work well together within the team.
Proactively seeks feedback to improve
Collaborates effectively with all
colleagues across the business. Is a role
model for collaboration and creating
alignment across teams.
Is warm and empathetic and
communicates openly. Consistent and
predictable, which means they’re easy to
work with because there are no surprises.
Proactively looks for opportunities to
Acts as a role model for collaborative
and inclusive behaviour. Proactively finds
the barriers that slow people down and
systematically removes those barriers.
Shows the path for others to collaborate
well and invests in others to help them
collaborate effectively.
Helps leadership collaborate more
how they work.
improve how to work well together within
the team and across teams at Intercom.
Proactively seeks feedback to improve
how they work.
effectively.
Ownership PMs own it - for their product area, for their team, for Intercom. They grind it out, constantly looking for a way forward to deliver value.
Consistent and reliable ownership of the
problem through to the solution within
the team.
Can be trusted to deliver on promises and
follow up on next steps.
Consistent and reliable ownership of the
problem through to the solution within
and across teams, peers, and partners.
No excuses. Accountable and positive in
all conditions. Takes ownership of
problems and challenges within their remit
and doesn't apportion blame to others.
Identifies risks and issues and proactively
finds solutions to any obstacles.
Committed ownership of the problem
through to the solution within and across
teams, peers, and partners.
No excuses. Accountable and positive in
all conditions. Takes ownership of
problems and challenges within their remit
and outside their domain and doesn't
apportion blame to others. Thinks about
how to help Intercom succeed, not just
their specific team.
Identifies and anticipates risks and
issues and proactively finds solutions to
any obstacles.
Own it for Intercom - expansive,
committed ownership of our problems,
processes, and opportunities.
No excuses. Accountable and positive in
all conditions. Takes ownership of
problems and challenges within their remit
and outside their domain and doesn't
apportion blame to others. Thinks about
how to help Intercom succeed, not just
their specific team.
Identifies and anticipates risks and
issues and proactively finds solutions to
any obstacles.
Decisiveness PMs are decisive. They quickly and assertively make meaningful decisions that enable us to deliver value for our customers at speed. They also help others make
decisions faster by being appropriately inclusive but persuasive. They thrive in ambiguity and create clarity for those around them.
Can assess options effectively and make
a recommendation on the route we should
take. Escalates issues appropriately.
Needs support to make meaningful
decisions quickly.
Doesn't procrastinate. Optimises for
constant progress, aims to make progress
Decisive and assertive. Creates clear
escalation paths to resolve issues within
the team and validate meaningful
decisions quickly.
Is not consensus driven. Strong opinions,
(mostly) weakly held.
Doesn't procrastinate. Optimises for
Decisive and assertive. Resolves issues
within the team and makes meaningful
decisions quickly. Doggedly drives others
to make decisions quickly too.
Expertly handles ambiguity by being
flexible and by creating clarity for those
around them. Comfortable not knowing
and acting with incomplete information as
Decisive and assertive. Resolve issues
across teams and functions. Makes
meaningful decisions quickly. Doggedly
drives others to make decisions quickly
too.
Expertly handles ambiguity by being
flexible and by creating clarity for those
around them. Comfortable not knowing
every single day.
constant progress, aims to make progress
every single day.
long as the team is unblocked and
directionally correct.
Doesn't procrastinate or over-analyze. Is
a living example of our 'Progress over
Perfection' value. Ensures the team are
unblocked, making constant progress.
and acting with incomplete information as
long as the team is unblocked and
directionally correct.
Doesn't procrastinate or over-analyze. Is
a living example of our 'Progress over
Perfection' value. Ensures teams are
unblocked, making constant progress.
Core values PMs live and breathe Intercom’s core values
Learns what we value and starts
consciously applying these
Consistently applies our core values
Role models our core values
Role models our core values, influences
their evolution and guides others as they
evolve
