How do you measure your own success in your role? How much have those performance indicators evolved as you grew within your role?

Generally, I am thinking of success in 3 dimensions: Vision, People and Execution. All three need to work well for a team to succeed over time. Early in your career Execution takes a bit of a higher focus. You can get your first 2-3 promotions by launching bigger and more complex projects. However, as you grow in your career the ability to offer broader, more ambitious vision and have others join you in the journey become more central for your success. Your already proven execution skills help in attracting people to work with you since they know you will deliver. It’s important to invest in all three dimensions throughout your career, since honing these skills takes time.

When I joined Meta I was excited to find out that here we are formally aligning PMs expectations with similar axes: Impact (which includes Strategy and Execution) and Capacity Building (which includes healthy team and cross functional relationship as well as broader contributions to the organization). I believe this structured view creates the right incentive and culture.

I measure the success in my role based on the measurable value that my team and I deliver to customers, which in turns translates into business results. Example metrics are (increasing) conversion rate or (reducing) response time to end-users.

I wouldn't say the KPIs themselves have evolved dramatically. The leading and lagging indicators that I've been accountable for thus far have varied based on the products (e.g. B2B vs B2C metrics). As I've grown within my role, I've become accountable for a portfolio of products, as opposed to the success metrics for a single product.

It is best to align your success measures with that of your organization. Identify the KPIs and goals of your organization and team and look at how you can contribute towards the same. Use this to frame your success measures and performance indicators.

Over time, they evolve with your scope. I also like to have separate measure of personal success, which can include learning goals, impact goals, etc.

Companies typically have well-defined criteria around levels and competencies to help measure a product manager's performance. The primary objective of a product manager is to deliver user value and drive business impact by building the right products. Here are common dimensions to assess PM's success:

1. Product metrics: Evaluate key metrics such as adoption, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, and other relevant performance indicators

2. Collaboration and stakeholder relationships: Assess the satisfaction of stakeholders, both internal teams and external partners, and their perception of the product manager's ability to collaborate effectively and drive cross-functional alignment

3. Learn and adopt: Product manager's growth through new skills acquired, additional responsibilities taken, and dealing with ambiguity

4. Communication and alignment: Effectiveness in communicating product strategies, goals, and plans, as well as their ability to navigate ambiguous situations and drive alignment across teams

As PMs progress in their careers, their key performance indicators (KPIs) may evolve. While PM or Sr. PMs may focus on building foundational skills such as delivering product features and understanding user needs, as they advance, the emphasis often shifts towards leadership, strategy, and defining a longer-term product vision. Directors+ are assessed on their ability to lead strategic initiatives, influence organizational strategy, developing high-performing teams, and shaping the product culture within the organization.

If I am in my current role managing PMs, I care about the following success metrics:

• How are each of the team members progressing on their areas of ownership, achievement of their own OKRs?

• How are my team members progressing in their career development plans? Have I successfully rewarded and promoted high potential team mates? Do I have development plans for each of my direct reports and are they on track for their next promotion cycle / role / increase in responsibility?

• Have I been able to successfully develop a product strategy and prioritize my area of ownership? Have I worked cross-functionally to establish trust and build relationships that help manage dependencies we have on other teams?

• Have I unblocked my team by helping secure decisions so they can move forward?

• Have I communicated areas of ownership transparently to my team so everyone understands their role, context of the product strategy, customer needs, OKRs, and success metrics?

• Have I been able to hire and coach team members, or remove team members when required?

If I am an IC PM...

• I establish a very clear objective for myself in my role depending on what my ownership area is as a PM - examples could be:

  • Driving better onboarding experience

  • Launching a brand new product or feature

  • Drive product led growth

  • Improve retention of a product

• I select a key result that is quantifiable that reflects whether or not the objective has been met - examples could be:

  • Time to value metrics (how quickly a customer can onboard or start getting value from the product)

  • Adoption of a new feature (DAU, MAU, etc.)

  • Conversion rate from free to paid user

  • Churn rate

• And I track my progress towards these metrics (hopefully there is one primary metric on a monthly or quarterly basis.

Other IC PM considerations include how well I communicate, present roadmaps, regularly create and iterate on product requirements, PRFAQs, collaborate cross-functionally, communicate with engineering and design stakeholders, etc.

As a PM/product lead, success is defined by both quantitative and qualitative metrics. I measure success - be it mine or anyone of the team across 4 pillars.

1. "Impact and ability to be visionary/innovative" - they are more quantitative than the others. For projects that failed, understanding why it failed, understanding the root cause and evaluating if anything could have been done differently is a key factor to define success when measuring impact. Every failed project does not have to be negative impact.

2. "leadership and cross functional collaboration" - These are based on the voice of stakeholders and peers.. I try to complete a 360 feedback loop on this topic every 6 months to measure my success. I encourage my team to do the same as well.