The Competency Self-Assessment
Before anyone else rates you, rate yourself. I make every PM I work with do this, and I do it on myself once a quarter. The self-score is usually not that accurate, and that is fine, because the value is somewhere else: the gap between your self-score and your manager's is the single most useful coaching artifact I know.
#My point of view: the honest self-assessment is the cheapest growth tool you have
It costs an hour and a willingness to be uncomfortable. Most PMs skip it because the discomfort is real. Rating yourself forces you to admit, on paper, that you are a 1 on the thing you have been avoiding for two years. Do it anyway. The PM who can name their own weakness is already ahead of the one waiting to be told.
#Two tools, two altitudes
I use two instruments depending on how much precision the moment deserves.
Rate yourself against all twelve competencies in The Master Competency Matrix, from Feature Specification through Managing Up, across the four areas of The PM Competency Model, on the 0-2 scale. This is the system of record, so use it at review time.
When the full matrix is too heavy, I use a 9-skill self-assessment adapted from the Almundo / Mind the Product talent model. Three categories, three skills each, scored 1-5:
- Holistic Comprehension: Product Thinking, UX, Business/Product Strategy
- Processes: Strategy Execution, Agile, Data-Informed
- Management: Leadership, Communication, Proactivity
Nine numbers on a radar takes fifteen minutes and is enough to spot your shape. It maps cleanly onto the four areas of The PM Competency Model without the ceremony.
A third lens, Petra Wille's PMwheel (8 dimensions, 0-7), does the same job as a radar and is explicitly built as a self-assessment and career-conversation tool. Pick whichever one you will actually fill in.
#How to rate yourself honestly
The scoring is only as good as your honesty, so I enforce a few rules.
- Anchor every score to evidence. A "2 / Outperform" you cannot back with a specific example from the last quarter is a 1. If you cannot substantiate it, you do not have it yet; you aspire to it. This is the same standard I hold in Running a Performance Review.
- Score the behavior, not the title. "I'm a Senior PM so I must be On Track on strategy" is title-reasoning. Score what you actually did, against the behaviors in the model.
- Expect to be spiky. Nobody is uniformly strong, and a flat profile usually means you are rounding everything to the middle. Real profiles have peaks and valleys (The T-Shaped PM and Knowing Your Shape). Spiky is normal. Flat is a smell.
- Rate against your current level first, then your next one. You are often On Track for today and Needs Focus for tomorrow. Both numbers matter, and the second one is your growth target (Identifying Growth Areas).
Impostor PMs under-rate everything. They discount real wins as luck and grade themselves into the floor. Overconfident PMs inflate the strategic competencies, the ones with the least objective evidence, because that is where the prestige is. Both distortions cluster predictably, so knowing which way you lean is half the correction.
#What to do with the result
The self-assessment is step one of the loop, not the deliverable. Take it into a conversation with your manager, compare it against their read, and let the disagreements drive the discussion. Then convert the lowest scores that matter into a plan (Building a Growth Plan). A self-assessment that ends in a folder instead of a plan was a waste of a good hour.
#Continue Reading
- The Proficiency Scale for what each number on both scales actually means.
- Identifying Growth Areas for turning low scores into the right two to work on.
- Building a Growth Plan for the structure that turns the assessment into action.
- The Master Competency Matrix is the full reference you are scoring against.
- The T-Shaped PM and Knowing Your Shape for why your profile should be spiky.