30 Example Self-Appraisal Comments for Product Managers

Product managers! It’s time to do that annual self-appraisal!

What? Not looking forward to picking your way through all the fine details of your work and management style?  

Self-appraisals can be invaluable tools of self-reflection and learning. But for those always on the go, managing all aspects of a product and team, they can be a drain on time and energy.

If you need inspiration for your self-appraisal in a product manager role, scroll down to see our curated list of 30 self-appraisal comments. You will find detailed phrases specific to product management skills and requirements.

Collaboration

1. Identifies the appropriate stakeholders at the product level

2. Coordinates seamlessly with other teams

3. Builds tight connections to resources to drive efficiencies

Communication Skills

1. Helps leadership craft responses for escalations of customer-facing product issues

2. Avoids excessive use of jargon when not appropriate

3. Provides timely feedback to reinforce learning

Competitive Analysis

1. Compares competitor’s features to inform product prioritization

2. Understands domain and competitive landscape

3. Identifies meaningful components of competitive analysis that inform decisions for the product portfolio and roadmaps

Goal: Setting

1. Includes well-crafted action plans and strategies in their goal setting

2. Sets challenging yet realistic goals regarding employee skills, education, and career

3. Determines release goals for a large enterprise or portfolio of products, adjusts throughout implementation as needed

Go-to Market

1. Prepares for the launch and monitors cross-functional team efforts including marketing, distribution, sales, and support

2. Executes the GTM plan, monitors the customer effect of the plan, and reports on it

3. Owns and delivers on post-launch reviews and customer feedback

Innovation

1. Leads company-wide decision-making for the product domain

2. Identifies innovations or performs experiments to create features that add more customer value

3. Influences investment choices that will cultivate long-term innovation for the customer

Leadership

1. Takes action on projects, issues, or concerns whenever and wherever needed

2. Represents team in executive operational reviews and drives follow-through on issues identified

3. Formalizes best practices into frameworks and evangelizes with other teams

Market Research

1. Participates in in-person customer research to inform product feature needs

2. Commissions market research, usability studies, and focus groups to identify benchmarks for solving customer problems

3. Makes use of market research, user studies, and competitive analysis to understand user needs for a product

People Management

1. Demonstrates an understanding of performance and leadership bar and effectively applies it to hiring decisions

2. Encourages and supports employee learning and growth

3. Has very low turnover in their department

Product Development

1. Generates numerous creative approaches to problems that appear to be unapproachable

2. Reviews product demo with the development team against the acceptance criteria for his/her component of the product portfolio

3. Owns and manages product documentation; works closely with support personnel to enable self-service support and/or reduce overhead

If you would like additional phrases to help in all future self-appraisals, get access to the exclusive ReviewBuilder product manager phrase pack.

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Ardeley Sihite