Let me paint you a picture. Three hundred product managers. Three thousand developers. Zero shared understanding of what "good" looks like. That was Ocado Technology when I joined as Director of Product Operations. 

From this chaos, we created something beautiful: a skills framework that not only transformed how we develop product managers but rippled through engineering and beyond.

Today, I want to share exactly how we built this framework and how you can steal it for your own organization.

Let’s dive in

Fixing Ocado’s promotions process

The first thing I was asked when I joined Ocado was, "Matt, can you please fix the promotions process?" I was like, I’m just going to quietly hide over here for a moment.

When I reemerged from my hiding place, I looked over the 14-page competency model I’d been given, outlining product management skills and responsibilities. Then, I asked the product managers a simple question: "Can anyone name a single one of the competencies?"

Silence.

When I asked different heads of product how they tracked development, I got wildly different answers:

  • "I track it in Miro"
  • "I use Google Sheets"
  • "I built something in Lucid"
  • "Wait, we're supposed to track development?"

It was like asking people to wear green and black to a party. Everyone shows up looking completely different, even though technically they followed the instructions.

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So, I started digging online for a framework that would make sense for our product organization. Eventually, I found a great one. It was structured, practical, and built by actual product managers.

But – and this is crucial – I couldn't just copy-paste their framework into Ocado. That would be like buying a suit off the rack and expecting it to fit perfectly. It needed tailoring.

Making it Ocado

I cornered our CPO, James. He’s been at Ocado for over 20 years and has worked as an engineer, PM, and chief engineering officer. If anyone understood what we needed, it was him.

So, I asked him, "James, what do you think the role of product management is here?" As he answered, one thing kept coming up: product adoption.

See, Ocado Technology is a B2B2C business. We sell our tech to grocery stores, who use it to serve their customers. When we build a feature – let's say a new quick-add-to-cart function – we don't just ship it and call it done. We need our partners to switch it on, and then we need their customers to use it.

Product adoption isn't just important at Ocado. It's everything.