Quick Answer (TL;DR)
The Product & Design Strengths Framework maps professional skills across 8 dimensions -- Strategic Vision, User Empathy, Design Craft, Analytical Rigor, Execution & Delivery, Influence & Communication, Systems Thinking, and Innovation & Ideation -- into 8 archetypes that describe how product managers and designers create, decide, and lead. The key insight: individuals should be spiky (strong in 2-3 areas), while teams should be well-rounded. Use the interactive assessment to discover your profile in about 5 minutes.
Why a Strengths Framework for Product and Design?
Most professional development advice tells you to "close your gaps." But research from Gallup, Lencioni's Working Genius model, and decades of team performance data points to the opposite conclusion: the highest-performing individuals lean into their natural strengths, and the highest-performing teams are composed of people with complementary strengths.
Product management and design sit at a unique intersection. Both roles require a wide range of skills -- from analytical thinking to creative problem-solving, from user research to stakeholder management. No one person excels at all of them. But most PM skill frameworks either focus exclusively on product management (ignoring design skills) or treat all competencies as equally important to develop.
This framework takes a different approach. It spans both PM and design, acknowledges that some work energizes you while other work drains you, and maps your profile to an archetype that helps you understand your natural contribution to a team.
The 8 Dimensions
Each dimension represents a distinct professional skill area. You have capacity in all 8, but your top 2-3 define your archetype.
Strategic Vision
Connecting business goals, market trends, and user needs into a clear product direction. People strong in this dimension naturally zoom out to see how today's initiatives connect to company strategy and market dynamics. They set the "why" behind the roadmap.
PM angle: Product strategy, roadmap rationale, competitive positioning, market analysis.
Design angle: Design strategy, experience vision, long-term design direction.
User Empathy & Research
Deep understanding of users through research, observation, and instinct built from experience. People strong here can articulate user pain points from memory and anticipate needs before research confirms them.
PM angle: Voice of customer, continuous discovery, customer segmentation.
Design angle: User research, usability testing, journey mapping, persona development.
Design Craft
Creating polished, intuitive experiences through visual design, interaction patterns, and prototyping. People strong in this dimension notice micro-interactions and typography details that others miss.
PM angle: UX quality evaluation, design review, accessibility standards.
Design angle: Visual design, interaction design, prototyping, design systems.
Analytical Rigor
Data fluency, hypothesis testing, measurement frameworks, and evidence-based decision making. People strong here reach for data before opinions and ask "how would we measure that?" before committing to a direction.
PM angle: Product metrics, A/B testing, business cases, funnel analysis.
Design angle: Design metrics, research synthesis, quantitative usability testing.
Execution & Delivery
Driving work to completion through scope management, quality standards, and relentless follow-through. People strong in execution ensure that projects ship on time with fewer surprises than expected.
PM angle: Sprint management, specs, release coordination, risk management.
Design angle: Design delivery, developer handoff, QA, design ops.
Influence & Communication
Storytelling, stakeholder management, building alignment, and persuading without authority. People strong here leave presentations with everyone aligned and energized to act.
PM angle: Managing up, cross-functional buy-in, executive communication.
Design angle: Design advocacy, presenting work, facilitating critique.
Systems Thinking
Seeing interconnections, designing for scale, managing dependencies, and thinking in platforms. People strong in this dimension spot second-order effects and edge cases that others discover three sprints later.
PM angle: Technical architecture, platform strategy, cross-team dependencies.
Design angle: Design systems, component architecture, scalable patterns.
Innovation & Ideation
Generating novel solutions, creative problem-solving, and seeing possibilities others overlook. People strong here generate ideas that make others say "I never thought of that" and connect unrelated concepts.
PM angle: Feature ideation, opportunity discovery, creative problem framing.
Design angle: Concept exploration, creative direction, design sprints.
The 8 Archetypes
Your archetype is determined by your top 2 dimensions. Each archetype represents a genuine professional strength -- there are no "bad" results.
| Archetype | Top Dimensions | Tagline |
|---|---|---|
| The Strategist | Strategic Vision + Analytical Rigor | You see the whole chessboard while others focus on the next move. |
| The Craftsperson | Design Craft + User Empathy | You sweat the details others never notice, and users feel the difference. |
| The Scientist | Analytical Rigor + User Empathy | You let data and research light the way, not opinions. |
| The Catalyst | Influence + Innovation | You get people excited about ideas that don't exist yet. |
| The Architect | Systems Thinking + Execution | You build things that scale long after you've moved on. |
| The Operator | Execution + Analytical Rigor | You ship on time, every time, and the numbers prove it. |
| The Visionary | Innovation + Strategic Vision | You see possibilities everyone else will discover in two years. |
| The Advocate | User Empathy + Influence | You make sure the user's voice is heard in every room. |
Building Balanced Teams
The most effective product teams are not composed of generalists who are mediocre at everything. They are composed of specialists whose strengths complement each other.
A strong product trio might include:
Signs your team is unbalanced:
How to Use This Framework
For individuals: Take the Product & Design StrengthsFinder assessment to discover your archetype. Lean into your top 2-3 strengths -- that is where you create the most value. For growth areas, aim for competency (enough to collaborate effectively), not mastery.
For managers: Have your team take the assessment and share results. Map the team's archetype distribution to identify collective blind spots. Use it in 1:1s to help direct reports focus their development on high-leverage areas rather than trying to be good at everything.
For hiring: When building a team, identify which archetypes are missing and hire for those strengths. A team of five Strategists will produce great roadmap decks but struggle to ship.
Take the Assessment
Ready to discover your archetype? The Product & Design StrengthsFinder is a free, 28-question assessment that takes about 5 minutes. You'll get a radar chart across all 8 dimensions, your primary and secondary archetype, team pairing recommendations, and curated resources for your strengths profile.