Growth Competency Model
The Growth Competency Model is a hiring and evaluation framework for growth teams, developed by Adam Fishman (Reforge EIR; former VP Growth at Lyft, VP Product & Growth at Patreon). It organises growth competencies into four quadrants to enable systematic team assessment and gap-based hiring.
The four quadrants
| Quadrant | Competencies |
|---|---|
| Growth Execution | Channel fluency, experimentation, productising learnings |
| Customer Knowledge | Data fluency, user psychology, creative and narrative approach |
| Growth Strategy | Loop modelling, capital allocation, prioritisation and roadmapping |
| Communication & Influence | Strategic communication, team leadership, stakeholder management |
Hiring principle: coverage, not unicorns
The model exists to identify team gaps — not to find a single hire who scores high on every dimension. That person does not exist. A well-constructed team covers all four quadrants across its members.
For early and junior hires, prioritise execution and customer knowledge: these quadrants produce results fastest and are hardest to develop quickly. Strategy and influence can be layered in as the team grows.
Internal hires outperform external candidates for early growth roles: they already hold customer knowledge, reach productive output faster, and carry lower hiring risk.
Three uses
- Hiring. Map open roles against current team coverage. Score each candidate across the four quadrants; hire to fill gaps rather than clone existing strengths.
- Evaluation. Run regular competency reviews to identify where individuals want to develop and where the team has structural blind spots.
- Levelling. Senior growth leaders should show broad coverage; individual contributors can be specialists.
Customer knowledge as the neglected quadrant
Fishman identifies customer knowledge as structurally neglected in most growth teams. Teams with strong execution but weak customer knowledge run technically rigorous experiments that answer the wrong questions. Strong customer knowledge is the prerequisite for effective onboarding: the only product surface all users must touch.
Related framework: IQ/EQ skill taxonomy
Jules Walter (Slack, YouTube) proposes a complementary two-bucket taxonomy for PM career development: IQ skills (execution, product sense, strategy, interview performance) and EQ skills (communication across audience types, cross-functional leadership, management, self-aware listening). Walter’s finding: IQ skills plateau faster and are easier to acquire from books and artefacts; EQ skills compound longer but require direct feedback, coaching, and deliberate interpersonal practice. Neither model supersedes the other — Fishman’s model is growth-specific and team-oriented; Walter’s is career-stage-oriented and individual.
See also: Jules Walter on PM Skill Building, Mentorship, and the Shadow Side of Strengths
See also
- Adam Fishman
- Adam Fishman on Growth, Onboarding, and Choosing the Right Company
- Jules Walter on PM Skill Building, Mentorship, and the Shadow Side of Strengths
- Evals — parallel: structured competency frameworks in a different domain