October 2026 · 11 min read · 42 skills, free

The Complete Claude Guide for Product Managers: 42 Claude Skills for the Whole Product Job

Forty-two skills that follow the product job in the order you do it: set direction, discover, decide, define, deliver, launch, prove, then run the product. Each one keeps a single framework, says where it breaks, and names the next skill to run.

01What these skills are

The product job, as installable Claude skills

This is Claude for the whole product job, stage by stage: the direction set, the customers heard, the backlog decided, the work defined, delivered, launched and then proved — plus the weekly rhythm that keeps it all running.

The skills follow the job in eight stages, in the order the work happens, and each stage hands a named artifact to the next.

The red line: real customers are not optional. Claude drafts the documents, the team talks to users, and a named person makes the call.

Each skill is named as an action and keeps one framework inside, with a fixed output template and the next skill to run.

No invented facts: a missing figure becomes a bracketed placeholder or an open question. Work is scored, people are not, and personas are composites rather than profiles of real people.

Where a skill fits a Claude surface, it says so, and beta features are marked beta.

Download all 42 skills

One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the sources behind every method. Free, no signup. The same 42 skills live in our open repo, if you would rather read them before you install them.

Download the zip Browse on GitHub

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install complete-claude-guide-for-product-managers-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip above and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.

02The catalog

The 42 skills you get

The set follows the product job, in eight stages: setting direction, discovering, deciding, defining, delivering, launching, proving — and running the product week to week.

1 · Set direction

Write the Product Vision

Use when: The team cannot say in one sentence what it is building toward
Output: Vision statement options, Product Vision Board (target group, needs, product, business goals)

Write the Product Strategy

Use when: Everything is high priority and leaders set the roadmap by preference
Output: Diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent actions, “we will not” list

Map the Impact

Use when: The roadmap is a feature list and nobody can say whose behaviour each item changes
Output: Goal, actors, impacts, deliverables, the deliverables no impact needs marked to cut

Size the Market (TAM, SAM, SOM)

Use when: Leadership asks how big this is and the slide needs a number you can defend
Output: Top-down and bottom-up estimates, sourced assumptions, a range, sanity checks

Fill the Lean Canvas

Use when: A new product or bet needs its business logic on one page
Output: One-page business logic, riskiest assumptions marked untested

Pick the North Star Metric

Use when: The team ships a lot and cannot say which number it is moving
Output: North star, three to five named inputs with definitions, counter-metrics

Build the Product Roadmap

Use when: The roadmap is run from the CEO's inbox and every date becomes a promise
Output: Now-next-later board, confidence notes, “not on the roadmap” list, one-page executive version

2 · Discover

Prepare the Customer Interview Guide

Use when: You have 30 minutes with a customer and cannot waste it on opinions
Output: Screener lines, story-based questions, probes, consent note, notes template

Synthesise the Interviews

Use when: Five interview transcripts and a PRD due Friday
Output: Affinity clusters, need statements with sources, contradictions, open questions

Build the Personas

Use when: The team argues about “the user” and everyone means someone different
Output: Composite personas from interview evidence, each claim linked to its source

Map the Customer Journey

Use when: Each team owns a slice and nobody sees where customers drop off
Output: Stages, actions, thoughts and feelings, pain points, opportunities, evidence per cell

Map the Jobs to Be Done

Use when: A request arrives with no known job behind it
Output: Job statements, circumstances, forces for and against switching, alternatives

Fill the Value Proposition Canvas

Use when: Marketing, sales and product each describe the product differently
Output: Customer profile, value map, fit notes, one positioning line every team uses

Build the Opportunity Solution Tree

Use when: Discovery keeps getting squeezed and has to fit between sprints
Output: Outcome, opportunities, target opportunity, three ideas, riskiest assumption per idea

3 · Decide

Triage the Feature Requests

Use when: Sales promised it, a big client wants it, the CEO forwarded it, all this week
Output: Request log, the job behind each request, build / later / no sort, reply drafts

Score the Backlog with RICE

Use when: 40 requests, room for 5, and the loudest voice keeps winning
Output: Scored backlog, confidence notes, out-of-order exceptions, cut list

Score with ICE

Use when: Forty growth ideas and one afternoon to pick what to test
Output: Impact, confidence and ease scores, evidence behind each confidence score, top ten to test

Rank with WSJF

Use when: Several teams share one backlog and need one order they can defend
Output: Cost of delay parts divided by job size, ranked list, sensitivity check

Cost the Delay

Use when: Everything is urgent and you need a no that holds
Output: Urgency profiles, CD3 order, “yes, if” options, reply to the asker

Make the Business Case

Use when: You must argue for a feature in finance language and the ROI numbers are guesses
Output: One-page case in five parts, assumptions table with ranges and owners, what would change the answer

Set Up the DACI Decision

Use when: Sign-off never comes, or comes and is reversed next week
Output: Driver, approver, contributors, informed, inputs, decision date

Keep the Decision Log

Use when: Settled calls keep coming back as if nobody decided
Output: Dated records (context, decision, status, consequences), reopening rule

4 · Define

Write the PR/FAQ

Use when: A prototype is already built and nobody wrote down why
Output: One-page press release, customer FAQ, internal FAQ

Write the Prototype Brief

Use when: Leadership saw the AI demo and thinks it ships next week
Output: The belief it tests, pass line set in advance, what it does not prove, gap-to-production list

Write the PRD

Use when: The last spec was read five different ways, or the AI draft runs to 12 pages
Output: Problem and evidence, goals, non-goals, numbered testable requirements, open questions, success measures

Spec the AI Feature

Use when: Stakeholders expect it to be right every time, and one prompt fix breaks another case
Output: Task, measurable success criteria, acceptable error rate, eval set plan, human fallback, launch bar

5 · Deliver

Build the Story Map

Use when: The backlog is 200 tickets and nobody can see the whole product
Output: User activity backbone, walking skeleton, release slices

Write the User Stories

Use when: Engineers say the requirements are thin but not what is missing
Output: Stories, Given / When / Then criteria, INVEST check, refinement questions

Plan the Sprint

Use when: The sprint is filled to a date promised upstairs and the team never sized the work
Output: Sprint goal as an outcome, capacity by role, items the team selected, definition of done check

Run the Sprint Review

Use when: The review is a demo nobody outside the team attends
Output: Increment against the sprint goal, feedback, backlog changes, short key-updates deck

Cut Scope with MoSCoW

Use when: The date is fixed and scope has to give
Output: Must / Should / Could / Won't list, Must budget check, Won't-this-time list

6 · Launch

Write the Competitive Analysis

Use when: Sales keeps saying “the competitor has it”
Output: Landscape table with sources, win / loss themes, where you differ, what not to copy

Plan the Go-to-Market

Use when: The product is ready and sales, support and marketing are not
Output: Launch tier, audiences, positioning line, readiness by team, enablement brief

Run the Pre-Mortem

Use when: The launch date was promised before anyone asked what could go wrong
Output: Failure story, reasons list, top risks with owners and signals, go / adjust / stop

Write the Release Notes

Use when: Support hears about changes from customers
Output: Customer notes by change type, internal version for support, who is affected

7 · Prove

Set the Success Metrics

Use when: You celebrated a release and still cannot say whether it worked
Output: HEART table (goals, signals, metrics), baseline, target, guardrail

Design the Experiment

Use when: Two options, a strong opinion on each side, and enough users to test
Output: Hypothesis, variants, primary metric, guardrails, sample and duration check, decision rule

Run the Post-Launch Review

Use when: Two weeks after launch customers still use the old workflow
Output: Intended versus actual, why, keep / change list, keep, fix or remove call

8 · Run the product

Write the Weekly Update

Use when: Friday goes on an update people skim, then ask the same questions in three meetings
Output: News-first subject line, bottom line and asks, shipped, at risk, decisions by date, one cut per audience

Run the Retro

Use when: The retro raises the same problems every sprint and the actions belong to no one
Output: Last action checked, a format for this cycle, themes, one owned change with a check date

Plan the Quarter

Use when: The quarter starts, the goals are a feature list, and every date becomes a promise
Output: Objectives and key results, capacity split, bets, what is out, check-in dates

03How to use it

Pick the workflow that matches your week

No fixed order. Bring the stage you are stuck on. Every skill lists the inputs it needs, so it tells you when the stage before is the one that is missing.

Set direction

Nobody can say what the product is building toward.

Write the Product Vision
Write the Product Strategy
Pick the North Star Metric
Build the Product Roadmap

Hear customers

You have calls to run, or transcripts to read back.

Prepare the Customer Interview Guide
Synthesise the Interviews
Map the Jobs to Be Done
Build the Opportunity Solution Tree

Decide the backlog

The backlog is the problem.

Triage the Feature Requests
Score the Backlog with RICE
Set Up the DACI Decision
Keep the Decision Log

Define the work

The work is chosen and not yet written down.

Write the One-Pager
Write the PR/FAQ
Write the Prototype Brief
Write the PRD
Spec the AI Feature

Deliver it

The work is defined and the sprint is next.

Build the Story Map
Write the User Stories
Plan the Sprint
Run the Sprint Review
Cut Scope with MoSCoW

Launch it

The release is next week.

Write the Competitive Analysis
Plan the Go-to-Market
Run the Pre-Mortem
Write the Release Notes

Prove it worked

You shipped it and still cannot say whether it worked.

Set the Success Metrics
Design the Experiment
Run the Post-Launch Review

04Setup guide

Install it in five minutes

In Claude Code · two lines

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install complete-claude-guide-for-product-managers-pack@polar-bear-skills

In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop · seven clicks

Download the pack, then open Settings
Unzip the pack: its skills folder holds all 42 skills. In Claude, click your name at the bottom left, then Settings.
Download the zip
Open Skills and click Add
Under Customize, choose Skills. Click Add, then Upload a skill.
Drop in a skill file
Drag the skill's file into the box, or click to browse. You can add several at once.
Pick the skill from the pack
In the pack folder, open skills, then the skill you want, and select its SKILL.md — pmg-write-product-vision is a good first one.
Check the preview and upload
Claude shows the skill's name and what it does. Click Upload.
Make sure it is switched on
The skill opens on its own page. Its toggle should be on.
Try it in a new chat
Type / and the skill's name, then say what you need.

Then try one

Run pmg-write-product-vision for [product]. What we have so far: [paste it here]

Run pmg-synthesise-interviews on these interview transcripts: [paste them here]

Run pmg-score-with-rice on these requests: [paste them here]

Lantern for product managers

Turn a week of product work into a week of posts

Lantern drafts a week of posts from your notes and call transcripts, in your voice. You review them and publish the ones you like.

100 free credits, about ten posts. No card needed.

Try for free

05Quick reference

Where to start

Your situation	Skill to run
The team cannot explain the product in one sentence?	Write the Product Vision
Everything is high priority and there is no strategy to say no against?	Write the Product Strategy
The roadmap is run from the CEO's inbox?	Build the Product Roadmap
Thirty minutes with a customer, once?	Prepare the Customer Interview Guide
Five transcripts and a PRD due Friday?	Synthesise the Interviews
Forty requests and room for five?	Score the Backlog with RICE
Everything is urgent and you need a no that holds?	Cost the Delay
The last spec was read five different ways?	Write the PRD
The date is fixed and scope has to give?	Cut Scope with MoSCoW
You shipped it and still cannot say whether it worked?	Set the Success Metrics

06Standards

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard, the one we hold when we run our own product:

One framework, applied properly: each skill uses the real mechanics of its method — the scales, the grid, the formula, the order of the pass — not a generic gather, analyse, recommend
It tells you where it breaks: every skill says when not to use it, and which skill in the guide fits instead
Same shape every time: a fixed output template, and a short done-when check before handover
No invented facts: no made-up quotes, customers, market numbers, ROI figures or findings — missing data becomes a bracketed placeholder or an open question
Work is scored, people are not: skills score requests, ideas, options, risks and key results, never team members or individual users, and personas are composites rather than profiles of real people
A named person decides: the skill drafts the document and sets out the trade-off, the call and the send stay with the person who owns them
The red line: real customers are not optional — Claude drafts the documents, the team talks to users, and a named person makes the call

07FAQ

Questions people ask

What is in the Complete Claude Guide for Product Managers pack?

42 Claude skills that follow the product job in eight stages: set direction, discover, decide, define, deliver, launch, prove, and run the product. Each skill is named as an action and keeps one framework inside, with a fixed output template.

How do I install these Claude skills?

In Claude Code, two lines install all 42 at once. In Claude.ai or Claude Desktop, download the zip, open Settings, Skills, Add, and upload the skills you want. Either way it takes about five minutes.

Do I need Claude Code to use them?

No. The skills work in Claude.ai, Claude Desktop and Claude Code. In the app you upload them yourself; in Claude Code one command installs the whole pack.

Do the skills work with ChatGPT or other assistants?

They are built as Claude Skills, and installing them is a Claude feature. Each one is a plain Markdown file, so you can read it and reuse the method elsewhere, but it will not load and trigger by itself outside Claude.

Will Claude decide what we build?

No. Real customers are not optional. Claude drafts the documents, the team talks to users, and a named person makes the call. Work is scored, people are not.

Is the pack free?

Yes. It is free to use inside your company and in client work, and not for resale. There is no signup: the download and the install command are on this page.

08Who made this

Lantern, by Polar Bear

These skills were written by Polar Bear, a people ops consultancy that runs its own company on Claude. The pack is free, and the same skills are open on GitHub.

Lantern is Polar Bear's content workspace. It turns your notes, documents and call transcripts into drafts for LinkedIn and other networks. You review them and publish the ones you like.