vp-cpo-readiness-advisor

SKILL.md

Purpose

Guide Directors and senior product leaders through the specific challenges of the transition to VP or CPO using adaptive questions and targeted coaching. Diagnoses where you are in the journey and delivers practical, lived-experience coaching calibrated to your situation — not generic executive advice.

The VP/CPO transition is not a continuation of the Director transition. The landscape changes. Strategy becomes largely unwritten. Your primary customer may shift. You stop using product language with executives. Constraints don't disappear — the Rubik's Cube just goes from 3×3 to 9×9. This advisor names what's actually hard at this level and what to do about it.

Key Concepts

The Three Ps Framework

At VP and CPO level, your accountability expands across three dimensions simultaneously:

Product — Portfolio decisions, roadmap strategy, product family coherence

Practice — How the work gets done; process discipline, execution consistency, cross-functional operating rhythms

People — The dominant focus at this level: org structure, talent matching, developing leaders, setting expectations and inspecting them

Most Directors are strong in Product and adequate in Practice. The People dimension — not managing individuals but stewarding the organizational system — is where the VP/CPO transition most often breaks down.