STRATEGIC THINKING
Market & Competitive Judgment
Whether you understand the real market context around your product, not just the internal roadmap: competitors, substitutes, market structure, and the alternatives your customer actually has.
← All 16 dimensions in the competency frameworkWhat strong evidence looks like
- Names specific competitors or substitutes and how they shaped a real decision
- Explains category dynamics and where the product sits within them
- Connects a competitive read to a pricing, positioning, or roadmap choice that changed because of it
What weak evidence looks like
- Describes competitors in general terms with no decision that changed because of them
- Treats the market as background context rather than an input to a real choice
A real follow-up question
“Who else could your customer have chosen instead, and how did that shape what you built or how you priced it?”
Questions like this follow directly from what you just said, not from a fixed script -- they exist to find out whether an answer holds up, not to check a box.
Related dimensions in Strategic Thinking
See where you actually stand on this
A self-assessment only goes so far. The adaptive interview tests exactly this kind of evidence, in your own words, with follow-up questions built to find out whether it holds up.