Last week, I was deep in the tedious process of creating a product roadmap presentation for stakeholders. You know the drill—take scattered thoughts from Notion, data from multiple spreadsheets, feedback from Slack threads, and somehow transform it all into a polished PowerPoint that makes our quarterly plan look coherent and strategic.
I'd been at it for two hours when I remembered reading about a new Claude feature called "Skills." On a whim, I asked Claude to create the presentation using our brand guidelines. What happened next genuinely surprised me.
Claude didn't just generate a generic slide deck. It pulled together the structure I needed, applied formatting that matched our company style (which I'd saved as a custom Skill), created data visualizations from my messy spreadsheets, and even flagged inconsistencies in my timeline. The whole thing took maybe 15 minutes instead of the usual 3-4 hours.
That's when I realized: Skills isn't just another AI feature. It's fundamentally changing what we can delegate to AI and how we work as product managers.
What Are Claude Skills? (The Simple Explanation)
Claude Skills, officially launched as "Agent Skills" in October 2024 and significantly expanded in December 2024, are modular capabilities that teach Claude how to perform specific tasks in a repeatable, specialized way.
Think of Skills as custom training modules. Instead of explaining the same process to Claude every single time ("Here's how our company formats PRDs" or "Here's how we analyze user data"), you package those instructions once into a Skill. From then on, Claude automatically recognizes when that Skill is relevant and applies it.
The technical definition: Skills are folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources that Claude loads dynamically when needed to perform specialized tasks. They can include:
- Markdown files with instructions and procedures
- Executable code for complex operations
- Templates and examples
- Domain-specific knowledge
The practical reality: Skills turn Claude from a general-purpose AI into a specialist that knows your workflows, your brand guidelines, your data analysis methods, and your organizational processes.
A Brief History: How Skills Evolved
Understanding when and why Anthropic introduced Skills helps explain why this matters now:
October 2024: Anthropic quietly launched Agent Skills as a beta feature. Initially, it was developer-focused—available through the API and Claude Code. The idea was simple: let developers package specialized capabilities that Claude could invoke when relevant.
December 18, 2024: The major expansion. Anthropic made Skills available across claude.ai, introduced organization-wide management for Team and Enterprise plans, launched a Skills Directory with partner-built skills from companies like Notion, Figma, Canva, and Atlassian, and most importantly, published Agent Skills as an open standard at agentskills.io.
January 2025: Skills became integrated with other Claude features like Memory, Extended Thinking, and the new Cowork agent. The Skills Directory expanded significantly, and custom skill creation became more accessible to non-technical users.
Current State (January 2026): Skills are now available to Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users. You can use pre-built Anthropic Skills (for Excel, PowerPoint, Word, PDFs), install partner Skills from the directory, or create custom Skills tailored to your exact workflows.
The evolution shows Anthropic's strategy: start with developers, prove the concept, then democratize it for everyone. And it's working.
Why Skills Matter for Product Managers
As a PM, I initially dismissed Skills as "just another feature." I was wrong. Here's why Skills are actually game-changing for our work:
1. They Solve the "Repetitive Explanation" Problem
How many times have you explained your PRD format to Claude? Or your user story structure? Or your company's prioritization framework? Every time you start a new chat, you're re-teaching Claude your processes.
Skills solve this. Create a "PRD Template" Skill once with your company's format, required sections, and tone of voice. From then on, whenever you ask Claude to help with a PRD, it automatically loads that Skill and follows your template. No more copy-pasting instructions or links to "how we do things here."
2. They Enable True Specialization
Claude is brilliant at general tasks. But product management requires domain expertise. Skills let you teach Claude:
- Your specific market and competitive landscape
- Your company's unique product development methodology
- Industry-specific terminology and frameworks
- Your organization's decision-making criteria
For example, I created a "User Research Analysis" Skill that includes our specific research questions framework, how we categorize insights, and our format for presenting findings to stakeholders. Now when I share interview transcripts with Claude, it automatically applies our methodology instead of using generic analysis approaches.
3. They Scale Your Institutional Knowledge
This is the big one. Every company has workflows, best practices, and tribal knowledge that lives in people's heads or scattered across Confluence pages. Skills let you package that knowledge so it's consistently applied.
Our team created Skills for:
- How we write feature specs (with our specific template and required sections)
- How we analyze A/B test results (with our statistical significance thresholds and reporting format)
- How we structure quarterly planning docs (with our OKR format and strategic framework)
- How we create stakeholder updates (with the information executives actually care about)
This means new PMs can leverage institutional knowledge immediately instead of spending months learning "how we do things here."
4. They Integrate With Your Actual Tools
Through the Skills Directory and MCP (Model Context Protocol) connectors, Skills can work with the tools you actually use:
- Notion Skills: Format your product docs according to your Notion workspace structure
- Figma Skills: Generate design specifications that match your team's Figma conventions
- Jira/Asana Skills: Create tickets following your team's specific formats and workflows
- Slack Skills: Draft updates in your team's communication style
This isn't theoretical. I'm using a custom Notion Skill that automatically formats my meeting notes according to our team's template, tags relevant people, and suggests which workspace to file them in.
How Skills Actually Work (Without Getting Too Technical)
Let me demystify the mechanism without getting into API documentation:
Progressive Disclosure: When you ask Claude to do something, it scans available Skills to find relevant matches. It only loads the Skills it needs for that specific task, preventing information overload.
Automatic Invocation: You don't need to explicitly say "use my PRD Skill." Claude recognizes from context that you're working on a PRD and loads the relevant Skill automatically.
Composability: Multiple Skills can work together. If you're creating a product roadmap presentation, Claude might load your "Brand Guidelines" Skill, your "Roadmap Template" Skill, and your "Data Visualization" Skill simultaneously.
Execution Capability: Skills can include executable code, not just instructions. This means a Skill can actually perform operations (like data analysis or file formatting) rather than just giving Claude instructions on how to do it.
Version Control: Through the API and Console, you can manage different versions of Skills, roll back changes, and update them as your processes evolve.
Real Examples: How PMs Are Using Skills
Let me share concrete examples from my work and other PMs I've talked to:
Example 1: Automated Competitive Analysis
The Problem: Every month, I spend 2-3 hours reviewing competitor features, pricing changes, and announcements to update our competitive landscape doc.
The Skill Solution: I created a "Competitive Analysis" Skill with:
- Our specific competitors and what to track for each
- The template for our competitive landscape doc
- Criteria for evaluating feature parity
- Instructions on how to format findings
The Result: Now I share competitor URLs or screenshots with Claude, and it automatically produces analysis in our exact format, flags significant changes, and suggests implications for our roadmap. What took 3 hours now takes 30 minutes of review.
Example 2: User Interview Synthesis
The Problem: After conducting 10-15 user interviews, I'd spend hours reading transcripts, identifying themes, and creating a synthesis document.
The Skill Solution: Created a "User Research Synthesis" Skill containing:
- Our research questions framework
- How we categorize user feedback (pain points, feature requests, workflow insights)
- Our synthesis document template
- Examples of good vs. poor synthesis
The Result: I upload interview transcripts, and Claude produces a synthesis document following our exact methodology. It identifies themes, quotes relevant feedback, and structures findings according to our template. I spend my time on interpretation rather than administrative work.
Example 3: Technical Specification Generation
The Problem: Writing technical specs that engineers actually find useful requires understanding our specific architecture, naming conventions, and level of detail.
The Skill Solution: Our engineering team created a "Tech Spec" Skill with:
- Our system architecture overview
- Naming conventions and code structure
- Required sections for specs
- Examples of well-written specs
The Result: When I describe a feature, Claude generates a technical spec that engineers can actually work from. They spend less time asking clarifying questions, and I spend less time in back-and-forth.
Example 4: Stakeholder Communication
The Problem: Different stakeholders need different information. Executives want strategic implications, engineers want technical details, sales wants customer-facing messaging.
The Skill Solution: Created three Skills:
- "Executive Update" (focuses on metrics, strategic impact, risk)
- "Engineering Brief" (technical implementation, dependencies, effort)
- "Sales Enablement" (customer benefits, competitive positioning, messaging)
The Result: I draft one comprehensive update, then ask Claude to adapt it for each audience using the relevant Skill. Each stakeholder gets exactly what they need in the format they expect.
Types of Skills You Can Create
Based on what I've seen work well, here are the categories of Skills most valuable for product managers:
Documentation Skills
- PRD templates
- Feature specification formats
- User story structures
- Technical documentation standards
- Meeting notes formats
Analysis Skills
- User research synthesis methods
- Data analysis frameworks
- Competitive analysis templates
- A/B test evaluation criteria
- Customer feedback categorization
Communication Skills
- Stakeholder update formats
- Product announcement templates
- Release notes structures
- Email communication styles
- Presentation templates
Process Skills
- Sprint planning workflows
- Roadmap creation methodologies
- Prioritization frameworks (RICE, ICE, etc.)
- Go-to-market planning processes
- OKR and goal-setting formats
Domain-Specific Skills
- Industry terminology and context
- Regulatory compliance requirements
- Your specific product's architecture
- Customer segment characteristics
- Your company's strategic framework
How to Create Your First Skill (Step-by-Step)
Creating a basic Skill is surprisingly straightforward. Here's how to start:
Step 1: Identify a Repetitive Task
Look for something you explain to Claude repeatedly. Good candidates:
- Document formats you use often
- Workflows you follow consistently
- Analysis methods you apply regularly
- Communication templates you reuse
My first Skill: Product Roadmap Presentation Template
Step 2: Document the Process
Write down exactly how you want this task done. Include:
- The goal/purpose
- Step-by-step process
- Required elements or sections
- Examples of good outputs
- Common mistakes to avoid
For non-technical Skills, you can write this entirely in Markdown. No coding required.
Example: My roadmap Skill includes our presentation structure (Problem → Solution → Timeline → Success Metrics), our brand colors, required disclaimers, and examples of past successful roadmaps.
Step 3: Create the Skill File Structure
A basic Skill is just a folder with:
manifest.json(describes the Skill's purpose and when it applies)instructions.md(your detailed process documentation)examples/folder (optional, for reference materials)scripts/folder (optional, for executable code)
You can create this locally or through the Claude Console for Team/Enterprise plans.
Step 4: Test and Refine
Start using your Skill. Pay attention to:
- Does Claude invoke it when you expect?
- Are the outputs consistent with your expectations?
- What edge cases or variations need to be addressed?
Iterate on your instructions based on real usage.
Step 5: Share With Your Team (If Applicable)
For Team/Enterprise plans, you can provision Skills organization-wide. This ensures everyone follows the same processes and formats.
Skills vs. Other Claude Features: What's the Difference?
Claude has several features that sound similar. Here's how they differ:
Skills vs. Projects:
- Projects provide static background context that's always loaded when you're in that project
- Skills provide dynamic procedures that only load when relevant
- Use Projects for persistent knowledge, Skills for repeatable processes
Skills vs. Custom Instructions:
- Custom Instructions apply broadly to all your conversations
- Skills are task-specific and only activate when needed
- Custom Instructions set general preferences; Skills provide specialized procedures
Skills vs. MCP Connectors:
- MCP Connectors give Claude access to external tools and data (like Notion, Slack)
- Skills teach Claude how to use those tools effectively
- They work together: MCP provides access, Skills provide process
Example: An MCP connector gives Claude access to your Notion workspace. A Skill teaches Claude how to format meeting notes according to your team's specific template within Notion.
Advanced Use Cases: Where Skills Get Powerful
Once you're comfortable with basic Skills, here's where it gets interesting:
Composable Workflows
Multiple Skills can work together to handle complex workflows. For example, my "Quarterly Planning" workflow involves:
- "Market Analysis" Skill (analyzes competitive landscape)
- "User Feedback Synthesis" Skill (summarizes recent customer insights)
- "OKR Framework" Skill (structures goals according to our format)
- "Roadmap Template" Skill (creates the timeline visualization)
- "Stakeholder Presentation" Skill (formats for executive review)
I just tell Claude "help me prepare Q2 planning materials," and it orchestrates all five Skills automatically.
Domain Expertise Packaging
For specialized industries, Skills can encode deep domain knowledge. Healthcare PMs, for instance, can create Skills for:
- HIPAA compliance checks
- Clinical trial documentation
- Regulatory submission formats
- Medical terminology and standards
Anthropic now offers pre-built Skills for FHIR development and prior authorization review specifically for healthcare.
Team Knowledge Scaling
As senior PMs, we can package our expertise into Skills for junior PMs to use:
- "How [Senior PM] Evaluates Features"
- "How [Senior PM] Structures User Research"
- "How [Senior PM] Writes Effective Specs"
This accelerates onboarding and ensures consistent quality across the team.
The Open Standard: Why It Matters
In December 2024, Anthropic did something smart: they published Agent Skills as an open standard at agentskills.io.
What this means: Skills you create for Claude aren't locked to Claude. The same Skill format works across any AI platform that adopts the standard.
Why it matters: You're not building vendor-specific tools. As more AI platforms adopt the standard (which they're incentivized to do), your Skills become portable. The work you put into creating organizational Skills has longevity.
Current adoption: While still early, the open standard approach means Skills are becoming cross-platform capabilities, not just a Claude feature.
This is similar to how Anthropic open-sourced MCP (Model Context Protocol), which is now being adopted by other AI platforms. It's good strategy—create useful standards, get adoption, become the leader.
Potential Drawbacks and Limitations
Let's be honest about where Skills fall short:
1. Requires Code Execution to be Enabled Skills use Claude's code execution capability. If you've disabled this for security reasons, Skills won't work. This is a consideration for enterprises with strict security policies.
2. Initial Setup Time Creating good Skills takes time. You need to document processes clearly, provide examples, and iterate based on results. The ROI is there, but it's not instant.
3. Not Ideal for Highly Dynamic Processes If your workflow changes constantly, maintaining Skills becomes overhead. They're best for processes that are reasonably stable.
4. Potential for Over-Reliance There's a risk that teams become dependent on Skills without understanding the underlying processes. Junior PMs might use a "Feature Spec" Skill without learning what makes a good spec.
5. Quality Depends on Quality of Instructions Garbage in, garbage out. Poorly written Skill instructions produce inconsistent results. This requires thoughtful documentation.
6. Limited to Available Plans Skills are only available on Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise plans. Free tier users can't access them.
Privacy and Security Considerations for PMs
As product managers, we need to think about the security implications:
What Skills Can Access:
- Content in your conversations
- Files you upload or create
- MCP-connected tools (if granted permission)
- Code execution environment
What to Be Careful About:
- Don't include sensitive credentials in Skill instructions
- Be mindful of what organizational knowledge you package into Skills
- For Enterprise plans, use organization-wide Skills management to control access
- Review Skills from the Directory before installing—understand what they do
Best Practices:
- Only install Skills from trusted sources
- Review custom Skills before sharing organization-wide
- Use the code execution sandbox appropriately
- Follow your company's AI usage and data policies
Anthropic has been notably transparent about these risks, which I appreciate. They're not sugar-coating the power (and potential dangers) of giving AI extended capabilities.
The Future: Where Skills Are Heading
Based on Anthropic's roadmap signals and current trajectory, here's where I think this goes:
Near-term (2025):
- More pre-built Skills from major SaaS companies
- Simplified Skill creation (less technical setup required)
- Better discovery and search in the Skills Directory
- Tighter integration with Cowork and Claude Code
Medium-term:
- Skills marketplace where individuals can share/sell Skills
- AI-assisted Skill creation (Claude helping you build Skills)
- Cross-platform Skills adoption (other AI tools supporting the standard)
- Industry-specific Skill bundles (PM Skills pack, Legal Skills pack, etc.)
Long-term speculation:
- Skills that learn and improve from usage
- Collaborative Skills where teams contribute and refine together
- Skills as a core differentiator between AI platforms
- Skills becoming the primary way we customize AI for specific roles
Should You Start Using Skills?
Here's my honest recommendation:
Definitely start if:
- You have repetitive workflows you explain to Claude often
- You're on a Team/Enterprise plan and want to scale best practices
- You work in a specialized domain that benefits from domain-specific procedures
- You're spending significant time formatting documents or following templates
Maybe wait if:
- You're still exploring Claude and haven't established clear use patterns
- Your workflows change too frequently to make Skills worthwhile
- You're on a Free plan (Skills aren't available yet)
- Your organization has strict restrictions on code execution
Start small: Don't try to create 20 Skills at once. Pick one repetitive task that annoys you. Create a Skill for it. Use it for a week. Refine it. Then move to the next one.
My Personal Skills Setup (As a PM)
To make this concrete, here's what I'm currently using:
Daily Use:
- "PRD Template" — My product requirements document format
- "User Research Synthesis" — How I analyze and present user insights
- "Stakeholder Update" — Format for weekly stakeholder communications
- "Meeting Notes" — Structure for capturing and distributing meeting notes
Weekly Use:
- "Competitive Analysis" — Framework for tracking competitor moves
- "Data Analysis Standard" — How we evaluate metrics and experiments
- "Roadmap Presentation" — Template for roadmap visualizations
Monthly Use:
- "Quarterly Planning" — OKR and goal-setting format
- "Product Launch Checklist" — Go-to-market process
- "Retrospective Template" — How we structure team retros
From the Directory:
- Notion Skill (for formatting docs in our workspace)
- Figma Skill (for generating design specs)
- Excel Skill (Anthropic's pre-built Skill for working with spreadsheets)
Total time to set these up: Maybe 6–8 hours across a month. Time saved per week: Easily 3–4 hours.
Final Thoughts: Skills as a Productivity Multiplier
Skills represent a shift in how we interact with AI. Instead of treating Claude like a very smart intern who needs constant guidance, we're treating it like a specialist who knows our workflows and can operate semi-autonomously.
For product managers specifically, this matters because our work is often about synthesizing information, following processes, and communicating effectively across different audiences. Skills make Claude dramatically better at all three.
The real power isn't in any single Skill — it's in the accumulated effect of having 10–15 Skills that handle your most common workflows. Suddenly, you're not spending hours on documentation, formatting, and administrative work. You're spending time on the strategic thinking that actually requires human judgment.
Is this perfect? No. Are there risks and limitations? Absolutely. But after using Skills daily for the past two months, I'm convinced this is one of the more significant productivity improvements I've adopted in years.
And we're still early. As Skills become more sophisticated, more widely adopted, and easier to create, the productivity gains will only compound.
If you're a product manager not yet using Skills, I'd encourage you to try it. Start with one annoying, repetitive task. Create a Skill for it. See if it saves you time.
My guess is you'll be creating your second Skill within a week.
Are you using Claude Skills? What workflows have you automated? I'm genuinely curious what use cases other PMs are finding valuable. Share your experiences in the comments — I'm always looking for new Skill ideas to steal.