Product Operations

1. Product Operations: The Force Multiplier for Scaling Product Management

Product operations is the discipline of helping your product management function scale well—surrounding the team with all of the essential inputs to set strategy, prioritize, and streamline ways of working.

Enabling strategic decisions. Product operations acts as a force multiplier for product teams by providing the infrastructure needed to make evidence-based decisions and align the company around them. It addresses common challenges such as lack of data visibility, inconsistent processes, and poor cross-functional communication.

Scaling product management. As companies grow and product portfolios expand, product operations becomes crucial in maintaining efficiency and effectiveness. It helps break down silos of information and capabilities that arise at scale, ensuring that all departments understand their impact on the product lifecycle. By taking on administrative tasks and streamlining processes, product operations allows product managers to focus on core responsibilities like achieving business goals and creating customer value.

2. Three Pillars: Data Insights, Customer Research, and Process Governance

At its core, product operations is an enablement function. Think of it as the product manager for the product manager.

Data and Insights. This pillar focuses on collecting and analyzing internal data to inform strategy creation and monitoring. It provides leaders with a view that tracks the progress of outcomes and helps reconcile R&D spend and ROI.

Customer and Market Insights. This pillar facilitates the aggregation of external research, including customer feedback and market trends. It streamlines the process of gathering and disseminating user insights and competitive analysis.

Process and Practices. This pillar scales product management value by establishing consistent cross-functional practices and frameworks. It defines the product operating model, specifying how the company creates and deploys strategy, how teams collaborate, and how the product management function operates.

3. Leveraging Data for Strategic Decision-Making in Product Development

Data tells a story. Well, maybe not the data itself, but in the hands of an experienced product manager who knows how to extract the right data for the right audience, it can be the difference between listening to an improv show, where there's no consistent theme or plot, and a Best Picture winner at the Oscars.

Contextualizing data. Product operations helps filter data through a product lens, providing evidence to support strategic decisions. This includes analyzing metrics such as product profitability, usage patterns, customer KPIs, and market opportunities.

Informing strategy. By aggregating data from various sources (sales, finance, customer support), product operations creates a holistic view of product performance. This enables product teams to:

• Identify trends and opportunities
• Validate hypotheses
• Prioritize initiatives based on potential impact
• Monitor progress towards strategic goals

Automating insights. Product operations works to implement systems that provide real-time data access, allowing for faster decision-making and strategy adjustments. This may involve setting up dashboards, implementing business intelligence tools, and creating regular reporting cadences.

4. Streamlining Customer and Market Insights for Informed Product Strategies

Research initiatives are worth absolutely nothing if the product team can't use the outputs.

Centralizing customer feedback. Product operations helps aggregate insights from various touchpoints (sales, support, user research) to create a comprehensive view of customer needs and preferences. This involves:

• Setting up systems to capture and categorize feedback
• Creating processes for sharing insights across teams
• Establishing a central repository of research findings

Enabling efficient research. By streamlining the logistics of customer research, product operations removes barriers that often prevent product managers from engaging directly with users. This includes:

• Creating user research councils or panels for easy access to participants
• Implementing tools for scheduling and conducting research
• Developing templates and best practices for various research methodologies

Market intelligence. Product operations supports market research efforts by:

• Analyzing competitive landscapes
• Calculating total addressable market (TAM) and serviceable obtainable market (SOM)
• Monitoring industry trends and potential disruptors

5. Establishing a Product Operating Model for Efficient Execution

The Product Operating Model provides guidelines on how the product team works with each other and with other departments and stakeholders.

Defining roles and processes. Product operations helps create clarity around:

• Job descriptions and career paths for product roles
• Standardized templates and tools for product management tasks
• Guidelines for cross-functional collaboration

Governance and planning. This includes establishing:

• Cadences for strategic discussions (e.g., quarterly business reviews, portfolio roadmap reviews)
• Cross-functional touchpoints for alignment
• Prioritization frameworks to guide decision-making

Toolkits and enablement. Product operations develops and maintains:

• Discovery toolkits (e.g., experiment templates, prototyping software)
• Strategy toolkits (e.g., strategy memos, OKR tracking)
• Go-to-market toolkits (e.g., launch materials, release notes templates)

6. Introducing and Scaling Product Operations in Your Organization

With this kind of role you're drumming up demand in the early days. You're helping people even understand what Product Operations is. You're storytelling and painting the picture of what Product Operations could be at the company.

Assessing readiness. Consider implementing product operations when:

• Your company is scaling from startup to enterprise
• Decision-making becomes slower due to increased complexity
• There's a lack of visibility into product performance across teams

Getting buy-in. To introduce product operations:

• Identify and articulate specific pain points it will address
• Demonstrate potential impact on revenue, efficiency, or strategic alignment
• Start small with quick wins to prove value

Scaling the function. As the need grows:

• Develop a roadmap for expanding capabilities
• Consider both embedded and centralized team structures
• Continuously assess and communicate the value being delivered

7. Building a High-Impact Product Operations Team

Make yourself invaluable. Embed yourself into critical workstreams, programs, and processes such that the idea of you leaving gives your manager hives.

Hiring considerations. Look for team members with:

• Strong analytical skills for data and insights roles
• Process optimization experience for governance roles
• User research background for customer insights roles

Team structure. Consider:

• Starting with a team of one and gradually expanding
• Balancing centralized and embedded team members
• Aligning roles with the most pressing needs of the organization

Measuring success. Track metrics such as:

• Reduction in time spent on administrative tasks by product managers
• Improved decision-making speed and quality
• Increased cross-functional collaboration and alignment
• Product team satisfaction and retention rates

Last updated: August 23, 2024