10 Questions you’ve always had about Product Ops, but were too shy to ask
Product Operations has been a trending topic for the last two years - from conference stages to podcasts, blog posts to books, it seems everyone is talking about what it is and why it’s useful. New Product Operations voices join the conversation every day, and among a recent push to make companies more efficient, Product Ops is gaining more and more attention.
So if you’re someone who tries to stay on top of industry trends, it’s likely you’ve heard the term before. But do you really know what it means?
I consider myself lucky to be called one of the top voices in Product Operations. And today, I’m here to demystify Product Ops for good by answering ten of the most common questions people have about Product Operations. So without further ado, let’s get right into it 👇
1. What is Product Operations?
If you’ve ever spoken to a Product Ops professional and asked them to summarise what Product Operations really is, chances are they gave you quite a broad definition. And that’s expected - Product Ops as a discipline is broad by nature. But let’s look at a few definitions together:
The Product Operations Manifesto says: “Product Operations empowers product organisations to collectively, effectively and efficiently drive the most meaningful outcomes for customers”.
I absolutely love this definition, because it really gets to the core of what we do. It highlights that we’re an enabling role, it highlights that our primary focus is the product organisation, and it highlights that our end goal is to drive meaningful customer outcomes. I use it often - but it still leaves many open questions. So, here’s what I say in addition:
“I enable product teams to do their best work by providing them with the tools, frameworks, and access to data they need to succeed”.
Now we’re getting much more concrete! Tools, frameworks, and data are three things every Product Ops Manager deals with, and they’re what we’re most known for. However, this is often where the similarities between Product Ops jobs ends. Let’s talk about that…
2. Why is Product Ops so different from company to company?
One of the biggest complaints I hear about folks trying to learn more about the discipline is that nearly everybody has a different definition of it and that it seems to work differently at every company. And while that can be frustrating, this variance is actually a good thing! Far from being process-pushers, we want to adapt our approach to each company we work with, because we need to figure out what our specific organisation needs to get better at.
So if you’re looking for one definitive way of doing Product Ops, if you’re looking for The Handbook™️ or The Ultimate Guide to Product Operations™️, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
Each organisation has its own blind spots. Each organisation has things it absolutely thrives in. Each organisation has different goals, different needs, different capabilities, and different resources. Remember our primary objective? “To empower product organisations to collectively, effectively and efficiently drive the most meaningful outcomes for customers”. This looks differently at every company. And while it’s true that we’ve largely established what ‘good’ Product Management ought to look like, the path to that is simply not something you can - or even should! - standardise.
3. What are the day-to-day tasks of a Product Ops Manager?
A Product Ops Manager’s day-to-day tasks and responsibilities can range from very operational to very strategic. As a Product Ops Manager your ‘range of movement’ is often defined by your position (leadership or IC), whether you’re a team of one, your organisation’s understanding of the role, and who you report to.
At the operational end of the scale, we look at reducing the cognitive load of frequently occurring and repetitive tasks. Think of templates, small pieces of automation, or lightweight processes. These things are helpful and sometimes necessary, but won’t meaningfully move the needle on their own. The strategic end of the scale is where Product Operations really shines. Working together with senior leadership to identify our organisational ambitions, understand what’s needed to get us there, and then devise a Product Ops strategy that will help the company realise this ambition is something Product Ops as a discipline is uniquely positioned to do extremely well. Working at this level requires continuous iteration, a few big bets, and above all, close communication with the people it affects the most: our individual contributors.
4. But wait… isn’t this a Product Leader’s job?
Yes and no. It’s true that the higher-level, more strategic parts of Product Operations have typically been executed by our product leaders. After all, these kinds of tasks have always existed! We didn’t conjure up new responsibilities out of the blue with the emergence of Product Ops as an independent discipline. These are things that always needed to get done, and typically it was up to our product leaders to take care of them.
However, more often than not our product leaders simply do not have the time nor the mental bandwidth to do Product Operations justice. Product Ops is just one of many hats they wear, including interfacing with the rest of senior leadership and the board, defining the product strategy, and developing their reports. And the truth is that among all of these responsibilities, Product Operations is often simply the least important one.
So rather than have an already overworked product leader do just enough Product Ops on the side to keep the organisation plugging along, wouldn’t it be better to outsource this responsibility to someone who can dedicate themselves to doing it really well?
5. Product Ops sounds a lot like Agile Coaching / Product Coaching / Chief of Staff-ing. How is it different?
Enabling roles have existed across the entire business spectrum for decades, and in that, Product Ops as an enabler to great product work is nothing now. But there are some unique traits that elevate Product Ops to become strategic allies to product leadership.
Agile Coaches are often embedded within 1-3 cross-functional teams, and they often focus on software creation and delivery. Product Ops on the other hand is a centralised function looking over the entire product development lifecycle - from inception to sunsetting.
Product Coaching within companies often happens on an ad-hoc and 1:1 basis - you might get mentorship from your manager, or a senior IC might help you work through a problem you’re currently facing. Product Operations is continuous, and aims to operationalise the learnings and methods of product creation used in the company.
And lastly, while Chiefs of Staff can be great partners to Product Operations, they often focus on the business as a whole, and are more likely to get involved in financial or business operational aspects of the job, while Product Ops uniquely focuses on the product organisation.
6. Ok… I’m starting to understand Product Ops now. But what can it do for me?
Imagine it’s lunchtime and you’re working from home, and you want to make yourself a quick and easy chicken salad. You go to the kitchen to prep your ingredients only to realise that you forgot to defrost the chicken breast and you now have to cook it from frozen, which means it’ll take longer and it’ll end up overcooked and dry no matter what you do. Your lettuce is a couple of days old and a little wilted, and the tomatoes you wanted to use touched the back of the fridge, and are now half-frozen, too! And of course, the delivery service you used sent you the wrong yoghurt because they no longer had the lactose-free kind in stock.
Now imagine you have a beautiful free-range chicken breast waiting for you, with wonderfully fresh tomatoes and lettuce, and a yoghurt that won’t upset your stomach. What a difference that would make!
Product Ops is a lot like ensuring you have the right ingredients at your disposal. We won’t make the salad for you, and we won’t decide what goes in it - these are part of your responsibility. But we will ensure that you have everything you need to make a fantastic lunch - including equipment, recipes, and lactose-free yoghurt.
7. Does every company need Product Operations?
Product Operations exists wherever Products are made, so asking whether a company ‘needs’ Product Ops is maybe the wrong question to ask. As I mentioned earlier, these tasks are simply a by-product of doing Product - however, there are times in an organisation’s life where the need for dedicated Product Operations staff is more acute than in others.
Dedicated Product Operations staff can be instrumental in successfully navigating complex organisational change. Broadly speaking, this kind of change arises in three scenarios:
Startups becoming scale-ups (so-called “growing up”)
Companies moving towards a new working model (be that agile or product-led)
Companies rapidly growing or shrinking, either due to acquisition or staff reduction
All of these scenarios have one thing in common: The organisation needs to re-define how they get work done. Product Operations staff can act as shepherds of this process, guiding leaders through tough conversations, setting the frame for a new operating model, and ensuring teams have what they need to remain successful.
8. I’m a Product leader and I see the value in Product Operations. When should I think about hiring my first Product Ops Manager?
Well, that depends (I know, I know - but I promise I’ll expand!). How painful is it to be a Product Manager at your company today? How capable are you and your team of handling Product Ops tasks as they arise? Do you foresee any large organisational changes in the next year? If so, you might want to start thinking about it today.
There is no golden ratio of Product Ops Managers to PMs, and there is no definitive number of PMs that should trigger a Product Leader to hire their first Product Ops staff member. Some companies grow diligently and sustainably, with a keen eye on their organisational systems - and they might never need a fully dedicated Product Ops team member! But for most organisations, there comes a time where getting work done starts feeling painful and slow, like pulling teeth or wading through knee-deep water.
As a general guideline, I tend to see an inflection point when a company hires their 8th PM and disagreements can no longer be solved by simply getting everyone into the same room. If your product team is made up of largely junior folks, this point might come earlier, and if your team is very experienced, this might come later.
9. How do you measure success?
Product Operations is really not all that different from Product Management. We define a Product Ops strategy to guide us in our decision making, we set goals, we experiment and iterate, and of course - we measure success. I’m a big fan of measuring success on two axes: A long-term trending value, and shorter, initiative-specific values.
The long-term measurement of success might come from something like an employee survey, or an eNPS score specifically tailored to the product organisation. You might ask your team members how they feel about specific aspects of their job (e.g. “Our product strategy is clear and helps me understand what I should focus on”, or “I have enough time and resources to do customer research”) and ideally, you’ll see a positive trend when you ask the same questions in 6 or 12 months’ time.
Initiative-specific measurements are a little more tricky, as they involve defining what change in behaviour you’re optimising for, and finding a measurement that accurately reflects it. If I’m looking to increase data accessibility, I might want to measure how long it takes for a Product Manager to access a relevant data-set or dashboard. If I’m looking to increase awareness of our internal release notes, I might track page views.
Tracking behavioural changes sometimes means we have to make assumptions - for example, we assume that if PMs have more or better access to data, they will build better products - but tackling Product Ops success in this two-fold approach means we gain a holistic view of where we’re succeeding and where we’re falling short.
10. I work in a company with no dedicated Product Ops staff and a lot of these tasks fall on me. How do I get better?
I’m glad you asked! This is the reality for most folks right now. In fact, even though its notoriety has shot up in recent years, the majority of companies don’t have dedicated Product Ops staff. Doing good Product Operations work on the side of your full-time job can be challenging, but it is possible - as long as you focus and understand the limitations of your schedule.
Most Product Operational work that’s done on the side is done ad-hoc and without much of a plan. A team member simply takes on a Product Ops task as it emerges, ‘fixes’ whatever was broken to the best of their abilities, and then never revisits or questions it again. What we need to understand is that all of our Product Ops work is cumulative: Every time we take on such a task, we work on part of a larger operating system. And to do that successfully, you need to do three things:
Set a direction - typically this will come from your product leader, and it tells you which Product Operational tasks are high priority
Make Product Ops work explicit - by sharing with your team members what you’re doing and why
Be realistic - If you’re doing this work on the side, you cannot expect to successfully complete more than one major Product Ops initiative per quarter
Doing Product Operations well is all about gaining experience and approaching each challenge with pragmatism. If you’re a team member or leader who has received the explicit mandate to spend some of your time on Product Operations, consider getting a Product Ops coach who can help you get there faster. And if you’re an organisation that’s ready to get to the next level, an interim or fractional Product Ops leader can lead the charge - or even help you hire your first Product Ops team member.
Image Credit: Irene Haaima
Product Ops, demystified
Despite being seemingly everywhere, Product Operations is still a mystery to many. With so many variables, so many ‘it depends’, and so many differing views on the role itself, it’s sometimes hard to get concrete answers on something that’s widely talked about, but still not very widespread.
I hope that by answering ten of the most common questions around this new, but not so new discipline I could help you better understand what we do, why we do it, and how it can help you. I love Product Operations because I get to help companies do what they do at their highest level, and because I find it a genuine joy to give people the tools they need to do the job they were capable of doing all along.
To me, Product Ops is a definite step into a more sustainable, healthy, and effective direction - for businesses, for the people within them, and for the people they serve. And I can’t wait to see what we can achieve with it.
Is there a particular topic or area you’d like me to focus on next? Get in touch and let me know!
And if you’ve enjoyed this article, feel free to buy me a coffee.
Thank you for reading, and until next time
Antonia
