What is Product Operations? Part II
In my last article I explored different definitions of Product Operations, and why the unsatisfying answer is that it’s simply a discipline that’s hard to define. For many, ‘Product Operations’ is such a fuzzy concept to understand that even after understanding the principles behind the role and what it’s there to enable, it’s still hard to imagine what concrete Product Ops tasks look like.
Well, I’m here to change that.
But before we can get started, there are a few disclaimers I’d like to make: What follows is an account of tasks, responsibilities, and considerations a Product Operations manager might contend with, however limited by my own experience. This account by no means implies that any tasks and responsibilities not on this list are not Product Operations, nor does it imply that what follows is all there is to Product Operations.
…and if you’re finding all of this very confusing, you might want to read my previous article.
So, without further ado and in no particular order, here is a breakdown of everything that might end up on a Product Operations manager’s plate:
Communication & comms strategy
When, how, and how often do we communicate to the rest of the company about what is happening in Product? Do we have a newsletter? Who writes/presents what? How do we disseminate this information? Who is our audience?
How do we communicate between teams/portfolios/groups?
How do we socialise artefacts like our product strategy, OKRs, and roadmap? Where do they live?
What does our all hands meeting look like? Who will be presenting what, and what leadership news and updates do we have to share?
Where and when can people join our product demos? How much information is enough? How much is too much?
How important is up-to-date documentation to us? When do we write documentation? Where does it live? What’s the process to ensure our knowledge base remains useful, and out-of-date information is marked as such or archived?
What are our rules and guidelines for instant messaging?
Product tool stack
What is our official tool stack? What shadow tools are present in our organisation?
What’s the process for new joiners to get all relevant licences? Who gets which licence? Who needs access to which tool? How can we ensure all our PMs have the tools they need to get their work done, while ensuring we remain cost-conscious?
When do we need to re-negotiate/update our contracts? Which tools connect to which? How does information flow to and from our tools? What can we automate?
What happens if someone wants to get a new tool? What are the criteria it needs to meet? How can we test-drive it?
Are all our tools compliant with our data protection and security guidelines?
Product Discovery
How often do our PMs speak to customers? Why?
How can we enable recruitment of interviewees and user testers?
How can we ensure our PMs understand which user interviewing and testing techniques to use when? How can we help them level up their discovery knowledge?
Where do the insights from product discovery go? How can others learn from it? How and where do we surface our most critical learnings with the rest of the product team? With the rest of the company?
Data
How often do our PMs look at our product data?
Where and how do PMs access the data that’s most important to them? How easy / difficult is it to get access to the right dashboards?
Do our PMs know how to interpret and analyse the data that’s available to them? How can we increase data literacy?
How do we ensure that each new feature or capability can be tracked?
If we have product analysts, how does their work interface with the rest of the product team? When and how can PMs request their expertise?
How can we ensure everyone can access and review our most important metrics? Where?
Enablement
How do our commercial teams find out what Product is working on?
How do they learn about new features and capabilities (and known issues therein)?
How can sales and customer success teams surface trends and feedback from the customers they speak to?
In B2B, how do we stay aligned on product capabilities and future plans while offering our clients what they need? At what point in a sales cycle does a product person get involved?
Bugs
How can a customer report bugs? How can colleagues report bugs?
What happens to those bugs? Where do they go, who prioritises them, who works on them?
How do we prioritise bugs against feature work? How much time should we spend doing each?
What makes a bug ‘critical’, and how do we behave?
How (and where) do the people who have reported those bugs find out their status?
Do we have a list of known issues? Where is it, and who maintains it?
Product Strategy & Planning
What does our annual planning cycle look like? What does our quarterly cycle look like? Who is involved at what stage?
What ceremonies do we run? Who facilitates them?
Do we track OKRs? KPIs? Who defines them and when? What’s the process to gather feedback on these metrics?
Where can people read more about our annual strategy? How do we ensure everyone on the team knows what our topmost priorities are, and what we’re optimising for?
How do we know we’re on track / not on track? How often do we check back in with our goals, and how do we ensure everyone knows how we’re doing?
Processes
What rhythms and cadences exist in our product development lifecycle?
What are the systems we employ to get work done?
How can we ensure the work our teams do is comparable to one another, while leaving enough freedom for each team to act in the most effective way for their specific context?
How do we deal with interdependencies?
Where do we need to improve processes, and where do we need to remove them?
How much mutualisation is desired? How much is needed?
Learning & Development
How do we ensure our PMs keep getting better?
What’s their education budget, and how do people access it?
Do we run internal meet-ups, masterclasses, or workshops with external facilitators? Who organises them?
Do we want to establish our own training programme?
What differentiates a Product Manager from a Senior Product Manager? What are the criteria for a promotion?
How do we onboard new PMs? How do we help PMs transition into new leadership roles?
Community
Do we want to run an internal community of practice?
How and where do people learn from each other?
How can we increase trust and psychological safety within our teams?
How do we talk about failures?
How do we ensure people stay engaged and find fun as well as fulfilment at work?
How often do we meet to socialise? What do we do?
Product Ops Strategy
As a product organisation, where do we want to be in five years? Three years? A year?
What is missing for us to get there?
What needs to happen today / this quarter / this year for us to get there?
What are the most critical components? What will take up the most time? Where can we get support?
How will we measure success / failure? How will we know we’re on the right track?
How do we interface with other enabling teams? With product leadership? With the company as a whole?
Where can we provide value? What can we do to help ensure we achieve our business goals?
And most importantly…
How do we ensure that all of the above comes together to form one holistic way of working that benefits our teams, our business, and our customers?
I admit, the above breakdown might be quite overwhelming for some, and if you were thinking of stepping into Product Operations this might make you re-evaluate whether that’s the right thing to do. But this is the reality of the role - and exactly why it’s so hard to define it in one single sentence.
Above all, Product Operations exists to remove barriers to product management excellence. But what those barriers look like, and what you’ll spend the bulk of your time doing, heavily depend on the organisation you’re in.
Now, if you’ve gotten to this point and are thinking to yourself “Hold on… I do all of these things! Does that mean I’m in Product Operations?” The answer is most likely yes.
Product Operations as an independent function has come into the limelight (and under scrutiny) in recent years, but Product Operations tasks have always existed - and they always needed to get done. The reality is that most companies operate without a dedicated Product Ops function, but that doesn’t make these tasks and considerations go away. So it’s usually up to individual PMs and Product Management leaders to pick up the slack wherever they can. And yes, that means you, too.
A note on Product Operations Leadership
You might be asking yourself how Product Ops leadership differs from being an individual contributor, especially relating to the responsibilities outlined above. The truth is that the lines are incredibly blurred right now. Many Product Operations managers are leaders in disguise, simply by virtue of being their organisation’s first operational hire. And regardless of whether these first hires will eventually build up a team or will remain senior individual contributors, being a newly created one-person department means that everything needs to be built from scratch - from strategy to discovery, from role definitions to career paths, from definitions of success to baseline metrics.
Incidentally, this is exactly why any company’s first Product Ops hire should be a senior individual contributor with Product Management experience, and not an associate-level junior. But that’s a topic for another day 😉
Apples and Chainsaws
I hope that by giving some very concrete examples of the kinds of tasks a Product Ops manager might be faced with in their day-to-day I could help demystify the role a little bit. The truth is that no two Product Ops jobs are exactly the same, and no two days in any Product Ops manager’s life are the same. But that’s always what drew me to the role - that, and the fact that I could truly, meaningfully, positively impact an entire business - as long as people would let me.
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
