PMs should focus on Strategy! Critical Role of Product Operations in Tech #atomicIdeas

Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, experts in product operations and authors of ‘Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale’, shed light on the critical role of product operations in modern tech companies.

They discuss how this function aids in decision-making, adapts to new structures, and is becoming an essential part of creating effective product management.

The concept of product operations gained recognition around 2018 as its potential became evident as a key component for creating an effective product management function at scale.

Since then, there’s been a significant shift towards understanding how best to optimize this function.

When existing systems prevent PMs from dedicating sufficient time to strategic work due to operational burdens, it’s a clear sign that a company should consider investing in a dedicated product ops person or team.

Product operations is built on three key pillars: business data and insights, customer and market insights, and processes for building products effectively.

These areas provide a structured way for companies to leverage product operations to make smarter decisions and build better products.

High-growth companies typically start with business data and insights when implementing product operations.

In contrast, more established companies undergoing digital transformation often focus on process improvement as part of their product operations efforts.

While less defined than the other two pillars, customer and market insights are critically important.

This involves compiling all customer research into a database so that teams can access what’s already known without duplicating research efforts.

Gathering qualitative insights from sales and support teams is crucial for enhancing customer and market insights within an organization’s operation system.

This aids in problem-solving for customers while also fostering transparency about how feedback is utilized.

‘It’s really about helping the product managers focus on what they were actually hired for, right? The strategic work.’ – Denise Tilles

Even with a dedicated product operations team in place, it’s important that product managers retain decision-making rights.

They remain responsible for making decisions about their products and implementing these decisions with their teams.

Introducing standardized templates for various tasks can help reduce overhead for both individual product managers and leaders, allowing them more time to focus on strategic work rather than administrative tasks.

While it’s beneficial to have someone dedicated to handling data analysis due to time constraints faced by PMs, this doesn’t mean they should distance themselves from understanding data trends or interpreting them correctly.

They need to be comfortable reading charts and understanding trends.