Unlocking Success with Product Operations for Growing Teams

Anyone working on a product team will require strong skills such as time management, customer understanding, and decision-making. As a product manager, you will be required to juggle many responsibilities, and without these skills, you might as well just quit.

Product teams are usually often doing a lot of things. They never have one responsibility as they are usually pulled in so many directions from one task to another. These tasks could range from managing the development of new products to handling current product issues and reacting to customer feedback. Usually, product managers organize future updates and releases even when they are in the middle of introducing a product or new feature.

They also have to deal with immediate problems like bugs or urgent client requirements at the same time, which can be rather demanding. It makes it all the more difficult for them to concentrate on one assignment which can negatively affect their output drastically. This is where product operations (also known as Product ops) come in.

What is Product Ops?

Product Ops is defined as an operational function that is designed to help a company's cross-functional product team operate as effectively as possible. They act as a support to the product managers, ensuring that everything else is working well while allowing the product managers enough time to focus on the ideas and product’s overall direction.

Product Ops can handle anything that has to do with the day-to-day running of the product development process. This could include ensuring effective communication to efficiently managing the tools used by the product team, organizing their data collection, gathering data and presenting it meaningfully.

We can also just simply say Product Ops is the support line of the product managers, that allows them to work efficiently and increase their productivity. Product Ops can be a person or a team of people depending on the size of the company.

Why Might a Company Need Product Ops?

As stated briefly earlier, the need for Product Ops depends majorly on the size and complexity of the company. Smaller product teams may be able to manage well on their own without a need for a Product Ops personnel, however, larger teams, often benefit from having Product Ops to help in coordination.

Also, it might be a case of strengths and weaknesses. For example, some product managers have a talent for processing information very well, while others do better in answering the “what comes next?” question but struggle with organization.

Product Ops can come into play in those areas where the product managers are lacking. They become the complementing features of the product managers and this allows them to work well blended in harmony.

Benefits of Product Ops

There are a lot of benefits to getting Product Ops for a business. However, in order to see these benefits play out and ensure that the Product Ops are effective, it is important to clearly define their roles and responsibilities. There should be a clear distinction between what a product manager does and what the Product Ops should do. This will ensure that the Product Ops work in harmony with the product managers.

Some of the benefits of Products Ops have been listed out. Let us take a dive into them.

Facilitate Team Collaboration

Product Ops are the central point or go-to personnel for every piece of information that can be required during a product formation. They are able to answer questions and ensure that every department has the needed information they need concerning a product to improve productivity.

This information they provide could border on the product's new features and every other thing concerning customer support.

Ease in Data Collection

Data collection is important for any product development. This is not only limited to data collected before the start of the process but also includes data collected during the process. There might be a change in the data collected during the product development process and this is why data collection is paramount to product decisions.

However, the collection of data can be very tedious, time-consuming and requiring attention to detail. Product operations can manage this by gathering, organizing, and presenting data results in a way that is easy to understand.

Conduct Product Experiments

During the course of the development of a product, new features may require experiments like A/B testing before they can be included in the product features.

Product Ops can take charge of this activity while freeing product managers to focus on other projects. They will ensure that experiments remain consistent and accurate.

Manage Tools and Procedures

As product teams grow and expand, the need for automation and tools grows as well. Product Ops will work towards making sure that these internal tools are well managed in order to improve the workflow.

They do this by identifying the right systems and maintaining consistent usage.

Strategize for Improvements

As a product team expands, there are potentials for growing pains because it can become a whole lot to effectively handle and coordinate things than when they were fewer.

This is because, as the team grows, the products they are developing are also increasing, the communication channels are increasing, and there are now diverse priorities with everyone focused on one thing or the other. These are only to mention but a few- more complexities can be gotten as a team grows.

The Product Ops can help avoid these growing pains by staying current on trends in product management. This way, they are able to identify issues and recommend solutions with a focus on scalability.

Product Ops: A Solution for Growing Teams

The last thing you would want during a product development process is to complicate your product management.

If your product managers are juggling too much, then there are high tendencies for mistakes and further complications. Getting a product operations for your product manager can help to simplify their task and improve their productivity.

It will be highly beneficial for you to stay abreast of your product team's needs to know when it's time to implement Product Ops.