.png){kind=tracking}
The Evolving Role of Product Management
The emergence of product operations (or ops) directly results from the evolution of product management. We know that there was once a time when the job title "product manager" was synonymous with "manager of product development."
In this era, product managers oversaw all aspects of the company's products and services, from research and design to delivery and support.
Product managers focused on everything from developing new features to analyzing user behavior on existing elements to identify problems that needed fixing or ways to improve customer experience.
The product ops team
Product ops team is essential in having excellent product marketing, which makes customers happy, improves engagement, and reduces churn rate. A product ops team comprises technical and non-technical people responsible for managing the product. They work closely with the product manager or group responsible for delivering a good customer experience.
What is Product Operations?
Roll out best practices
A product ops manager ensures that all data is collected and stored in a structured way. This includes customer profiles, product-related research, competitive intelligence, and analytics. The product operations team can play a critical role in helping the company with these efforts as they are likely to have access to valuable information that the rest of the company does not.
Data Management
Product ops are responsible for ensuring the product team has all the data and information they need to do their job. They may be in charge of ensuring that information is accurate, up-to-date, and organized correctly. In addition, product ops may also handle the back-end process for integrating with external sources like Salesforce or other cloud storage solutions.
Research and Experiments
Most companies today have a product team that develops products and then tests them with users. Product managers are the primary audience for this work, but they're often spread across different departments.
Product ops can help bring all these teams together by gathering data on what works and doesn't. For example, if a new feature has low adoption rates in certain countries, it could be worth exploring why this is happening to figure out where the problem lies.
In many cases, product ops will run experiments themselves to test whether specific changes would increase user engagement or usage. The insights from these experiments can be shared with the entire product team so they can make decisions based on concrete evidence instead of hunches.
Processes and Resources
Product ops is a crucial part of the product team. With them, it is possible to manage the amount of data and information that flows through your company. Product ops usually have at least one or two people on staff, but depending on the size of your organization, you may have more than one person handling this role.
Product management operations require employees with a variety of skills and traits: quantitative skills (data analysis), communication skills (interacting with customers), problem-solving abilities (dealing with problems as they arise), and administrative/reporting skills (collecting feedback from customers).
Optimize Onboarding
Onboarding is the process of assisting new employees to understand the company and its products. Onboarding helps in making the new employees feel welcome in the company. It also helps create an environment for them to become productive members of the team, which will help you increase your employee retention rates.
Customer Feedback Collection
Customer Feedback and Product Ops are a few areas that help to increase user engagement, which ultimately leads to more customers using your app/product & providing referrals for your products. Product feedback is essential to creating, managing, and delivering a product. With customer feedback, your product will be successful as it will get stuck in the development stage without getting any support from the customer.
Experimentation and Learnings
Product managers must understand how the product should work and what makes it different from its competitors. Product management operations involve the creation and analysis of data through experimentation. The result can be actionable insights that are used to make decisions.
Cross-Team Communication and Alignment
Product operations can be crucial in ensuring that product teams are fully aligned and working as one. Product ops should provide guidance, coaching, and training to help teams communicate effectively.
For example, when a product manager needs data from marketing or sales on the latest feature launch, it's their job to coordinate with other team members for access.
Product ops should also foster cross-team collaboration by sharing best practices, tools, and templates between departments, so each team member is well-equipped for their specific roles. In addition to being a communication facilitator among all the internal product teams, product operations may also be responsible for facilitating communication with external partners (e.g., customers) through customer support channels like live chat or email.
Why is Product Operations a Growing Need?
The need for product operations has grown exponentially recently as companies have adopted more agile and innovative practices.
Product Operations are the backbone of Product-led Growth. The ability to innovate quickly is one of the most critical skills a product manager should possess, but it is also one of the most challenging skills to teach. Many different techniques can be used to do this, including user research, A/B testing, and analytics.
How to determine whether you need product ops
Before deciding whether you need a product ops person, look at your current organization. If your company has a small or relatively new team, you may not need one. However, if you are already large and have several departments, you do likely need one.
To determine whether or not you need product ops in your organization:
1. Your organization must be able to analyze data about customer behavior and the performance of its products for analysis purposes.
2. The team must know how to build an efficient tech stack from start to finish, including building new tools as needed along the way
3. The team must have good relationships with all other departments within the company so that they can work together
Product Operations Manager Qualities
We looked at the qualities that make a great product operations manager. We analyzed their job description, responsibilities, and other aspects of their role. Here are some of the qualities we found:
1. Love for numbers
The ability to analyze data is essential for this position. The information that drives success for a product is key to improving performance and predicting results in the future.
2. Strong communication skills
Communication is key to managing any organization effectively, but it's especially critical in a company where people from different backgrounds are working together on one project.
A good product ops manager must be able to communicate clearly and effectively with everyone who has an interest in what they're doing so that everyone feels heard and understood throughout
Product Operations vs. Product Management
Product operations and product management have many similarities. Both groups are responsible for the same tasks but with different skill sets. Product operations focus more on day-to-day activities, while product management is more strategic.
Product operations has an "operations" mentality, while product management has a "product" mindset.
Product Operations:
- Manages the team's tech stack and trains other teams on proper use.
- Works closely with other departments to achieve cross-team alignment and communication.
Product Management:
- Defines product goals and strategies for building products that users love and value.
- Uses feedback from users to improve features and support the quality of service.
Product Ops powers the future of product-led growth
Product Ops are the future of product-led growth. They're the bridge between your company and the market, the link between engineers and analysts, designers and business leaders. When you have a proper structure to optimize every process step with efficiency and accuracy, you will get closer to your customers faster, innovate more efficiently and save time for new features or better products.
As we live in an increasingly data-driven world, Product Operations should be a top priority for any product-led company. The key to success is having enough skilled people at all levels on board who can handle the complexity of the information you need for your business intelligence: from tracking sales trends to optimizing service delivery processes.
Hiring for a Product Ops role? A few points to keep in mind
Product Ops is a mix of technical and non-technical people. Product Ops team members need to be able to communicate with both the product team and other teams across the company. This means you must have strong communication skills, good writing skills, and be comfortable expressing your ideas clearly in all forms (email, phone calls, meetings).
You'll also need to have a high level of empathy for your customers and can understand what they want from their products. Product Ops enables sales, marketing, support, and finance teams to work together toward shared goals. Product operationsmay not be for you if you don't think this is important or if you aren't interested in working on cross-functional teams.
FAQs
How to compare a product manager and product operations manager?
A product manager is responsible for developing, designing, and managing products, while an product operations manager is in charge of the day-to-day operations of a company. This includes ensuring that products are delivered on time to meet customer needs. They also ensure that processes are organized and efficient to allocate resources where they are most needed.
Both roles require extensive knowledge of business principles and technology and strong analytical skills. They must have a good sense of design and see the big picture regarding their product or service. In addition, both positions involve overseeing teams of people who operate within specific parameters.
