Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management training organization; author of the seminal PM book The Build Trap; and a former Harvard Business School professor of product management. Denise Tilles is the CPO at Grocket, Melissa’s colleague at Produx Labs, and a seasoned product leader with over a decade of experience. Together they authored the new book Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale. In today’s episode, they share insights, strategies, and real-world experiences to master all things product ops. We discuss:
• What exactly product operations is
• The three pillars of the product ops role
• The biggest benefits of adding product ops to your organization
• Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own
• How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops
• Examples of companies that have implemented product ops well
• Who and how to hire for this role
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) About our guests, Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles
(03:46) How common is the product operations role?
(07:41) The benefits of having a product ops person in your organization
(09:16) How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops
(11:44) The three pillars of the product ops role
(15:25) How user research fits in
(18:35) Why product ops will be an essential role for product managers to thrive
(24:24) Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own
(28:58) Project management vs. product ops
(29:44) The jobs of a product ops person
(37:38) Why the product ops role will never become obsolete
(39:31) How many product ops people you need
(45:13) First steps in building out a product ops team
(47:06) What to look for in your first hire
(51:11) Key skills needed for a product ops person
(57:29) Who product ops should report to
(59:50) An example of rolling out product ops at Athena Health
(1:09:35) Lightning round
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
