Product Operations: What It Is & Why It’s More Important Than Ever

What are product operations and why are they more important than ever? Read on to learn more.

Product Operations: What It Is

Product operations (PO) is the intersection between product management and operational leadership.

Also, Product operations bring together people, processes, and technology to ensure that products get built and shipped on time and to specification. 

It’s a great bridge between product management and operations and it’s becoming increasingly important. Especially because companies move faster and faster and their businesses become more complex.

Why Product Operations Is Growing in Importance

The function has been around for a while — think of it as an evolution of quality assurance (QA). 

But there are a couple of reasons why it’s becoming even more important than ever. 

First, digital products are harder to build than ever before, so companies need all the engineering expertise they can get to develop great software. 

Second, engineering teams are distributed around the world, so product operations need to be able to support them. 

Third, engineering teams are using more complex technology stacks, so they need someone to help keep track of all the moving parts.

Core Responsibilities of Product Operations

Support onboarding

The number one responsibility of a PO is to support new engineers when they first join a company.

That means providing training, answering questions, and making sure the new engineers have all the resources they need to be successful. 

Supporting existing engineers

Product operations also have a responsibility to support every other engineering team member. 

That means documenting processes, reviewing code, and helping people to do their jobs efficiently. 

Supporting product development

In addition to supporting individual engineers, product operations also have an important role in ensuring that products are being built correctly from start to finish. 

It’s a critical part of the development process. For example, a PO will help to ensure that teams are following the right processes. They are also using the best tools, and staying up to date with best practices.

Roll out best practices

Finally, a PO often has a huge impact on the culture of a product engineering organization. 

They’re usually one of the most senior members of the organization. So they have a lot of influence over how engineering teams work together. 

So, they are a great way to help your organization scale as your business grows. And as you add more products to your portfolio. 

Streamline critical and routine tasks and processes

They are focused on supporting product development, which means making sure that critical and routine tasks are completed on time. 

For example, they’ll work with the engineering team to define best practices for development. Then, they’ll define processes for testing and deploying product updates. And they’ll define how scaling will be implemented. 

Ensure repeatability of processes

A PO is also expected to ensure that all of these processes are repeatable. 

That means they need to document every step, so it can be easily replicated by any new team member who needs to step in. 

It will also work with the product manager to ensure that the definition of done for each stage of the product development process is clear and measurable.