From Strategy to Execution: Measuring the Success of Product Ops
As product-led companies continue to gain momentum, the role of product operations has become more critical than ever in unlocking innovation and driving product excellence. To evaluate the success of product ops, it’s important to have a clear understanding of its core pillars, how the function is structured, and the objectives it aims to achieve (all this will vary based on each business’s unique needs). This understanding helps assess the value delivered by the function and make informed decisions about optimizing it for success.
However, measuring the success of product operations can be challenging. It can be hard to determine if we’re making the right decisions or if we’re achieving our goals. Establishing a connection between product ops and business impact requires understanding the drivers that connect execution to business impact. If we’re able to estimate the business impact of each driver and create a sensible narrative around them, we have a good starting point such as:
- Ensuring all product teams gain a deeper understanding of the markets and customers’ needs, and of how the products are used.
- Optimizing the product development cycle.
- Enabling go-to-market and customer success teams to have all the product knowledge they need to excel at their jobs.
With a clear strategy and drivers that connect execution to business impact, we can discover the opportunities and establish clear goals in accordance. TIP: Not all goals have to be outcome-based, but they need measurable success criteria to know when they’ve been achieved.
Like any experiment or change, having a baseline to compare against can be extremely beneficial. Taking stock of the current state of affairs, before implementing product operations and enacting any significant changes, is crucial to gauging its impact. An effective way to establish this baseline is by surveying stakeholders and collecting feedback. While the accuracy of this data may not be perfect, it provides a starting point for comparison and allows for tracking progress over time. If the org is more mature, you can seek out and rely on more sophisticated measures to baseline against.
The other key ingredient in seeding success for product ops is ensuring everyone understands its purpose. The organization should know what responsibilities product ops are taking on. This shared, common understanding properly sets expectations.
You can’t figure out where to go if you don’t know where you are today.
So what criteria should we use to assess success? That all depends on the strategic focus areas and drivers that can be moved by product ops, and the expected progress toward those objectives. For example, we can measure success by process adoption, time to value delivery, customer satisfaction, or user engagement.
However, not all progress can be easily measured through quantifiable means. While hard numbers make it easier to prove the value of product ops to various stakeholders, qualitative evidence can be just as effective. These qualitative measures of success should focus on the essential aspects of the function:
- Operational Excellence: the ability to identify pain points, drive recommendations for improvements, execute change, and enable teams on new ways of working
- Collaboration: communication, engagement, and influence across stakeholder groups (i.e. keeping everyone in sync, up-to-date, and on the same page)
- Data Fluency: the ability to enable or conduct research, collect and interpret data (e.g. product usage and customer feedback), and leverage data to create actionable insights and informed decisions
Measuring these is admittedly subjective and will most likely rely on surveying the product team and stakeholders to gauge satisfaction. Just as with the initial pre-product ops assessment, the results of this survey will uncover opportunities for improvement and shape the strategic focus areas critical to driving product excellence.
A final callout that’s essential for measuring the success of product ops is to have a clearly defined career path framework. As the role continues to evolve and grow in importance, it’s crucial to establish a career path that outlines the skills and experiences required for progression. By doing so, product ops professionals can measure their success and identify their own growth and development areas. At the same time, product leaders can use this framework to evaluate the performance of their team members and provide the necessary support and resources for career growth. With a robust framework in place, the success of product operations can be measured not only in terms of business impact but also in terms of the growth and development of the professionals that drive it. Here’s an example of a Product Ops career path for reference: LINK.
While there are plenty of objective ways to measure product ops, assessing its success ultimately depends on whether the rest of the organization sees the benefit of the function, along with the continued support and buy-in from leadership. Some improvements may happen quickly, while others show more gradual progress that may be unnoticeable in the day-to-day execution of the business. Measuring success against the core pillars is crucial to ensure that product ops is delivering value and driving product excellence.
