A Model Product Team for Digital Products
A little tension goes a long way…
There are potentially thousands of different product structures out there, from “tribes” to “pods” and everything in-between. At the core of a functioning product team is the product manager. This individual should have a deep understanding of the industry, market and product fit that is being addressed as well as the abilities to organize, communicate and react quickly. I prefer product managers that are guided by metrics and that make calculated decisions based off of data to support decisions that they want their team to make. I also think that “gut” feel plays a part in those decisions, but we can get to that later. There is a common misconception about product managers that I try to address if product is a new concept at an organization. The title of “manager” is not for managing people, it’s to manage their product like it is their business. A product manager by design has limited direct reports to streamline the operations of their team. These reports are the next positions. A product manager is the person that comes up with the “what”, what is the team going to build.
A scrum master (or agile coach depending on your fancy) is the master planner, the keeper of the schedule and the one that makes everything move forward for the team. They work with the lead engineer, lead designer / user experience and the rest of the team to make sure sprints can be completed on time, dependencies are ready when promised and launches go off without a hitch. Strongly considered the “right hand” of the product manager, the scrum master makes it all happen. A scrum master is the person that comes up with the “when” the work the team is doing will get done.
The lead engineer (technical lead / architect) is the next direct report. This is commonly a matrixed role as engineering most likely reports through another department but day-to-day tasks and general work direction all come from the product manager. The lead engineer does not drive any decisions for the team, rather they are there to figure out the “how” the work will get done. This is a vital role as the lead engineer understands all the moving parts, dependencies, scalability and team resources at their disposal to attack a particular sprint, epic or story. They will help the scrum master with analyzing the work to be performed, assigned a difficulty to the work (story pointing) and when that work can be done
The user experience specialist or lead designer is the next up but is equal to the scrum master and lead engineer. This role works with the product manager, the lead engineer and the scrum master to bring the ideas, strategy and work to the user in the form of the user interface. This is what people will “see” when they use the product. A great user experience specialist can quickly sketch ideas after talking with the team on how things could function and then can test those ideas either within the product or with prototypes. Depending on the working relationship between the engineering team and the user experience team, those sketches or wireframes could be enough to continue with the work. In other cases, full interface designs are created with light-weight usability guidelines are delivered before work is started by the engineering team.
Each of the product managers direct reports can have a team under them. What you have above is a “core” team that’s been purpose built to streamline the workflow and processes of product management. What you also have is a team that is built around the idea that everyone has a voice but there is one decision maker. I like to guide teams under the principle of “debate and commit”. It’s okay to debate internally on what to do, how to do it, when to do it and how it will look when done — but when a decision is made stick with it as a team. Because product teams are small, tight-knit and fast-moving they have to have a high level of trust across each role and for each other. Without that trust, the healthy tension that fuels the best product decisions can become toxic and destroy a team and a product.
If you look at a large product organization, you would see several product teams like the above working on dedicated products or solutions for their users. It’s model that scales well but does require some high-level management when you have more than 3 or more product teams that need to work together. That’s where you can commonly see a director or VP of product.
The Vice President of Product (and positions like it, Head of Product, Global Head of Product, etc) is responsible for the strategy, direction and execution of a company’s product(s) for their users. The role usually has several peers / counterparts that are vital to the success of the organization and the product leader. These are in engineering (Director or Vice President of Engineering), design and user experience (Director or VP of User Experience, Creative Director), agile orchestration and management (Director or VP of Operations / Agile Orchestration) and finance (Director or VP of Finance).
In smaller companies and startups where there is only one product, the product leader is responsible for the almost everything that their users encounter. For larger companies, the product leader is responsible for multiple products and teams, orchestrating a global strategy across each product to make sure larger business goals and objectives are met while maintaining a high level of autonomy for each product’s product manager. A good example is to look at a company like Target (I am specifically not mentioning the exact makeup of Target’s product organization). There could be several product groups, each with several product teams and managers that are responsible for their operations. These groups could be Web (both desktop and mobile), User Mobile (app development), Team Member Mobile (internal app development), Tools (system and services, business interface teams), Data & Analytics (database tools, reporting, analytics, data science) and Infrastructure (operations, servers, systems, networking). There could also be satellite product teams that are focused on a single product or application. Across these teams, the product managers and product groups would report into the VP of Product and it would be the responsibility of the VP of Product, his/her peers, and the product operations team and make sure that the overall vision, strategy, and roadmap that has been created is on track and working to support the company’s overall strategy and growth. Part of that work is to track each product as its own business, complete with measurable objectives and metrics with full P&L accountability and growth goals. This work, usually done in tandem with the overall goals of the larger organization, is meant to allow each product team to understand what they need to individually deliver and to set their business and direction up accordingly.
I reached out to a few product managers that I respect and admire (their work, products, and philosophies) and one of them sent back something that really struck a nerve. He wrote, “I’m a student of product, and I think being in product is like practicing medicine. It’s a practice. There’s no one formula.” That statement couldn’t be more accurate and I don’t think there is a better comparison. A great product leader teaches and coaches other product leaders, managers and teams through examples, unique circumstances and day-to-day troubles that can be part of running a successful (or for that matter, even an unsuccessful) product. This might be one of the most important traits of a good VP of Product.
The VP of Product usually has a large number of direct reports (at Target, I once had 17 direct with over 75 indirect reports). I personally know of several product leaders with over 50 direct reports across multiple teams and technologies. Because of these structures, you will usually find product leaders embracing new management disciplines like “lean” thinking, collaborative tools (like Slack), daily standup meetings and open door cultures to cut down on meetings.
The VP of Product, together with the executives of a company can also have the added responsibility of defining new initiatives and strategies to test, including products and acquisitions that could support current or new directions for the company.
Although I might be biased in my opinion, I think it is one of the most exciting roles you can have with a large company. The work is always challenging, the teams always change and you have to be relentless in your efficiency and direction but in the end, you and your team are responsible for the success or failure of a product and for that matter, the company, more than anyone else.
