Talking Roadmaps Should Product Operations be involved in roadmapping? | Valentina Thörner
Nov 21, 2025
Valentina Thörner, Head of Product Operations at ZF, shares her expertise in product management and operations. She discusses the necessity of product operations as teams grow, emphasizing goals like improving data quality and enhancing collaboration. Valentina also tackles challenges in cross-functional communication, the significance of templates for remote work, and best practices for visibility. Additionally, she highlights the importance of hiring at the right time and the human touch in remote work, advocating for in-person interactions to boost team dynamics.
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Why Product Operations Emerges At Scale
- Product operations exists to scale and standardize how product teams work as headcount grows beyond a few people.
- It reduces load on product leaders so product strategy doesn't suffer while operational needs are handled.
Make Learnings Reusable And Data Reliable
- Capture successful practices and share them across the team to avoid single-person dependencies.
- Own data quality and tooling adoption so product decisions rest on reliable information.
How Valentina Structured Her Product Ops Team
- Valentina built a team with a program manager, an engineering liaison, and a marketing/go-to-market partner.
- Each role focused on incoming insights, engineering needs, and go-to-market translation respectively.