Talking Roadmaps How does Product Operations support the engine of your business? | Dan Dalton
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Jan 16, 2026 Dan Dalton, Director of Product Management at Sage, brings over 15 years of expertise in product management. He discusses how product operations evolve as teams expand, addressing unique challenges at various growth stages. Dalton emphasizes the importance of investing in processes to prevent burnout among product managers while enabling sales, support, and marketing. He advocates for a return to fundamental principles, ensuring alignment in roadmapping and messaging, and highlights the role of AI in enhancing workflows without diminishing the need for human insight.
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Product Ops Fills Scaling Gaps
- Product operations exists to fill critical gaps so product people can focus on customer problems.
- It becomes necessary when product teams scale and managers are inundated with non-core tasks.
Match Ops To Company Stage
- Tailor product ops to company stage: focus on tooling and high-level governance for large orgs.
- Make product ops hands-on with processes, VOC and beta programs in smaller or scaling companies.
Bring In Ops Early (Around Five PMs)
- Hire or assign product ops once product headcount hits ~5 to protect ways of working.
- Let product leaders focus on strategy while ops handles process hygiene and cross-team orchestration.
