Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale provides a comprehensive guide to establishing and scaling effective product operations within organizations. The book delves into the three core pillars of product operations: data and insights, customer market insights, and operating model and processes. It offers practical strategies for improving decision-making speed and quality, building the necessary infrastructure for product management, and empowering product teams. The authors emphasize the importance of collaboration with other operational departments and provide insights into building a successful product operations team, regardless of company size. The book is a valuable resource for product leaders, managers, and anyone seeking to enhance their product development processes.
In 'Escaping the Build Trap', Melissa Perri addresses the common issue where organizations become trapped in a cycle of constantly building features without focusing on the value these features bring to customers. She argues that success should be measured by outcomes rather than outputs. The book provides practical frameworks, real-world examples, and strategies for transitioning from a 'feature factory' mindset to one that emphasizes continuous discovery, customer needs, and strategic product management. Perri emphasizes the importance of defining a clear product vision, empowering product teams with autonomy, and aligning organizational dynamics to deliver real value. The book is essential for product managers, leaders, and anyone involved in product development who want to create meaningful products and drive business impact.
Meet Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, the dynamic duo behind the groundbreaking book “Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale.”
Melissa's expertise spans from founding Produx Labs, a product management training and consulting company, to spearheading product strategies at esteemed companies like Insight Partners, Capital One, Vanguard, and Walmart/Sam’s Club.
Meanwhile, Denise brings over a decade of product leadership experience at Condé Nast, Cision, and Understood.org to the table. Together, they have driven meaningful outcomes for various businesses through their targeted support in product operations, design, and coaching.
Dive deeper into Melissa and Denise’s book as we explore the three principles of product operations, the responsibilities and values that come with a great product leader, and how effective product operations lead to more impactful product outcomes.
Resource Links
Check out Melissa and Denise’s book, Product Operations
Check out Melissa’s book, Escaping the Build Trap
Visit the Produx Labs website
Learn more about Melissa on her website
Follow Melissa on LinkedIn
Learn more about Denise on her website
Follow Denise on LinkedIn
Follow Holly on Twitter
Follow Holly on LinkedIn
Visit the Product Science Group website
Explore Product Science Workshops and Courses
Quotes from Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles:
“I see this connection between continuous discovery and a team's capacity for creativity... If you have the time available to you and space has been made to think deeply about what's actually valuable to the people that you're creating things for, I think that puts you in a creative space.” - Denise Tilles
“Try to show people what you can do as quickly as possible so they realize the value. The more that you can achieve value for people and help them realize it, the more buy-in you're going to get.” - Melissa Perri
“The customer and market insights is really about aggregating all the feedback that we're hearing from our customers, from all different parts of the organization... Where do those live? And how do we make sure that people can read those studies, understand what has been asked of customers, use it to identify problems and put back into their work, and then also, where do they go to help contact customers?” - Melissa Perri
Lab Notes
Lab Note 601.1: Product ops ties into each of the Product Science Principles. - Holly Hester-Reilly (31:25)
Lab Note 601.2: Centralizing product operations is worth it. - Holly Hester-Reilly (35:34)
Lab Note 601.3: The work of product operations has been around longer than the name. - Holly Hester-Reilly (36:23)
Lab Note 601.4: On a small, growing team, hire product ops before research ops. - Holly Hester-Reilly (38:07)
Lab Note 601.5: Organization of your insights goes a long way toward driving evidence-based product decisions. -Dina Levitan (40:05)
Lab Note 601.6: Product Operations may be an opportunity to systematically bring design in earlier in the product discovery and strategy process. - Mark Enache (43:06)
View the Transcript and the full episode description on the Product Science Podcast website
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The Product Science Podcast 
