Graham Reed | Product Ops Professional, Speaker, Podcaster, and Author
Unveiling the essence of Product Operations: Insights, strategies, and wisdom from a seasoned expert and global ambassador for Product Ops
Hi, I’m Josh. Welcome to a special edition of my Product Ops interview series where I interview Product Ops professionals to uncover insights from their day-to-day work so you can apply them to your daily routines.
My guest today is Graham Reed. Graham is an active voice and advocate for Product Ops globally:
He’s the founder & author of Practical Product Ops: Advice, guidance, thoughts, ideas, pitfalls to avoid and emerging trends in Product Operations
He’s the founder of the Product Mind Community: A free community for product professionals to get help, support and converse with others in the role, with their mental health & wellbeing related to the job.
He’s the co-host of the Product Ops Chronicles podcast, along with Antonia Landi
He’s been the Head of Product Ops, and Head of Product at multiple companies throughout his career
He’s also an advisor to several different companies
It’s safe to assume, if there’s a conversation happening about Product Ops anywhere online, Graham’s probably participating. So it was a no-brainer to ask Graham to join me for a Q&A. Please enjoy this Q&A with Graham Reed.
Current company and team:
Current company: Said Business School, University of Oxford
Size of your current Product Ops team: 1
Size of the Product development team your Product Ops function supports: 15*
*The school produces programmes of study rather than software, though the needs and functions of Product Ops are virtually identical.
Experience:
Years worked in Product Ops: 4 years
Role prior to Product Ops: 10+ years as a product manager/leader
Career choice & first big project
Q: Let's start from the beginning. What led you to choose a career in Product Ops? Was there a specific moment or experience that sparked your interest?
At Learnlight there was a need to focus resources and energy on improving the craft of product management - at the time I didn’t know this was called Product Operations but the name seemed to fit. But having always been a professional that enjoyed problem solving, helping people, appreciated efficiency, process and automation, the role fitted like a glove. So in fact it was a happy coincidence.
Q: What was your first big Product Ops project? How did it come about, what actions did you take, and what was the outcome? What learnings did you take away from that project?
At Learnlight, where I built a Product Ops function and team from scratch. We already knew the pain-points and so a large amount of discovery was done, and we could begin to focus on feedback loops, communications, automation and process enhancement to drive efficiency and outcomes. This was a great learning experience about finding the right balance between too much / just enough process, and allowing teams the freedom to experiment and explore. Navigating this was not always easy with a leadership culture that liked control to almost infinite detail - while this sounds on the surface great for Product Ops, it was anything but. Product Operations looks for efficiency, which can involve a process, but too much process can hinder and stifle both innovation and personal growth. And so, this led me to work within the bounds of company culture, and looking back this was not my best work in Product Ops.
Much of these lessons I took with me to my next 0 to 1 build of Product Ops at Cobalt, with a completely different culture and set of expectations, and given largely free reign to discover, investigate and implement where I knew was most needed and provided the autonomy that reflected both my Product Ops experience and overall career maturity. The challenges were different too, with a business much more in the early-mid stages of scale up, still a lot of start-up heroism (everyone does everything to get the job done), some resistance to evolve from that, but a much more collaborative mindset all focusing on sustainably driving the business forwards, and open to ideas on how to best achieve that.
Defining your role
Q: We've seen Product Ops take on various forms in different organizations. How do you define the role of Product Ops within your team, and what specific responsibilities fall under this function?
In short, Product Operations is an enabling, often problem-solving partner for product teams that focuses on iterating solutions and processes quickly to help professionals in their everyday lives. So this is being the logistics experts of how teams operate, communicate, plan, interact - and supporting, facilitating and auditing them to ensure the right things are being done that brings value to others. The role is also responsible for providing access to data for tech teams to use in their decisions, and embedding the habits of using that data in their other processes.
Q: In the discipline of Product Operations, how do you define success, and what key performance indicators (KPIs) do you believe are crucial to measure and optimize? How do these metrics align with broader organizational goals?
For me, success overall is providing value to others, and more specifically providing what my colleagues and teams around the business need in order to do their jobs, their specialisms, the things that we really want them focused on.
I have recently spent a lot of time researching measures of success for Product Operations. The reality is still the same as it always has been, that our success is measured by the impression we leave on others - how promotional they are of our efforts, how satisfied they are and how much better we have made their lives. For KPIs, I have suggested the following 4 measures to track, a combination of NPS and CSAT scoring:
NPS - how promotional are colleagues of what Product Ops is doing with xxx
How satisfied are colleagues with the efficiency xxx in relation to the rest of their work
How satisfied are colleagues with the time saved by xxx in relation to the rest of their work
How satisfied are colleagues with the value xxx brings to them
The “xxx” above can be replaced with each of the 4, 5 or 6 Pillars of Product Operations (depending on your preference) to dig into your performance and track this over time, through routine (quarterly) surveys.
My 6 Pillars of Product Operations are:
Strategic SupportProduct Operations teams facilitate the Product Management teams, squads and tribes in the production and maintenance of the product strategy, by ensuring effective, reliable communication, providing necessary resources & tools, and facilitating cross-functional collaboration to build, publish and execute the plan.
Business Alignment
Product Operations teams are not only concerned with supporting the product & technology function, but are there to enable the entire business with what they need from the product teams to sell, support and market the products or services. Product Operations teams support the entire business but through a Product lens and product focus.
Data-informed Decision-making
Product Operations teams leverage and provide data and analysis to inform decisions, identify trends, and uncover insights that drive continuous improvement and help guide the overall product strategy. They facilitate the establishment of key performance indicators (KPIs) and ensure these metrics are tracked and reported consistently across teams.
Valued Communication
Product Operations teams ensure that product teams communicate clearly, efficiently and regularly with internal stakeholders with information and updates that have value and can easily be consumed and reused in their own roles. Communication guidance focuses on delivering value to the right audience at the right time with the right level of information. Formalised feedback routes for suggestions, ideas and opportunities support efficient, focused inbound communications
Iterative Improvement
Product Operations teams ensure existing product operating processes, frameworks and methodologies are needed, add value or require iterative improvement. This usually focuses on processes for data, communications, collaboration (other Product Operations pillars) but applies to the unique needs of each team and each business.
Cross-functional Collaboration
Product Operations teams foster open communication and trust, and facilitate alignment between various groups, such as product management, engineering, design, and marketing, and the wider business, ensuring everyone works towards common goals.
Q: Do you have any core principles that you tend to abide by within Product Ops?
Align - Bring teams together in how they work, and more widely align the company on how product teams operate.
Enable - Provide the means for product teams to complete routine and strategy tasks themselves, as efficiently as possible (not taking on their tasks for them).
Improve - Work continuously and iteratively to improve how teams work, removing barriers and bottlenecks, reducing time spent on processes or tasks, and providing everything teams need to do the best job they can.
Q: There’s a popular way of describing the role of Product Ops as “PM-ing the Product team.” Do you buy into that description of Product Ops, why or why not?
It is a fair, if basic, interpretation. We will tend to use similar development principles as product managers do in iterating, implementing and reviewing changes and improvements, gathering feedback etc. But Product Ops is incredibly important to the wider business teams and ensuring they have all they need from product/tech to do their core role, the core aspects that bring value. For this reason, that description is somewhat narrow.
Tools and technology:
Q: What’s your product team’s product development stack? (Which tools does your team use for roadmapping, product analytics, collaboration, deployment, etc.)
Analytics: PowerBI & Tableau
Collaboration: Sharepoint
Roadmapping: Excel & Miro
Q: What are some of the must-have tools or technologies you use in your day-to-day role as Product Operations (separate from the broader team’s tech stack), and how have they streamlined your workflow or decision-making processes?
Looker for Dashboards
Pendo for gathering platform usage
Miro for planning (whiteboards are built into many platforms these days)
Confluence or Notion for information sharing - this is an important one as a central hub (Product Hub) to springboard colleagues into any/all information they require from all other sources of information.
Morning routine
Q: How do you begin your workday? Are there any specific habits or routines you’ve adopted for your role? Are there any tools or dashboards you look at before jumping into your day? Meetings you start your day with?
I plan out my days/weeks and live by my calendar. This allows me to timebox a lot of the work I am doing to ensure the various parallel priorities get the time they need, intermixed with the meetings I need to facilitate. Alongside this are reminders to action x or schedule y or poke z to do something. So my day begins with reviewing what is to come, what was incomplete from yesterday and how I need to adjust my schedule. In truth, this is likely nothing unusual compared to most other professionals, but my calendar is my life!
I also plan in focus (do not disturb) times for deep thinking type work, and me time to recharge and refocus, typically prior to important meetings. This can vary depending on projects ongoing and the amount of engagement needed, but I would typically look for at least 1 day a week for head-down time without interruption. I would schedule routine internal (not large business-wide meetings like roadmap review, planning or facilitating internal demos) meetings around this. This could be a full day, or broken up into 2-3 blocks across the week.
Frameworks and practices:
Q: In your role, you likely encounter numerous decisions daily. Do you have a specific decision-making framework or process to ensure optimal outcomes?
In truth, not really. I implement data-informed frameworks to help guide teams on prioritisation and decisions, and I apply that to my own work as well - but outside the normal prioritisation any professional will do with competing priorities, I rely on my experience, and my understanding of the people, the business goals and internal culture.
Q: When a project wraps, how do you determine what to work/focus on next? What does this process look like for you?
I typically have numerous parallel projects on the go at the same time - Product Ops is seldom linear. And so based upon my prioritisation, the next task will be picked up and begun and one ends. Depending on the project, this might involve a kick-off, discovery exercises, a planning session - much akin to product management really. In reality, most projects start so quietly even if just in the back of the mind, it is hard to pin down exactly when one begins and have a specific, set process for that. The one standout will be measures of success - how do we intend to measure and do we need to measure now, at the start (typically).
Q: With the multitude of tasks and responsibilities in Product Ops, how do you prioritize your time to ensure you're focusing on high-impact activities?
Timeboxing for the chronological side of things. For prioritisation, I use metrics similar to product managers to assist in identifying the first issues to tackle. I know it is not to everyone’s cup of tea, but I use metrics similar to RICE to assist me in understanding the value my efforts will bring:
Reach - how broad across the business wlll this impact.
Impact - how impactful on colleagues lives will this project be.
Effort - how much effort will this involve to build and roll out & embed.
These simply help me in the first round of analysis, and take into account the qualitative inputs from the conversations I have had around the business, and use by growing experience of implementing Product Ops to know where the true value lays (or does not), even if it is obscured or is more focused on changing behaviours, than systems.
Q: Do you use a Project Requirements Document (PRD) or equivalent artifact within the Product Ops function?
Occasionally, depending on the audience (who will use the document). Often I am the only Product Operations individual and working on projects that just require the outcome implemented, and so it is not often one is used.
The role of data in Product Ops
Q: What role does your Product Ops function play in facilitating the use of data across the product development teams? Which data is your function responsible for, and how does that fit into the larger role of data usage across the teams you support?
Being data-informed is essential. Getting at that data is time-consuming and a skill in itself in many cases, and so a vital function of Product Ops is to facilitate access to data, in a way that is ready to use and analyse and support decision making. In practice, this is dashboards, usually covering product usage, customer and sales data, support information, development trends and progress - and bleeding edge work like predictive extrapolation I was working on in my previous role, to understand trends and predict interventions for customers.
Data provides a voice, one of several alongside experience and qualitative, contextual information to help with decisions.
Effective team collaboration & communication
Q: Given the collaborative nature of Product Operations, how do you foster strong cross-functional relationships within your team? Are there specific strategies or rituals you've implemented to ensure smooth collaboration between product, engineering, design, and other departments?
Transparency and openness are key, and importance to building trust between teams. I also support an inclusive environment insomuch as everyone from any team, any role, has a voice to bring to the table. This builds agency and responsibility in colleagues. It can take time to fully implement and needs tailoring to support the diverse personalities of large teams.
Examples I use include:
Publication of the processes around feedback and idea, setting expectations on both sides (tech and commercial), how feedback is evaluated and adherence to a cadence for review and response. Everyone knows what to expect.
Facilitating regular cross-department leads meetings on product progress/feedback sessions
Operating as an (almost) independent facilitator, meeting chair, even adjudicator for such events to ensure conversation and action occurs (not to take sides or to directly input into the strategy).
Q: How does your Product org share what they’re working on across teams within product development? What about across the company at large?
Through central Product Hubs, regularly scheduled product update communications and live sessions.
Product Hubs typically reside on any existing company intranet such as Confluence, Notion, Sharepoint etc, as a dedicated space/set of pages to house information such as:
Product updates and release notes
Feedback forms
Roadmaps and high level progress on key items
Meeting schedules, agendas, recordings for key & commons cross-departmental product-related meetings
Key product information & resources
Metrics & analysis on product usage, performance, etc. Most, if not all, the dashboards the product teams use.
KPIs & OKRs and progress towards these.
Influencing without authority
Q: Product Operations often involves working with diverse teams where direct authority might be limited. How do you go about influencing decisions and driving initiatives without having direct authority over every stakeholder?
I focus on the value of the initiative or change, explore the problem we have now, and where I have seen success with this previously. I am also humble to understand I do not know everything, or sometimes if it is the right answer, but the evidence is positive and the risk is low, and we (usually) have the freedom to explore, iterate or step back if things do not go as planned. Once again, similar to how products are now built.
Q: Can you share a communication strategy or technique that has proven effective in conveying complex information to different stakeholders?
I use, what I call, Audience-Led Communication, which is being aware of the audience members individually based upon their role/their primary responsibility and their primary interest in what you have to tell them. From this, tailor the communication to their needs, and not expect them to tailor their understanding and have to interpret for their needs. This can mean more than one version of the communication, but the value hugely outweighs the cost (in my experience). For example, a market exec will need to know how to best capture and attract potential users through their marketing channels, different to what the delivery team needs to know about how to install, onboard or support the customer once signed up. Typically, though not exclusively, Marketing & Sales may need one version, whereas support/delivery/customer success may need something slightly different - depending on the topic and context.
To support this I will provide guidance and monitoring support to product teams on the messages they are sending out to help them shape the tone, focus and level of technical input for the audience in question. This would be guidance notes, rather than a strict template.
Adapting to change
Q: The business landscape, especially in tech, is constantly evolving. How do you stay current with industry trends, and what strategies do you employ to adapt your Product Operations processes accordingly?
I listen to my peers, their experiences and experiments. There is a truly fantastic global community for Product Operations as we are all still figuring this out together, and we iterate on ideas well. I also look to outside influences such as mainstream operations professionals, project management teachings and advances in core product management teachings too.
Process optimization
Q: In terms of process optimization, what methodologies or frameworks do you find most effective in streamlining Product Operations and enhancing efficiency? How do you balance the need for agility with the importance of maintaining a structured workflow?
I do not use any frameworks. I am largely conscious of the importance of change management and work hard on the inclusivity of teams and their opinions, balanced with the need to improve. Iteration is the key in my opinion, particularly on significant changes in both scope and participants and identifying what can be improved in isolation as an iteration, measured and evaluated. Make a change, see if it works before the next improvement.
One element that is critical to understand is the expectation from leadership on the speed of change, what they are prepared to support, both agree to and show public support for. As important it is to push for, what you feel is the right pace, to also align to what they want and what the business will cope with - and push for that show of support if the pace is significantly quicker or slower. Ultimately, you can move as quickly or slowly as is needed, but issues can arise when leadership and the business do not see eye to eye on this point, and that support from the bosses (ad lets remember, they are the bosses!) is necessary to make these changes, and the role overall, possible. This in turn impacts the speed of delivery of change, the size of iterations and gaps for monitoring and evaluation.
Building a high-performance Product Ops function
Q: What’s the #1 thing you’re struggling with related to Product Ops right now?
Not in role, but generally, the constant barrage of proving value, and the book-peddlers and course-sellers bringing the role, and thousands of hard-working professionals, down - cynically I believe because it doesn’t fit with their sales models or course specs.
Q: How do you think about expanding the Product Operations function in your organization? How do you think about assembling and developing a high-performance team? Are there specific personal attributes or qualities that you believe make someone particularly effective in Product Operations?
I look for specialisms, not a team of generalists.
I look to expand when the capacity demands it, not in line with a scaling business. This means I do not look to have one Product Ops Manager for every x number of product teams. Because I look to have specialists - for example, data experts focused on BI and dashboards etc - I will look at the capacity that my data team has or needs to support the business. The role of Product Operations is to be holistic across the business, not creating more siloes by assigning professionals to existing silos. I can predict where there is typically a greater capacity needed, either in business scale rate or in terms of specialism - but it is not an exact science.
For attributes, I’m looking for great communication skills, listening skills, empathy, drive, resilience (we need a lot of this!) and someone who is humble - to know they don’t have all the answers and embrace this, not shy from it.
Work-life integration
Q: Balancing a demanding role with personal life can be challenging. How do you approach work-life integration, and do you have any strategies for maintaining a healthy balance?
I believe in the seesaw. Work and life are never in balance, they are opposite ends of a seesaw and one is always slightly (or very much) higher/lower and it is constantly moving. Embrace this.
In practise, this means for a time, you will be very busy at work, but you will also have lull periods where - let's be honest - you don’t work at 100%. If you are hybrid or remote, you’ll have space for an early finish for family time, or running errands. You’ll have periods where you work late, and then religiously finish on time.
I do not try to balance the seesaw, I embrace the ups and downs.
Product Ops at large
Q: What resources or communities outside of your company do you use to stay connected with trends in the Product Ops space?
Q: What’s the biggest challenge in Product Ops today?
Education - there is a lot of misinformation and a lot of insecurity for the function/role right now. I believe this is not only from those selling services to teams that are threatened by internal teams working better, more efficiently (the aforementioned book-peddlers etc), but also from leaders who may feel that they are failing in their role for not having a smoothly running team and function. It is absolutely not the case that recognising the need for a trusted partner to take some of that effort, the logistical and operational work, and allow product leaders to focus on the money-makers - vision, strategy, leadership, evangelism, dealing with the board, line management, PR.
It would be wrong to exclude the current economic climate too - Product Ops becomes an easy target when cost-savings are needed just like other internally-focused roles, and when a business is focused only on short-term activities rather than long-term cost-saving, efficiency and building world-class product functions.
Q: What's the biggest need in the Prod Ops space today?
Education - there is a lot of educating we still need to do to show the value Product Ops brings to businesses. Myself and many others are taking it upon ourselves to fly the Product Operations flag via podcasts, events, webinars, articles and blogs and generally raising the profile amongst our fellow product professionals. Further, to not be afraid to speak up against the nay-sayers of the role, to continue to advocate the value the role is bringing, and celebrating businesses that are investing in the function. There is a lot more still to do, and we need more. But, what is encouraging is the Product Ops community is both supportive of each other, AND largely aligned now on the core value the role brings, the pillars and tenets of the role (and what it is not!) and all speaking the same positive messages over and over.
Q: For individuals aspiring to enter the field of Product Ops, what advice would you offer to help them build a strong foundation and succeed in their roles?
This role is not about technology, or about processes, or about data. It is about people - your colleagues and what they need to do their job as well and as efficiently as they can. Focus on the WHO, the HOW is the problem-solving part.
Q: Are there resources, books, or learning materials that you found particularly valuable in your own journey in Product Operations?
The Product Led Alliance community
‘Product Operations’ by Melissa Perri & Denise Tilles
Wrap up
Q: How can people get in touch or follow along with you?
Thanks for reading this special edition of my Product Ops interview series! I hope you enjoyed getting to know more about Graham. If you did, please consider following Graham on LinkedIn, subscribe to his newsletter, and check out his community at the Product Mind.
Until next time! 👋
-Josh
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