In June, I attended the Mind the Product conference in San Francisco and am still buzzing from discourse around the craft of product, new ideas, and new ways of thinking. I was surprised to see how much of the discourse centered around the craft of product, new ideas, and new ways of thinking about product systems and product operations. 

One talk in particular absolutely blew my mind. Oji Udezue, a product exec from Calendly and Twitter, opened the session on the topic of Product Systems. He framed his thinking about this in the context of People, Strategy, and Execution, with an emphasis on leadership as the owners of the structure. I’m not going to rehash his entire premise – though if you really want to nerd out on it you can read his work here – but I'll recap the elements that really ignited a spark for me:

The Triad of Product Systems: People, Strategy, and Execution

• People: You have to make sure you’ve got the right team structure, roles, career paths and learning opportunities to support the people in your product org. This is how you attract and retain top talent, and grow their skill sets.

• Strategy: Product management isn’t the strategy, it’s the way in which you achieve the strategy. Be crystal clear about your aims, where you’re going to play, and how you’re going to win so that the product strategy can ladder up to it.

• Execution: Make sure you have the tools, artifacts and structure in place to lend consistency within a product practice. 

As he was speaking, I realized he was talking about Product Operations. I will admit that I’ve been pretty dismissive of product operating roles for clients, mostly because I believe in my heart that product teams or Product Managers should have the capacity to lead their products and evolve their practices to suit the needs of the enterprise, all while continually refining their craft and honing how the product works. However, Oji’s talk made me realize that the importance of these systems can’t be overstated.

As leaders, we have an obligation to constantly refine the context in which our teams operate in order to make it easier to bring great products to market. Product Managers can still be responsible for honing their craft, but sometimes owning the structure is too much of a burden to put on one manager. I now understand the inclination to have somebody spend as much time thinking about how product gets made as teams spend on doing the actual work. 

Without the context of systems, people aren’t as effective at leading their own product teams or honing their craft because they’re adrift. Product Ops can help refine the details around discovery and design, and give much needed structure to this critical function. 

I really want to learn and do more with these ideas around Product Ops, Systems, and everything in the periphery. What should I be reading? Who should I be listening to? Send me your ideas!