The ultimate guide to product operations | Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles

Melissa Perri is the CEO of Produx Labs, a product management training organization; author of the seminal PM book The Build Trap; and a former Harvard Business School professor of product management. Denise Tilles is the CPO at Grocket, Melissa’s colleague at Produx Labs, and a seasoned product leader with over a decade of experience. Together they authored the new book Product Operations: How successful companies build better products at scale. In today’s episode, they share insights, strategies, and real-world experiences to master all things product ops. We discuss: • What exactly product operations is • The three pillars of the product ops role • The biggest benefits of adding product ops to your organization • Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own • How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops • Examples of companies that have implemented product ops well • Who and how to hire for this role — This entire episode is brought to you by Jira Product Discovery—Atlassian’s new prioritization and roadmapping tool built for product teams: https://atlassian.com/lenny/?utm_source=lennypodcast&utm_medium=paid-audio&utm_campaign=fy24q1-jpd-imc Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-product-operations-melissa-perri-and-denise-tilles/#transcript Where to find Melissa Perri: • X: https://twitter.com/lissijean • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissajeanperri/ • Website: https://produxlabs.com/ Where to find Denise Tilles: • X: https://twitter.com/dtilles • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisetilles/ • Website: https://www.denisetilles.com Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) About our guests, Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles (03:46) How common is the product operations role? (07:41) The benefits of having a product ops person in your organization (09:16) How to help PMs embrace the value of product ops (11:44) The three pillars of the product ops role (15:25) How user research fits in (18:35) Why product ops will be an essential role for product managers to thrive (24:24) Which tasks product managers should offload to product ops and which they need to own (28:58) Project management vs. product ops (29:44) The jobs of a product ops person (37:38) Why the product ops role will never become obsolete (39:31) How many product ops people you need (45:13) First steps in building out a product ops team (47:06) What to look for in your first hire (51:11) Key skills needed for a product ops person (57:29) Who product ops should report to (59:50) An example of rolling out product ops at Athena Health (1:09:35) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.