Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles on Product Operations
Speakers: Melissa Perri, Denise Tilles Source: Lenny’s Podcast Date: ~2023 (self-published book context; recorded near Halloween)
Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, co-authors of Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale, discuss the emerging product operations function — its three structural pillars, how to roll it out, who to hire, and a detailed Athenahealth case study.
Key ideas
- Product ops exists to free PMs for strategic work. PMs routinely spend 20–30 % of their time on data extraction, research logistics, and process administration — tasks that do not require product judgement. Product ops absorbs this operational load so PMs can concentrate on discovery, strategy, and decision making.
- Three pillars structure the function. (1) Business and data insights — surfacing product-lens metrics for PMs and executives; (2) Customer and market insights — building participant databases, research repositories (e.g. Dovetail), and research-ops infrastructure; (3) Process and practices — standardising roadmap templates, cadences, portfolio views, and go-to-market coordination.
- Product ops does not own decisions. The role provides inputs and streamlines systems; it does not make product calls, manage engineers, or handle stakeholder trade-off conversations. Those remain with the PM.
- Start lean, prove value fast. Begin with one person focused on the highest-leverage pillar. Ideal profile varies by pillar: data analyst (business insights), user researcher with process orientation (customer insights), experienced PM (process and practices). An agile coach without PM background is a poor fit for the process pillar.
- Athenahealth case study. With 360+ PMs and 5,000 engineers, Perri found that skilled PMs still lacked executive-facing portfolio views, consistent roadmap formats, and data access. A VP of Product Operations was appointed (a PM who moved into the role), overseeing embedded data analysts at director level. The function survived multiple leadership restructurings — the current CPO says he will never work somewhere without product ops.
About the book
Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale (self-published, 2023) by Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles. Available at productoperations.com.