Building Product Operations from Scratch

A few years ago I stepped into a role leading strategy and operations for an engineering organization within a large software company. This sort of effort within engineering organizations is typically called Product Operations or ProdOps for short. During my first sit-down with my manager I asked how well the organization understood what ProdOps is and does. Her response was, “Zero. We’re starting from scratch.” That caused me to raise an eyebrow. Before I could build, run or even tweak an effort, I needed to make the case for ProdOps value.

This case making would be no small feat. This engineering organization was positioned in the heart of the company’s chief product and platform. They had run for over 20 years with largely only engineers left to their own devices to deliver ‘Wow!’ products to users. Their strategy had resulted in a long stream of products that were so cool that adoption was counted in the millions and billions of users. In this world, if a product did not inspire that sort of organic adoption, they would discard it. The formula had worked for years. No one wanted to lose that magic. So why bring in overhead generators, such as a strategy & operations lead, that would likely cause extra work that might screw with the magic.