Book Report - Product Operations by Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles

It turns out some of the methods I've refined over the years to try to be an effective product and engineering leader are starting to coalesce under the banner of "product operations."

I read Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles' very good Product Operations book and was excited to see I'm not on an island trying to do things like get a human digestible look at time spent by teams in a clearer way or make annual planning sane (something I'm sure is still a fresh wound for many of us out in the trenches).

The core mission of the discipline defined as helping your product function scale well - surrounding the team with all the essential inputs to set strategy, prioritize, and streamline ways of working really resonated with me.

I've never worked with or in an organization with a mature version of a product operations team, but even if it didn't make sense as its own function there's lots to potentially apply within existing product and its partnered teams.

I found the framing of the three pillars to be very useful with lots of good nuggets in each:

• Business and Data Insights
• Customer and Market Insights
• Product Operating Model: Process & Practices

I also had my interest piqued by a good number of suggested methods I hadn't considered before to deal with issues I've seen teams struggle with first hand - especially on customer and market insights.

While many of the stories in the book originate within much larger organizations than I've worked in for the most part with 10s or 100s of squads, there's a lot to find valuable in the 1-10 team range that I've lived and breathed.

Recommended.