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Christine Itwaru (Pendo)16 February 2023

Understanding the role of product ops

6Frameworks
14Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Strategy5 steps

Cross-Functional Voice-of-Customer Synthesis

Put sales, success and TAMs in one room, synthesise the signal, then have research validate or dispute it.

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Leadership5 steps

Respect the Hustle: Goal-Based Product Ops Allocation

Allocate ops support to goals, not headcount ratios — and deliberately under-process the teams still finding their way.

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Strategy5 steps

System-First Product Ops (Build It, Then Get Out of the Way)

Product ops is first a system you build, only second a team you hire — and the system should outlive the role.

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Influence5 steps

The Accountability Question (Selling Product Ops Internally)

Don't argue scope with defensive PMs — ask leaders what they hold PMs accountable to, then show what's crowding it out.

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Self-Mastery5 steps

The Product Ops Fit Test (and Job-Description Red Flag)

Three questions to know if product ops is your lane — and one line whose absence kills any product ops JD.

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Communication6 steps

The Readiness Gap: Transparency Survey to Product Digest

Knowing something is coming isn't readiness. Survey the time drain, then ship a digest that says what to do with it.

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 2

Myth Buster22:30

Product Ops Isn't Only a B2B Thing

Asked whether product ops is essentially for B2B companies with many internal stakeholders, Christine pushes back. She's worked with large, well-known B2C companies in retail and finance that have far more internal cross-functional engagement than outsiders expect. The common thread isn't B2B — it's cross-functional transparency and readiness, both internally and out to the customer.

  • The assumption that product ops is a B2B-only role is not accurate
  • Large B2C companies in retail and finance also run heavy cross-functional coordination
  • The real common thread is cross-functional transparency plus transparency to the customer
  • 'Readiness' — getting both internal teams and customers ready for something new — matters regardless of size or industry

“my personal experience and I think a lot of people would agree with me has led me to believe that's not accurate it's emerged a…”

Christine Itwaru · 22:30
#product-ops#b2b#b2c#transparency
Myth Buster32:30

Ops Teams Aren't a Sign of Inefficiency

Responding to Casey Winters' take that ops roles are often a band-aid for inefficiency, Christine partly disagrees. She frames ops as a natural progression as any function (marketing, sales, product) and the org itself mature. Ops alignment across companies is what keeps everyone moving in the same direction — a sign of growth and opportunity, not inefficiency.

  • Ops emerges as a natural progression when both a role and an org mature
  • Cross-company ops alignment is what keeps organizations moving and aligned
  • Needing ops is generally a sign of growth and opportunity, not inefficiency
  • She does agree with the goal of eventually handing tasks off and freeing humans for other work

“so to say Ops teams are generally a sign of inefficiency or the need for them as a sign of inefficiency is not always accurate…”

Christine Itwaru · 33:00
#product-ops#org-maturity#operations

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take27:30

The One Thing a PM Should Never Offload

Christine, a former PM, says the core she'd never give up is spending time with customers and watching their pain. She traces her love of product to watching an internal customer struggle with a keyboard and mouse 12 years earlier. Her blunt take: if you don't want to be part of that conversation, don't be in product.

  • A PM should never offload time spent with customers watching their pain
  • Her love of product came from seeing an internal customer struggle with a keyboard and mouse 12 years ago
  • Customer contact is a PM's most valuable asset and shouldn't be delegated to product ops
  • Blunt stance: if you don't want to be part of the customer conversation, don't be in product

“that's how I fell in love with product was I saw my custom my internal customer 12 years back now fighting with the keyboard fighting…”

Christine Itwaru · 28:00

“I cannot see product managers saying I don't want to be a part of that conversation and you know what I'm gonna Contour I'm gonna…”

Christine Itwaru · 28:30
#product-management#customer-obsession#career
Hot Take35:00

You Have to Be Comfortable Automating Yourself Out of a Job

Christine says product ops people must be comfortable letting go of things and moving on. Companies change, processes get tweaked, tasks get automated, and things get cut — including by tools like ChatGPT. She made this expectation explicit when interviewing team members: get into this role only if you can let go and refocus your energy elsewhere.

  • Product ops requires comfort with constant change and letting go of tasks
  • Processes get tweaked, work gets automated, and some things get cut entirely
  • She names ChatGPT as a force that will change what humans should be doing
  • She made this clear to every candidate she interviewed for the team

“maybe chat TPT is going to make things very clear that humans are not always going to be doing the same things and we need…”

Christine Itwaru · 35:30
#product-ops#automation#career#change-management
Hot Take50:00

Product Ops Leaders Should Have Done the Product Job

Christine strongly advocates that the people standing up product ops orgs — the leadership-level first hires — should have hands-on product experience. Having actually built product, understood customer problems, and felt the pain lets them quickly judge where to place their team's efforts, which makes them more efficient and signals to the business that they aren't just dilly-dallying.

  • First product ops hires at the leadership level are typically former product people
  • Christine strongly advocates that product ops leaders have done the product role themselves
  • Hands-on product and customer experience lets them quickly place efforts where they matter
  • It also signals credibility to the business that the team isn't wasting time

“I strongly advocate for product Ops leaders to have done that role to have actually had Hands-On product experience building and understanding customer problems and…”

Christine Itwaru · 50:30
#product-ops#leadership#hiring

Explainer· 2

Explainer05:00

What Product Ops Actually Is: A System, Then a Team

Christine breaks the role of product operations into two simple definitions. First, it's a thing you do — creating a system that lets a product manager or product org thrive. Second, and more common recently, it's a person or group who are strong partners to PMs and, in mature orgs, strategic advisors to the head of product on qualitative and quantitative data.

  • Definition one: product ops is a thing you do — building a system that lets you or your team thrive in product management
  • Definition two: it's a person or group who partner with PMs
  • In mature teams these people become strategic advisors to the CPO or VP of product
  • Their contribution centers on data (qualitative and quantitative) that helps leaders make better-informed decisions

“it is a thing you do product operations for a VP or a head of product or a product manager is”

Christine Itwaru · 05:00
#product-ops#product-management#org-design
Explainer43:30

Product Ops Is a System — Not Necessarily More Headcount

When the bad launch happened, Christine didn't conclude she needed a product ops role — she concluded she needed to create a system so it wouldn't happen again. She stresses decoupling the two meanings: product ops is both a thing and a person/group, and it does not have to be humans. A system built by a strong product person can be product ops.

  • Her first reaction to the launch was 'create a system,' not 'hire people'
  • Product ops is both a thing you do and a person/group of people — decouple them
  • It does not have to be humans; a system can be the product ops
  • The system should come from a strong product person who knows how to keep a team healthy

“it does not have to be humans it can be that there's a system being created that is from a strong product person who knows…”

Christine Itwaru · 44:00
#product-ops#systems#org-design

Story· 2

Story06:00

The 'Summer of Product Ops' and Why the Role Emerged

Christine dates the inflection point to the summer of 2019 at Pendo, when a colleague joked it was 'the birth of product ops.' She argues the underlying problems were never new — she felt them acutely as a former PM — but a wave of pandemic-era growth, product-led tactics, and a need for voice-of-customer synthesis created a perfect storm that made the role explode across tech.

  • The pain product ops addresses always existed; the role, not the problems, is what's new
  • A Pendo colleague called summer 2019 'the birth of product ops'
  • Rapid startup growth during the pandemic (e.g. home furnishings) propelled demand
  • A shift toward product-led growth tactics amplified the need
  • Core rising themes: voice-of-customer synthesis, internal alignment, transparency to stakeholders

“I think this is the summer the birth product tops and I started laughing and and he was like I'm telling you it's everywhere”

Christine Itwaru · 07:00
#product-ops#product-led-growth#pandemic-growth
Story38:30

The Bad Launch That Birthed Product Ops at Pendo

In her fifth week at Pendo, Christine lived through the biggest and worst launch in company history. There was a lack of transparency across the org and a lack of readiness both internally and out to customers. Teams knew something was coming but didn't know what to do with it — how to position and talk about it. That moment convinced her to formalize product ops.

  • A very bad launch in her fifth week exposed a lack of cross-org transparency
  • There was a readiness gap internally and toward customers
  • Knowing something is coming is different from knowing what to do with it — positioning and communication were missing
  • It was the biggest launch in company history and became the catalyst to formalize product ops

“one of the things that kicked off products for us was we had a really bad launch a really really bad launch and it was…”

Christine Itwaru · 38:30
#product-ops#product-launch#transparency#readiness

Q&A· 2

Q&A45:30

Where Product Ops Ends and Product Marketing Begins

Asked about the line between product ops and product marketing, Christine gives a distinction she says no one has disputed. Product marketing positions the product and helps the revenue team sell — outbound, campaigns, lead gen. Product ops instead educates internal revenue teams on the added value, how to use the new thing, and how it impacts their role — not how to sell it.

  • Product marketing positions the product and helps revenue teams sell (outbound, campaigns, lead gen)
  • Product ops educates internal teams on the new value and how the thing works
  • Product ops explains how a change impacts a given role (e.g. customer success reps)
  • The handoff: product ops doesn't teach selling or positioning — it teaches the product intimately

“product marketing positions and helps the revenue team sell their lead gen you know for all of the outbound and the campaigns that they're running”

Christine Itwaru · 46:00
#product-ops#product-marketing#enablement
Q&A47:30

Who's a Good Fit to Move Into Product Ops

Christine describes the traits that make someone a fit for product ops. People who love creating a healthy, cross-functional team environment and who are energized by empowering others fit well. So do PMs who feel the pain of doing too much and know there must be a better way to drive outcomes — not just for the product, but for the whole team, the customer, and the business.

  • Great fit: people who love building healthy, cross-functional team environments
  • Great fit: PMs who felt the overload and believed there had to be a better way to drive outcomes
  • Product ops still means solving problems — but the 'customers' are often internal teams
  • Better outcomes means outcomes for the product team, the customer experience, and the business at large

“if you love creating that healthy team environment and one where there's cross-functional collaboration and it fuels you to empower the team more it's a…”

Christine Itwaru · 48:00
#product-ops#career#team-health

Takeaway· 3

Takeaway33:30

Build the System, Then Get Out of the Way

Christine's guiding belief is that product ops should stand up whatever processes or systems are needed and then get out of the way so the team can focus on more strategic value. She lived it: she recently switched roles at Pendo after building the systems she set out to, handing them off or automating them so the remaining humans could do higher-impact work like retention and voice-of-customer.

  • Product ops should stand up needed processes/systems, then get out of the way
  • Mature product ops people become strategic advisors to product leaders
  • Christine changed roles after finishing the systems she promised to build
  • Freed-up energy went to higher-impact work: retention, growth areas, in-app experience, voice of customer

“product apps want to and should be standing up whatever processes or systems are needed and then get out of the way so we can…”

Christine Itwaru · 33:30
#product-ops#systems#strategy
Takeaway53:30

The Red Flag to Look For in a Product Ops Job Description

Christine says it's genuinely hard right now to attach a number to the success of a product ops role. So the red flag when reading a job description is the absence of any 'this is how you'll be measured' or 'this is the successful outcome' statement. Defining success upfront, she says, should be table stakes for any role.

  • It's currently hard to quantify success for a product ops role
  • Red flag: a job description with no stated measure of success or expected outcome
  • Being told how you'll be measured should be table stakes for any role
  • Vague descriptions often mean the company is still figuring the role out themselves

“if there's no this is how you will be measured or this is what we're looking at as a successful outcome for this person in…”

Christine Itwaru · 53:30
#product-ops#hiring#job-search
Takeaway1:02:00

Bring Engineers to Customer Meetings — Simple, Huge Impact

Asked for a small change with tremendous impact, Christine points to bringing engineers into customer meetings more and more. Engineers usually won't volunteer — they want to focus on building — but the practice was simple and effective. It let the team see the customer from a different angle, and engineers grew more confident speaking to customers, giving their voice more weight in the development life cycle.

  • Small change, big impact: bring engineers into customer meetings regularly
  • Engineers rarely volunteer because they want to focus on building
  • Some acted as flies on the wall, others actively engaged with customers
  • It boosted engineers' confidence speaking to customers and gave their voice more weight in development

“early on we started bringing in Engineers to customer meetings more and more”

Christine Itwaru · 1:02:00
#product-development#engineering#customer-discovery