Test-n-Tell - tiny apps, Big ideas

  Lately, I've been trying and reviewing modern AI agent tools that can write code, create designs and build full working products. While doing that, I realised PMs need to steal another practice from the engineering playbook - peer reviews.

  The rise of the product ops role made a lot of waves inside the product community. Opinions range from "product ops are godsent" to "product ops are project managers in disguise". Let's try and look at both sides of the dispute with the help of two fresh books touching the subject of product ops.

  Every product manager's career dream is to work on an empowered team. For most, it remains just that - the dream. Either their organisation cannot support this model or they try to act empowered before they are actually ready.

  As I just finished my first year in a product ops role, I thought to share some reflections on this experience for anyone considering a product ops career going forward.

  Over the last few months, I got to try and review many product management tools . Some of those tools I used extensively before or actively using now. The right tool can supercharge your PM team performance and make the whole process of creating products so much easier. In this post, I'd like to offer my help in selecting the most-suited tool for your team. 

  Aha.io is the latest tool I had a chance to review and one of the most sophisticated product discovery and management software available on the market today.

  I've chosen ProdPad as the third product management tool to review. It continues my ongoing series of PM and operations software reviews available on test-n-tell.com

  JPD is a new player in the market of product management software. Jira (and the whole Atlassian suite) has been one of the most popular tool stacks for teams to deliver software products. Now they're adding a missing piece - product discovery.

  The second product management tool I've decided to review is Productboard . It is widely regarded as one of the most popular tools for product teams and the main competitor of Craft.io that I reviewed in the previous post .

  I decided to start with Craft.io as this is the latest tool I've been working with both as a product manager and product operations. Below you'll find my impartial product review together with a description of some of the best qualities of Craft.io

  Every major stakeholder group in modern product businesses have their favourite tool of choice. Sales have a CRM, support has Zendesk, designers have Figma, developers have Jira, and product managers have...? What do product managers have?

  Recently, I did dozens of searches for product operations manager jobs and the results both surprised and disappointed me. The situation reminded me of the early days of product manager openings here in Europe when most people had no clue whom they were looking for and why.

  Product operations deal with processes, tools and data. They aim to empower product teams and make them more efficient. Product ops could train and coach product teams in using processes, tools and data, however, the core coaching is not their responsibility.

  Product ops as a service empower startups, scaleups and enterprises with the right people, processes and data to supercharge their product efforts and business impact. The terms of engagement for product ops as a service should be clear and transparent. Here they are.

  So it's time to scale your startup? Or you just started a new transformation effort? You need to up your product management game, but you're not sure how? Sure, you can make many mistakes, waste a bunch of money and eventually get it right. Or, you can reach out to people who have done it before.

  Product operations, like any role that focused on processes and improving productivity, should dissolve itself when the desired state is reached. Or should it? What's the ultimate goal of the product ops?

  One of the biggest questions asked about product ops is - how do you know it's working? This question is correct and important, we need to measure product ops activities to know how the get the most out of the function. 

  The product ops process I've described here is an attempt to give folks a high-level framework and a way to look at improving product management at their organisations.

  The product ops process is a high-level framework that could help you identify how your product teams work, introduce changes in a controlled way, improve things and optimise your organisation for higher productivity and job satisfaction.  In the last post , I suggested what the first stage of the process might be - surveying . It's when you aim to understand how your product teams work, how your entire organisation works, discover problems, turn them into products and make those products successful on the market. In this post, I'll cover the central phase of the product ops process - experimentation. 

  Product operations, or product ops , is an emerging field of product management focused on empowering and increasing the effectiveness of product organisations. As with any establishing functions, the product ops process is not yet decisively defined. Every org does product ops differently at the moment.