By Omoadoni Imoukhuede

In the world of product development, the importance of providing a seamless and memorable experience for users cannot be overemphasized. There is no shortage of tales about products that were seemingly perfect but failed to achieve the desired market success on account of poor user experience. 

Think of that application you downloaded on your mobile device but swiftly deleted because you could not navigate it effectively or the website you visited but found it frustratingly difficult to find the information that got you on it and never went back. Meanwhile, you probably have visited another website that may not possess the information you want but due to the seamless experience you had, you either admire it or use it as a reference.  

We all agree that in an ideal world, an excellent product would sell itself, but the reality is surprisingly different. While the core product team may focus on developing innovative features and functionalities, the value in optimizing the operations side to complement the technical cannot be overstated. More often than not, there is a need for a specialized function that focuses on ensuring the smooth operations of the product and informing continuous improvements for enhanced user experience. This is where product operations come into play. 

Product Operations, also known as product ops, is a relatively new discipline that focuses on the operational aspects of a product’s lifecycle. According to renowned product experience platform, Pendio, product operations is an operational function that optimizes the intersection of product, engineering, and customer success. Product operations is the bridge between the development team and the customer. One that ensures that the product is appropriately designed and developed to meet the user’s needs and expectations.  

In the past, product operations was not a recognised discipline, however with the growth of the tech industry and expanding responsibilities of Product Managers (PM) – who once did everything from ideation to feature development – the need for a dedicated function to manage the operational side of things while the PMs focused on the business and creative aspects of product development became evident.  

Product operations encompasses a wide range of responsibilities such as data analytics, user research and analysis, process improvement, experimentation, and feedback. It is the engine that fuels the improvement of product experience by ensuring that unattractive heavy-lifting tasks are handled behind the scenes while the core team focuses on delivering value to users. 

The product operations team helps product managers make sense of the data at their disposal through painstaking gathering and analysis. They dedicate time to understanding data and present them in a format that will assist the PM to take swift action. As the responsible party for data analytics, product ops teams also interface with the users by conducting user research and gathering feedback that improves product functionality and gauges user expectations.  

Furthermore, product ops administer experiments to test new features and gather insights on how users interact with them, thereby, saving time and resources by identifying potential issues prior to full release.  

Process improvements are another pertinent function of product operations. Engendering seamless communication and collaboration among cross-functional teams, streamlining workflow and effective stakeholder management are some of the reasons product ops have become an invaluable part of the development process. By handling process improvement, product operations teams can streamline tasks and improve user experience in turn.  

Granted, product operations may not be the most glamorous aspect of the development process, nor may it receive the recognition it deserves as a stand-alone discipline, its overall impact on user experience cannot be overemphasized.  

The question of how soon a product development team requires an operations unit is one that will be answered on an individual basis, however, with organizations typically building more than one product serving hundreds of customers, product ops has proven to be a critical growth enabler for many. 

Omoadoni Imoukhuede is a Lagos-based Product Operations/Product Manager with ZenithDirect for Zenith Bank Plc. She has over 15 years’ experience and has spearheaded the development, management and operations many products which have positively impacted users.