As we step into 2025, the Product Ops community finds itself at an exciting crossroads. The past year brought significant growth, learning, and transformation—fueled by impactful conversations and practical insights shared through the Product Ops HQ community. Our virtual meetups offered actionable strategies, real-world case studies, and invaluable advice from product operations leaders across the globe. These sessions have become a core part of our community, helping members refine their product operating models, strengthen cross-functional collaboration, and enable meaningful business outcomes.

Let’s explore the key insights from 2024 and how they can guide us as we move forward into 2025.

The When, Why, and How of Product Operations

The year began with a lively discussion on the must-read book by Melissa Perri and Denise Tilles, Product Operations: How Successful Companies Build Better Products at Scale. Moderated by Jenny Wanger, the session examined how Product Operations has evolved across industries such as automotive, insurance, and healthcare. Panelists shared their experiences and highlighted the growing importance of Product Ops as a strategic function in organizations.

How does Product Ops create value?

Experts from various industries shared how Product Ops drives innovation and efficiency in product management, improving efficiency, and aligning teams across strategic goals.

What are the pillars of Product Ops established in various companies?

The group had an interesting debate about the pillars of product operations and their dynamic nature. While some adhere to established pillars like business and data insights, customer and market insights, and processes and practices, others find resonance in different models like people, processes, and systems.

How is Product Ops evolving, and why is measuring its impact crucial?

The role of Product Ops is shifting from a reactive support function to a strategic driver of business success. However, measuring its impact remains challenging due to its evolving nature. Hugo Froes emphasized the importance of using operational metrics to assess team outcomes and efficiency, rather than focusing on individual performance. Claire Hawthorne highlighted the need to tailor metrics to fit specific organizational goals, stating, “Tailoring your metrics is critical!”

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the moderator and panelists:

The First 90-Day Success Plan for a New Product Operations Leader

Maria Van Wambeke led an engaging session on how to navigate the first 90 days in a new product ops role. She provided a structured approach to ensure product ops professionals make an immediate impact in their organizations.

What should you focus on in the first month?

Curiosity phase: Immerse yourself in the new environment by learning, understanding processes, and forming essential relationships that will support long-term success.

What comes next in month two?

Take inventory: With a solid understanding of the landscape, identify operational strengths and weaknesses, and seek opportunities to optimize processes in alignment with business goals.

How do you drive impact in month three?

Prioritization & quick wins: Action time! Prioritize initiatives that align with business objectives, deliver quick wins, and set a precedent for the value you bring to the table.

Additional tips for success

Maria shared how using Dragonboat helped her align product teams around product development and foster innovation with collaborative idea management processes, helping her showcase impact in her product operations role. Maria’s message was a call to action for product ops professionals to be strategic, insightful, and above all, impactful from day one! 

Watch the on-demand recording and dive deeper into Maria’s blogpost.

About the speaker: Maria Van Wambeke is a Product Operations’ Evangelist with over 20 years of experience leading product management, product operations, and program management teams for both private and public companies. Her power skills lie in scaling operations and cross-functional teams using Agile methodologies, driving alignment and efficiencies across teams to ensure delivery of the best products for customers. Maria excels in deep engaging communication and facilitation that gets to the core of issues, and she’s adept at introducing solutions that create sustainable change for organizations and teams. 

Breaking Out of the ‘Feature Factory’ Mode

Breaking free from feature factory mode requires adopting a strategic mindset that goes beyond simply delivering features to focusing on driving business outcomes. 

How do you break out of the ‘feature factory’ mode?

  • Adopt agile roadmapping and collaborative planning: Olivia Lin discussed agile roadmapping, emphasizing collaborative planning sessions, tight collaboration with engineers, and clear communication of goals and dependencies, while addressing friction points like constant pressure to ship and lack of clear strategy from leadership.
  • Add scenario planning to connect long-term and short-term roadmaps: Don Pollock explained scenario planning as a tool for operationalizing long-term portfolio management, aiding in day-to-day operations and decision-making by addressing constraints like time, budget, and scope. While not responsible for setting vision or scenarios, Product Ops plays a crucial role in enabling scenario planning discussions, facilitating communication, and leveraging tools to support the process effectively.
  • Use data-driven decision-making throughout PDLC: Antonia Landi highlighted the power of data-driven decision-making, focusing on improving access to dashboards, fostering better data understanding, and creating a culture of continuous data usage throughout the product development lifecycle.
  • Adopt a collaborative way to create and deploy strategy: Graham Reed emphasized the importance of collaborative approaches in product strategy, bridging the gap between high-level vision and practical implementation, and involving all levels of the organization in the process.

This session showcased the strength of our community, with members sharing diverse perspectives and actionable insights to overcome one of the product team’s biggest challenges.

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the moderators:

  • Don Pollock, AVP/Director – Product Operations & Program Management at Cox Communications
  • Olivia Lin, Director of Product Operations at Noom (former Sr. Manager, Product Ops at Sprout Social)
  • Antonia Landi, Senior Product Operations Coach & Consultant
  • Graham Reed, Head of Product Operations at HeliosX Group

Benchmarking Your Product Operating Model

Maxwell Dyke led a session focused on understanding the key components of a Product Operating Model (POM) and how to align them with business objectives. He also shared a success story of a large financial services organization that achieved amazing results with Dragonboat, aligning goals with business objectives, tracking product ROI effectively, and improving team visibility.

What is a Product Operating Model (POM)? 

Max explained that a POM consists of three key components—data, processes, and people—working together to drive success.

Why does an effective POM matter? 

“It’s essential to align product goals with business objectives” for better impact.

What’s the difference between an outcome-focused vs. output-focused POM? 

Max reminded us that “delivering the right features drives the business,” highlighting the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than outputs for better strategic alignment.

Why is visibility across POM critical? 

Establishing visibility streamlines cross-team collaboration and planning. 

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the speaker: Maxwell Dyke is a Senior Portfolio Success Architect at Dragonboat, where he helps enterprise and strategic customers operationalize their Product Operating Models. With over 8 years of experience in tech, Max has a strong background in driving product strategy success. Before joining Dragonboat, he led the SMB Customer Success Team at CloudKitchens, a product-led startup founded by Travis Kalanick. Max has been with Dragonboat for over 2.5 years, where he continues to support teams in implementing effective product operations.

How Product Ops Drives Revenue Impact

This panel discussion explored how product ops can drive business outcomes by aligning product efforts with revenue goals. Product Operations is key in aligning business goals, product strategy, and operational flexibility. It’s all about bridging leadership and the product team, integrating key stakeholders, and prioritizing effectively to stay responsive and aligned with strategic goals.

 5 Ways Product Ops Drive Revenue Impact

  1. Product Strategy & Revenue Growth: Dave Dunning talked about the importance of having a clear product strategy and getting everyone on the same page for revenue growth: “We’re product-led, and that means ownership of revenue growth and where we’re going with it. We’re not generating revenue but we own the strategy around creating that revenue.”
  2. Focus & Prioritization: Miguel Elizaga emphasized the value of focus: “We are the bridge between our R&D teams and customers by providing clarity on processes, tools, systems, and data. It’s not just about setting up processes but also choosing the right prioritization framework. Instead of trying to do everything, we must enable the organization to do fewer things very well.”
  3. Balancing Priorities: Lindsey Shea discussed integrating strategic and operational frameworks to effectively manage trade-offs and balance priorities: “You have a strategic framework and then you have an operating framework. Both are essential for making informed decisions and managing trade-offs.”
  4. Innovation & Experimentation: Alex Nichols shared insights on maintaining innovation and experimentation within product teams: “Encouraging a portfolio approach that allocates some big rocks, some medium rocks, and some small rocks helps maintain a balance between fulfilling customer requests and anticipating future demands.”
  5. GTM Collaboration: The panel agreed on the importance of GTM focus and collaboration: “GTM involvement in roadmap planning ensures customer alignment and proactive feature releases.”

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the moderator and panelists:

Product Decision-Making for Revenue Impact

Keoki Andrus shared a compelling case study on how aligning product efforts with business goals can make a significant difference. Drawing from his experience reviving and growing a SaaS company, Keoki highlighted key strategies for driving business success.

Top Advice for Successful Product Decision-Making

  • Focus areas: Boost win rates, grow and retain customers, and achieve product operating excellence.
  • Avoid common pitfalls: Over-relying on user feedback without fully understanding buyer needs can hinder progress.
  • Measurable KPIs: Use clear metrics to track success and align product efforts with business outcomes.

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the speaker: Keoki Andrus is a seasoned Product Operations Executive with over 30 years of experience in product management. Known for creating integrated product strategies and scalable roadmaps, he has consistently delivered results by driving product ROI, aligning go-to-market strategies, and mentoring product leaders to excel. Formerly the VP of Product Operations at commercetools, Keoki now leads as the Chief Product Officer at Practicetek, where he continues to drive innovation and strategic growth. 

Promoting Cross-Functional Collaboration to Drive Your Organization Forward

Maria Van Wambeke returned to discuss how cross-functional collaboration fuels organizational success. Her talk focused on breaking down silos and aligning teams to achieve shared outcomes.

4 Ways Product Ops Drives Cross-Functional Collaboration

  1. Foster a culture of communication and transparency: Regularly share team progress and align on priorities to ensure everyone is on the same page.
  2. Align strategy and execution: Build trust and keep teams focused on achieving desired outcomes.
  3. Overcome resistance: Work with like-minded individuals to facilitate alignment across functions.
  4. Enable effective decision-making: Commit to shared outcomes and encourage continuous feedback across teams.

Watch the on-demand recording.

Enabling Strategic Velocity with GitHub’s VP of Product Ops

In partnership with our sponsor Dragonboat, we hosted GitHub’s VP of Product Ops, Rick Porter, to discuss how AI is transforming Product Operations and enabling strategic velocity in leading organizations.

How does Product Ops enable strategic velocity?

According to Rick, strategic velocity means aligning product investments with high-impact opportunities, ensuring the team can shift quickly and effectively to meet market demands. A product portfolio management approach accelerates growth while keeping the focus on desired outcomes.

Why is dynamic prioritization key to product success?

Drawing from his experience at Adobe, Rick highlighted the importance of dynamic resource allocation—where teams must be ready to shift focus to the most strategic initiatives. As he put it, “Put your money where your strategy is.”

How does a strong product operating model support execution and business alignment?

Rick highlighted that “Execution fails at the seams,” meaning that successful execution requires strong cross-functional collaboration. Product Ops bridges the gaps between different teams—engineering, marketing, sales, and more. A robust Product Operating Model, supported by an end-to-end product portfolio management platform like Dragonboat, helps manage these complexities and connect all parts of the business, from strategy to execution.

What’s next for Product Ops in the next 3-5 years?

Rick pointed to AI-powered platforms like Dragonboat as the future of Product Ops. He shared an example from his time at New Relic, where manual processes like tagging customer feedback consumed too much time. Now, AI-driven tools handle these tasks, freeing up teams and providing better insights for decision-making.

Look no further than our friends at Dragonboat. Their AI-powered platform is a glimpse into where the market is headed. So much of what we do today does not have the benefit of systems that collect and synthesize critical information in support of building launch or feedback loops. A couple of years back at New Relic we were spending too much time manually tagging customer feedback to drive analytics. Now we have AI-enabled tools to facilitate the tagging to take manual effort out while improving analytics. – Rick Porter, VP of Product Ops at GitHub

Watch the on-demand recording.

About the speaker: Rick Porter is an experienced business and product operations leader, currently serving as GitHub’s VP of Product Operations. With previous leadership roles at New Relic and Adobe/Marketo, Rick has a proven track record in scaling operations and driving excellence. He also co-founded nGame, Inc., using social data to address business challenges. Earlier in his career, Rick managed a portfolio of Analytic Applications at SAP, guiding products from concept to global launch. He began his journey as a consultant at Arthur Andersen LLP and holds an MBA and a BBA in Corporate Finance from Texas A&M University. Rick’s expertise spans product and program management, strategic planning, business analytics, and enterprise performance management, making him a recognized leader in the field.

Keep the Conversations Going at Product Ops HQ

2024 was a standout year for the Product Ops HQ community. From strengthening core Product Ops principles to demonstrating its impact on business outcomes, each meetup provided valuable insights that underscore the growing influence of Product Ops as a strategic driver in organizations.

In 2025, we’re excited to continue these impactful conversations and foster even stronger connections. Stay tuned at Product Ops HQ for upcoming meetups, useful resources, and new ways to get involved. Together, we’ll keep shaping the future of product operations!

Looking to improve your organization’s product operations? Dragonboat’s AI-powered platform helps leaders and teams align strategies, manage products, and deliver roadmaps across complex portfolios with unified data, dynamic visibility, and real-time insights. Check out Dragonboat to learn more.