YouSaid · the spoken record

Christine Itwaru

lines on the record: 70
first: 2023-02-16
most recent: 2023-02-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And for people who are really questioning their next steps in their product careers, whether they stay in it, whether they, you know, move into something adjacent or relevant, they're looking to sharpen their skills, maybe make a slight pivot to ops, whatever it is, right? I'm really interested to just gather more data on this and see how it all plays out while also trying to see if I can make some connections. So I've been able to do that. Let's go full circle back to Dan. Like Ben did this for me and you, right? I think that it's really important the product community is smaller than we think. It's large and it feels expansive, but it's smaller than we think. And I think we're all facing an interesting time where people may be, again, questioning that next moment or struggling. It would just be amazing for us to share. So cheesy as it may sound, product ops for me was an easy way to be able to connect the doc and be that partner, right? Talk about the transparency and alignment. And I just, if there's a way that this community can help empower me to do more of that for all of you.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They can connect with me on LinkedIn. You'll put that up, I'm sure. Twitter same, and I've got my own site, so the productheart.com. Started posting on product management, products. I'm going to start doing some stuff on careers, all that good stuff. How can they be useful? So don't laugh at me, people. I needed a Twitter reset. And so I had that for 13 years. And then I no longer did. And now I do it. So just help me rebuild over there and just kind of get back on that site. Long term, that's more immediate, but I would say help me understand what's going on in product and product ops. I will continue to do things like this and share more about what I'm learning, but I need to learn more from other people as well. And that's an amazing, incredible part of my job that I'm about to do. And there's just like a lot of pain right now all around us in the tech industry. I think about today and probably the next year or so.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did before in the product development life cycle, we respect their time. Remember some were very nervous and be like, I got to do all this other stuff. But, you know, okay, I'll try it. And then all of a sudden they're like, well, I really want to do this more and more. But it's just really being able to see that pain for them firsthand from a customer or the delight and frustration was very impactful. So that's my answer. And I feel like if you're not doing that as a product manager or product leader, you better get on that journey real fast because it really, it's life-changing for the entire team.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This one's going to sound really elementary, so for some people really elementary, but for some people they're going to be like, uh-huh, I totally feel that. Early on, we started bringing in engineers to customer meetings more and more. And, you know, you don't want to typecast or profile an engineer, but generally they're not raising their hand really and being like, yeah, I'm going to come and join blah, blah, blah. Like they want to make sure they're doing their job and building the experience. But it's so simple and it's so effective. And when we started doing it, the response from the engineering team was great. And then also it helped us dig into a different side of the customer while we were on calls sometimes. Some of them were flies on the walls. Some of them were like actually engaging with the engineers and helped them increase their confidence in speaking to customers. So I don't know. I feel like that just ended up changing a lot of the way that we started planning and making sure that they had a certain amount of weight or even more weight than it.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And us being able to dig into the qualitative insights that we get on those calls is product people is really good too. So yeah.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I love Nero. I love Miro so much. During the pandemic, this became an essential tool for so many teams. I brought it into our company and I was a big advocate for it in my last one as well. Just the collaboration and connection. Figma along the same lines. I think like Figma is really great at that for a design team and the rest of product. So that one's been really good. Seismic is one that I really like as well. That's the content management system for our go-to-market teams. So it really plays well into like the how do we make sure we give them what they need in the tool that they need to be in. Gong is another one. I think gong's really great. I've watched them go from the early days and we were, I think we were in an early customer or we were using it early on. And just the way that they help, I think they pivoted at some point or they've definitely upped their messaging on the coaching for their teams.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are skills that are a part of that other role that I was leaning into so like if somebody were to ask me that question I would tell you a chef and it's about experience and it's about constantly refining your craft and it's about constantly looking to delight. And I think that speaks to my love for product. It's all about that and state for They're looking for just a temporary role. It's really telling. You dig into the qualities of what makes a good candidate for the other thing and you can figure out a lot.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I would say for TV in general, you give me anything food. I love cooking. I'll cook an entire massive meal, three course whatever, sit down and eat it while I'm watching work. So”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I have kids, my brain is flooded generally with kid shows. I would say this year it was between the new Matilda movie, which is based on the Broadway production, which was based on the old Matilda movie, but it's really, really well done. And then there's this movie, I think it's called Rise. Have you seen it? It's about the Giannis. I cannot say, forgive me his last name, but he's on the Milwaukee Bucks basketball player. It's about overcoming adversity and just struggle and really pushing through and giving it your all. And I think that one is a really good added to your list if you haven't. It's called Rise. TV, I have Food? I don't have a favorite TV show. I've just finished watching White Lotus if that was qualified, but that's. Get my brain out of it. Yeah.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The product experience podcast from I'm the product. I really like that one. Little bit similar to this other favorite one I'm on right now. Lots of really good product people and just very practical advice too. I really like that for leadership. I like HBR idea cast. It's just, again, I like to balance the business side and the people side with the goal and leaderships.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Classic is inspired by Marty Kagan. It's one of the reasons I really fell in love with the product. It's inspirational. Leaders eat last. Not a Simon Zinek. I really like that book too. That's more leadership style and making sure you're putting your team first, which is something I strongly believe in. This applies, but I also really like the book, and it's very practical. So it falls in that category, which is the product-led organization by our CEO, Todd Olsen. Really good book for right now, especially with people really going through this transformation. And there's an old box we have that's sitting on that shelf. It's product roadmaps relaunched. It is really old. Like, I mean, don't want to date myself, but it's almost 20 years old when I was in college. But it's really, really valuable. And I can reference it just for a quick, oh yeah, I forgot about that from a communication perspective for a roadmap. Like, this is really cool.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or you need to get this to us because the other teams have. It's like we need to know this thing by this timeframe. We'll do what we need to do from there. That's it. And we're also quicker with the data, right? Like voice of customer stuff takes a little bit longer for a more mature product team and org. This is more like, what are we learning right now and how quickly can we communicate this over to that team so they can iterate really quickly?”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Based on my experience and what I'm learning, we operate pretty lean, and a lot of people are having to operate very lean right now. So every few quarters, we look at our goals, we determine who or what goals need a product ops person and for what reason. We're really intentional about it. As an example, I use this saying Restruct the Hustle with my team a little bit for the newer product that's still kind of finding its way. And the last thing you want to do as a product for somebody who I had a legacy product in my last job, ate one that I was building from the ground up and one that I was just responsible for getting out the door sunsetting at some point, you don't want anyone stifling creativity with any sort of process or some time bound this or anything like that. So the last thing you want to do is introduce something in there that feels like that. You want them to hit the ground running. And so we don't over index on things like a certain planning process.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I too love to learn about this. We're broken into major areas of the business or revenue streams, and we have general managers over those, and the GMs actually sit in the product team, which is nice. I'll have PM background, all really, really experienced and incredible. We also have a head of growth. So there's that component to it as well. Then you generally got the senior directors, their teams of product managers who are responsible for different areas in the product. So we've got one product that our core product and very mature broken down into different components there. We have a newer product where that's just one straight product team versus like having many different directors. We do have a product ops person integrated into these teams. I'd say probably all of them at this point. But the key thing here is they share themselves across two or three teams. Something going through listeners' minds right now is Christine. Is there a ratio of product helps people to team? I would say that at one point I felt like there might have been and I don't think that's the case anymore.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think this is a red flag for any role. I mentioned that it's really hard right now to put a number to the success of the role or on the success of the role. But 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 this role, I would say that probably a red role. Table steaks people need to have on their job descriptions.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are people too like doing both of those things. Do you thrive on just generally I mention this and I keep saying it, like standing up that system because you know that if you hadn't, you would have been a better PM. I think that that's a big thing there. If people realize that there's a better way to do it and they no longer have to do it all, but they can do a slice of it in order to drive efficiency for the organization, then start, you know, thinking about going out there and doing it. And the other thing too is look at those roles and make sure that you fine-tooth comb those job descriptions. Some of them are very vague because they're trying to figure it out on their own as well. So the more you know what you want to do as a product person,”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, one, it's a good thing that there's no shortage of these rules. Oh, I would say that there are a lot of these roles open out in the industry. Be intentional about what you want to do because right now it's still in a bit of, well, what are we doing in product operations as a product management community? And there's no consistency industry to industry size to size, team to team. It is very different. So really think about your strengths. Do you do you love data? Are you a person who thrives on being able to make beauty out of this mess that you're seeing, right? And advise people and help them understand maybe this is a direction that we should be going in. Are you technical where you're like, no, I actually really enjoy doing the quantitative side of things and you love you truly enjoy working with data science teams and you really like to bring that data aspect to the product team. You could probably find a mix of both.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have seen technical success, I've seen management consulting. Yeah, the management consulting piece makes a ton of sense to me. I think there's that data piece that they really like to lean into and advisory. But yeah, and then the leadership ones coming in from product leader roles. And that's been a happy change too, right? Seeing a director say, I know want to move into a position to coach the teams and to help build a stronger product team overall. And I don't feel like building product yet.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I got to put out a new survey. I do. I really like to clarify survey. Initially, I saw a lot more folks moving in from management consulting, from customer success, from technical success. I haven't seen anyone from sales move in yet, and I have seen a couple pianos. Now, that's the day-to-day products manager. I will tell you that the people who are standing up the product ops, orgs and being the first product ops hire that kind of like leadership level are former product people. 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 feeling that pain because you're very quickly realize where to place your efforts and where your team's efforts should go and that helps you from an efficiency perspective and the business knows you're not just dilly dallying”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In order to solve the problems, figure out the right problems to solve. You do that in product ops as well. You don't have to go out to customers externally, but my customers and the people I speak to are internally. And they are helping me understand the pain that the product team is tied to. So, you know, if you don't love solving problems through building brand new features and building a product, then how can you help contribute to solving other ones if you're a true problem solver? Think about whether you want to do that. If you know the pain, what can you do to build a better experience overall can ultimately impact your business?”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Better outcomes to happen, but I also know that better outcomes don't just mean for the product. It means better outcomes for the entire product team, for the customer experience at large, and ultimately for the business. And so I think that that's one thing. If you're curious and you really want to learn more about that side of the house, one of the beautiful things I saw is one of my products managers fall more in love with understanding the business as she was starting to assure in her products career. And I thought that was really cool. She had already had product background and she was like, I want to understand the inner workings here so that I know how to help these people. So the other thing is I think if you're a PM having issues with the role that you're currently in, I think need to remember that you are there to solve problems. And that's a very simple thing that we talked about. What are the things that PMs won't shed and shouldn't shed and go and talk to customers? We get to talk to customers.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love that question because it makes me feel that this role has become embraced a bit more what I hear questions like in the past it was do we need this role and how do we help get the buy-in and now it's more the acceptance of a product manager to maybe want to even become this and I'm seeing more PMs like I said go into the space so it's no longer being seen so much as a threat it's being seen as this partner and I love So just one, I'll say that. I think if you're someone like me who absolutely loves, and I mentioned the story about the engineers and the team health and stuff, 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 wonderful fit for you. Again, I was a pam for years and I felt that pain so much and how much we had to do in order to make this small change and then figure out whether it's valuable. And I knew that there had to be a better way to get”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I always say this, and it's worked. I haven't seen anybody dispute it yet, but 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, and they are marketing, right? They're helping you at the end of the day make this thing sound amazing and do the right things with it. And for us, it's about educating and it's about helping our internal folks, our internal revenue team understand what is the added value, how do you now do this thing, how does this impact your role, right? We focus a bit on the customer success persona, for example, on Pendo. Customer success managers can go in, they can see their account health and what's going on and blah, blah, blah. How does this impact you as a customer success rep and how do you then help your customers understand the value from? Not, hey, can you help us upsell this thing and here's how you do it?”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Data out or information out to the revenue team from the product org. We created this product digest. Still exists today and it's matured quite a bit, but I go back to this whole, people can know when they're coming, but they need to know what it is they need to do with it. So this thing was less about this, this thing's coming next quarter, go tell your customers, it's more about, here's how you get ready for it. Here's how you get jazzed about. And then the handoff, which is probably a question you're going to have at some point, which is what's your line between PMM and products, the handoff is that we don't teach them to sell. We don't teach them to position, but we know that the product intimately enough to help them understand the new value, to help them understand how to use the thing, and to make sure that they're hitting the ground.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I get a lot of questions around, you know, I'm investing in this? Like, how do I measure the effectiveness of the team? Like all of these things. And it's really not easy to measure this in a quantitative measure just yet. Maybe one day, right? Actually, yes. No one day. I feel like it might be coming sooner than we think. What we did was we looked at that transparency problem. We sent out this survey across both product managers and the sales and success teams. And we said, you know, where's your time going PMs, right? And how much time are you giving on average to the revenue team to firefight? How much time do you have with customers? It's quality time. And then on the flip side, to the revenue team, how many times you find yourself asking questions? You know, like, and we gave all of these like, you know, one to five and blah, blah, blah, those sorts of things so that we can figure out where to place our energy. And we came up with this, okay, well, it seems like there's a lack of transparency across the two groups. Let's start with getting.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that goes back to my definition of what product ops is. It's a thing, and it is also a person or a group of people, or it's what it could be one or the other, right? So I want to make sure we decouple that. 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 how to get this team to be healthy.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I didn't say in that moment we need a product ops rule out. All I said in that moment was we need to create a system so that this doesn't happen again.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Wanted to be comfortable letting go of things that we no longer needed. And I remember that moment being like looking around and looking at our engineers and seeing that they were like, hold on. Where do we go now? Like, what do we do right now? And we wanted to take that moment and make it less about firefighting and more about being responsible and really customer obsessed. And so, you know, that was our moment, our moment or one of our moments for thinking about, okay, we might need product operations formalized here.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, there was a lack of alignment across, again, like they knew it was coming. They just didn't know the extent of what to expect and how to prepare customers or prospects for the change the way that we should have it. There was definitely training. There was stuff being done. It just could have been a whole lot better. So there were gaps there. One work point was the piece after that was, you know, I love people. I love managing people. I love healthy team environment and dynamics. And that as a product person, it means a lot to have that. Because if you have direct reports, you obviously want them to be happy and healthy. But as a product person, you have this system around you, even if you're not having people that report into you where you feel ownership to make sure these people are healthy. And I remember even in my early days of being a PM, I wanted my engineers to be super happy. I wanted them to be proud of work that they were doing.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ways for us to measure changes and impacted changes that this thing was making to our customers. This was the biggest launch in our company history since the launch of the product. And so it was a moment where we all sat down very openly and shared with each other what we all could have done better and it wasn't just the product team. So, you know, I truly believe with a really healthy product operations person or team, you have that ability to impact change across a company. And so, yes, we look at that story and one day, I remember us sitting there and one day we're going to look back at this story and we're going to say, oh, I remember that. And we do know. Four years later or four and a half years later. But yes, I felt really passionate about making sure that that didn't”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yah, they brought me in as their first director level, and so I was doing a bit of director plus a little bit of IC stuff because we were starting to build up our product team. And yes, that lodge happened and the product area was under development for about eight months from what I can remember. And I came in with the assumption and also knowing fully well that I am a brand new layer in this product team and product people want ownership. They crave autonomy. They crave trust and all of that good stuff. I know that firsthand. I did not want to jump in and say, have you done X, Y, and Z, especially in the first four weeks of me being there? And yeah, it did not go very well. And so we recognized that we had more opportunity that we should have grabbed onto test more with customers, to find feedback loops that were going to be healthy for the team and for our customers to stand.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I promised myself I'm going to let this happen. That was one of the things where I said, I'm going to start to focus a little bit more on product ops within this director position I had just as director of product. And then I spun off and I think we need to do this thing and make it a bit more formal”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Transparency, yeah. So, what happened was we realized that we share this story actually quite openly, and I'll share it here again, which is 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 a moment in company history where we realized that there was not transparency across the aisle. And there was this lack of readiness across the organization and out to customers for what was coming. It wasn't this piece that folks say, oh, well, they didn't know this was coming. Well, there's two things. There's the knowing something's coming. And then there's the knowing what to do with. And you can use just some sort of status keeping thing to say, this is coming in Q4. And as you get closer, here's the date. But it's what to do with it and how to position it and how to talk about it and all the things that was missing from it. And it was really bad for me. It was really bad. And it was my fifth week here. And it was a moment of love.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quite a bit, but that lack of transparency in many directions, across, down sometimes, like people aren't very transparent about, hey, So it's relevant for stakeholder management, getting stuff out to customers, internal teams, and making sure they're aligned, revenue teams in particular. That was the first thing we focused on. Apendo was really aligning our success org and our sales org to the product team. And we monitored success just within, I think it was a quarter was the time bound space that we had it in on quality of inbound to the product team. So that was really cool. It was just more like thematic questions around tell us what you guys do because our customers would benefit from this versus teach me how to do this thing.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“abundantly cleared them. Get into this role if you're comfortable letting go of things and moving on to something that is well worth your time. The company's going to change, a process is going to need to be tweaked. The company is going to change. Something's going to need to be automated. We're going to need to cut something else. 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 to focus our energy elsewhere, but people do need to get comfortable with that.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Other strategic things for the product team. Some of those are how do we increase retention? Like I mentioned, how do we focus on growth in this one area? How do we make the experience better in app? How do we do more better voice of customer management? My energy now is I'm able to now go towards more impactful things for not just the product team and the product community, but for our customers at large. So I'm basically saying I did what I needed to do and I'm ready to go. So I think that's something though that people need to be very, very comfortable with, like very comfortable with. And if you change course and change your tune two or three years into doing this and you built this team, you're like, here's what you're doing. Manage this process. People are going to lose their minds. Change is constant, but telling someone, I don't know, I no longer need you to do that. It makes them a little bit nervous, right? So for years when I was interviewing folks for my team, I made that one point.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, maybe giving it off and using humans for other things. I wrote something recently and I highlight something that he mentions here in this article and what he mentioned on your podcast, which is where is product ops want to and should be standing up whatever processes or systems are needed and then get out of the way so we can focus on driving more strategic value. I keep mentioning that more mature product ops folks end up being a very good strategic advisor to leaders in product and to the product teams and that continues to be my belief. From day one this has been my own personal goal for myself and for my team. I myself recently switched roles here at Pendo because I did what I said I was going to do, which was stand up the system, stand up the things that we knew we needed to do that were going to either be given off to another team or automated and then get the rest of the humans that are here to do the”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I remember this. I'll address that inefficiency comment first, right? I mentioned a little bit earlier as roles in any industry or I guess any role matures like marketing or sales. This ops thing ends up being this natural progression. And it's not just because the role itself is maturing, it's also because the or is maturing. So what I found is and what I'm finding with customers is that ops alignment across companies is what often ends up keeping the companies moving and keeping everybody aligned. And so to say ops teams are generally a sign of inefficiency or the need for them is a sign of inefficiency is not always accurate. It's generally a sign of growth and opportunity and people are really just trying to stay aligned and do the best for the people that are doing the thing, the product managing, the marketing, the selling within that org. Overall though, I will say I will agree with his points about getting in.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It could be the only thing that distinguishes product operations folks from program managers and agile is that product operations people know understand the product the customer and The inner workings of the business”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a p.m. It's p.m. Yeah, it's a p.m. Would say because what I'm seeing in less mature product orgs who first bring in product ops, the first thing they ask them to do is streamline the planning process. So I would say it's a PM and maybe the Agile. Or, yeah, right, right, that's probably what it is today. I feel like program management agile are starting to get a little bit close to each other. What they do. And so it's most of the PM stuff because we're doing elements of their job that they have off to the side versus being able to focus on. But again, in lesser mature orgs, the first thing is the people to plan the same way and give me the thing that they're planning.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Crazy on this article that I wrote, I dug into the history of product management. And it's like 100 years old in its form right now. Not its current form, but it's about 100 years old. Just the evolution of what product managers have historically been responsible for. And then if you think about just really sit down and think about what the world has turned into today and how much noise we have coming at us, right? We talked about put yourself onto not disturbed mode. And I learned a long time ago, put myself into disturbed mode. And so imagine having a partner that helps you filter that noise.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Speaking as a former PM, I would not ever give up spending time with customers and watching their pain. That sounds really bad customers, I'm sorry. But, you know, that's how I fell in love with product, was I saw my internal customer 12 years back now writing with the keyboard, fighting with the mouse. And I was just like, oh my gosh, what's this guy doing? And I think. It was an experience that some people might say, I never want to be in that situation again because it made me feel very uncomfortable that my product is not doing for this person what it needs to do, but for me. It was how do I make this thing do what it needs to for this gentleman? How do I make this thing better? And I cannot see product managers saying, I don't want to be a part of that conversation. Then, you know what? I'm going to say, then don't be in product.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can count on one hand the companies who have blocked their product managers from speaking to customers. And those companies are not product companies. I mean, they do not believe in product management. They might say they do, but they don't. So that's number one. Number two is how are you measuring your outcomes? And where are you making this all transparent, right? Is this happening consistently across the board, right? So one problem we see in product teams across, I mean, so many different places is You might have somebody who's really passionate and really good at doing this stuff for their own vertical. And then it doesn't scale. So how are you doing this at scale so that your stakeholders are building this trust in you and making sure that they get the best out of the product team at any given turn? I say those are the two bullet points that seem to stick the most is that quality time giving the PM what they need, which is their time, to”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, number one, do you want your PMs to constantly be fielding questions from your revenue team when they could be spending time with customers? Yeah, you're shaking your head. That one seems to be the one.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be able to articulate the value to somebody who's heading up essentially businesses, right? And saying, here's what this role is going to drive for you at the end of the day. The very mature product ops orgs end up having people that are strategic advisors to a product leader. And so once you can show that this is what you'll also get as a result of me and this other person or me and this team doing this, it ends up being an easier conversation.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ya, I go back to that question that I have asked leaders when helping them stand this up, which is what are you looking at your PMs to drive? And how are you measuring their success? And that generally just helps everybody get on the same page really quickly. I've had customers or I've had folks come to me in the product community that say, I've tried this and it's just not going anywhere. There's resistance to the role because they feel like it's stepping on too many toes and whatnot. And generally, I will tell you, it's because they still have a bit of buying in the top to get done. And I'm seeing that the most successful ones that are drawing the lines and showing that this role is valuable are the people that have their buying from their CEO CPO at that level or their head of product and saying, hey, this is what this role means for you. So I don't want to say it needs to be directive. I do want to say that you need...”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We would even think of. So I don't know if it's because we're used to this world and we haven't thought about that side of it, but it's really interesting. I think the common thread is the cross-functional transparency. And then transparency out to the customer. And so I mentioned transparency is a big word for us, but readiness is another one, right? And so readiness means a lot. You have to your teams you need to get ready internally. But you really need to get customers ready for something new as well. And everybody needs to feel aligned. So it plays a massive part in what the product manager and the product team needs to consider, advocate for, deliver, and communicate about. I feel like no matter the size or industry.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“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 lot more in B2B, or I think we've seen it a lot more in B2B, or at least people talking about it, and I'm curious as to why, and I wonder if it's because we're sharing because we're all trying to go through this thing together, serving each other. And then the other is serving the customer. So it's not like, hey, help me figure this thing out. I understand like I was so lucky. I still am, so lucky to work with so many people in my network, in our customer base to help them understand the role or determine whether they even needed this thing or not. Without calling out names, there were some really big companies in retail and finance and some industries that you would not expect, poor B2C, larger well-established companies who we all know and love and maybe not, maybe not even love, maybe the experience is bad for us, right? So they also do have a lot more cross-functional engagement internally than we.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We do use endocuges and we just release, let's just say we just release our NPS theme. So the pain in my team's butt has been manual labor around NPS themes and qualitative data. And so we designed this experience for customers who are in this beta so that they can, in the product, understand what it is. And then if they really need more, they can go out to the technical documentation. But it's about the education for the customer. And I mentioned earlier treating content as a part of the development lifecycle process. You really want to treat it as a part of definition of done. And so that team's responsible for all of, and when you think about product-led growth and the emergence of that in particular over the last couple of years, it's all about creating that experience and keeps people in, but helps them upgrade, right? And so they work alongside product marketing to develop these playbooks for what they're doing in app to create less friction and drive more engagement.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, neither. Or a bit. I guess what we have done is fed into both of those technical documentation, technical, like we use Zendesk as another tool, right? So we use Zendesk as another part of our tool stack to support our customers. And so a brand new feature comes out. Natural thing to do. Let's write up this thing in Zendesk. But it's also about how we weave education into the product and we use Pendo again, money sign. I'm not sure that's all right. It's actually a really good tool.”
2023-02-16 · Lenny's Podcast · Understanding the role of product ops | Christine Itwaru (Pendo) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source