A useful framework for many businesses is “People, Process, and Technology”: a triad of primary, non-monetary resources companies can bring to bear on a problem. This article is how to change a common misconception about product operations to increase its value in your organization.
Of the triad, technology is often ascribed to the engineers and solutions teams hard at work converting your big goals into working software. The people element is often left to functional managers (or ‘people managers’) or to HR. We often think of performance reviews, improvement plans, and compensation when we think about people. And the last, process, is the one most often considered when people think about Product Operations: not only how do teams accomplish their work but also the associated policies and procedures supporting those efforts.
But product operations can have a much broader view—particularly in the ‘people’ space if you consider the purpose of Prod Ops to include coaching and not simply about codifying how product teams work. Companies who look to Product Operations as coaches to their product teams unlock value from both the coach and the coached in ways that can significantly improve a company’s bottom line. Here are 3 tips to being a better coach that will ultimately help you and your organization achieve their goals.
Rather than being the one with the answers, be the one with powerful questions
These questions are meant to spur deep thinking—to help you, as coach, get out of the circumstances and into the person themselves. Your questions should be direct, blunt, provocative, and edgy. This isn’t to say they are mean-spirited or intended to put you in a messiah-like light, but good coaches know how to trigger ‘below-the-neck’ reactions in those being coached.
Coaching is not therapy
Being a good coach is not the same as therapist. People often seek therapy when they feel not-whole, but a coach assumes the coached person is whole and looking to excel from today in a forward-looking partnership. As a coach you are working to close the gap between where someone is and where they want to be. If you want to be a good coach, knowing these boundaries will help.
Practice empathy and being empathetic
While you may not agree with the person being coached, it’s still important to listen and respond with empathy. Letting someone know you understand what they are going through can be supportive as well as build trust with the person which may pay further dividends in the future. Many of the issues and roadblock teams face are not technical. They can be procedural, cultural, or personal, but these are all issues that can elicit emotional responses. An empathetic coach will be prepared for that.
In organizations where the product operations team is seen as a coach, their first responsibility is to the product team members themselves. By asking powerful questions, helping people excel, and practicing empathy, product operators can motivate the team to seek out problems and to help them solve them. In this way the product operations team becomes directly tied to the product the teams create, the speed at which they can release, and ultimately to the value those efforts bring to users and customers.