A Second Look at Product Operations in the Age of AI

Should Product Ops evolve in the same way as Product Managers?

There have been many recent blog posts, talks, and podcasts about the need for the Product Manager role to adapt significantly in the near future. Current and upcoming AI capabilities allow for a creative product manager to go beyond simple wireframes to create functional MVP’s solely with prompt engineering. They could use the same GenAI tools for early designs as well. It’s true that the roles of Product Management, Engineering, and Design are coming closer together and the more adaptable individuals will start to have accelerated career paths.

This moment in time is generating an underlying level of anxiety for many organizations who have otherwise great Product Managers, but that might be slow to adapt to an entirely new way of operating or are uninterested in “learning a little bit of code” to check the work of a GenAI tool. All of the recent posts and talks about the inevitable need for Product Managers to adapt, fail to consider that a non-insignificant percentage of PM’s will not adapt quickly in many organizations. I’d like to make an argument that we “don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater” and there may be a way to work with the talents and interests of all types of PM’s.

There is another role in many organizations that is also having an inflection point at the moment, the role of Product Operations. Many organizations started establishing Product Operations teams in the past couple of years, only to later disband their Product Operations team because they were considered a “nice to have”. The age of ubiquitous GenAI provides a catalyst to evolve the role of the Product Operations Manager.

Product Operations Managers tend to land somewhere on the gradient between those whose strengths and interests are more focused on “process and cross-functional collaboration” and those whose are more focused on “analytics and product tools”. Either type could gravitate towards a successful adoption of AI tools, but the latter camp may have an advantage if they are faster to adopt new tools. Product Operations Managers are already in a great position within the product organization to help accelerate bringing a product to market with GenAI. They support product development in a 1:many fashion, they are (usually) the admin for technical product focused tools, and some “can write a little code”. One productive AI-using Product Operations Manager could potentially accelerate multiple Product Managers through acting as a GenAI tool “coach” and/or by partnering with them and using GenAI for MVP creation.

The discovery process, speaking with customers, and deeply understanding the customer problem should always live with the Product Manager. What if, after a PM has a list of acceptance criteria to solve customer problems, they pass that to a Product Ops person instead of an engineer to come up with multiple versions of a product MVP while using GenAI tools? That workflow may make sense in some organizations, and it’s keeping Product Operations in the Operations business. The place Product Operations Managers love to be in.

This has been a thought exercise and the truth is that it is too soon to say how the typical division of duties will shake out in order to bring a product to market. Everyone will have to do what works best for their organization. With the increasing GenAI involvement in product development, there is no better time to encourage your team to learn new skills and for you to evolve as well.