The Product Operations Handbook
10 chapters and 30,000+ words of practical guidance on building, running, and scaling Product Operations — from your first hire to a full team.
What You'll Learn
Define the Product Ops Function
Understand what product operations actually does, how it differs from project management, and why high-performing product orgs invest in it.
Build a Product Operating Model
Design the rituals, artifacts, and decision rights that keep product teams aligned without slowing them down.
Stand Up Your Tool Stack
Evaluate and integrate the tools your product teams need — from roadmapping and analytics to customer feedback and experimentation.
Create Scalable Feedback Loops
Build systems that collect, synthesize, and route customer insights to the right teams at the right time.
Design Reporting and Decision Frameworks
Create dashboards and review cadences that give leadership visibility without creating busywork for PMs.
Scale From One Person to a Team
Learn the hiring plan, org structure, and maturity milestones for growing product ops from a solo role to a full function.
3 Chapters Inside
Why Product Operations Exists
Understand the organizational pain points that product operations solves and why high-performing product teams invest in operational infrastructure.
The Three Pillars: Data, Customer Insights, Process
Learn how to structure product ops around the three pillars that drive the most impact: data infrastructure, customer insight systems, and process design.
Building the Product Operating Model
Design a product operating model with the right planning cadences, review rituals, and communication norms for your org size.
Who This Guide Is For
First Product Ops Hire
You just got the title (or invented it). You need a playbook for what to do in your first 90 days and how to prove the value of the role.
Product Leaders
VPs and Heads of Product who want to scale their org without adding more PMs. You need operational infrastructure that multiplies your existing team.
PMs Wearing the Ops Hat
You are a PM who also manages the tools, processes, and reporting. You need efficient systems so ops work does not consume your product work.
Tim Adair has built and scaled product teams across startups and growth-stage SaaS companies. He has hired product ops leads, designed operating models for 50+ person product orgs, and seen firsthand what separates teams that ship consistently from those that drown in process debt.