Chris Butler

In this world of uncertainty, when we first get started on something, we're highly uncertain about the way it should work. Most of the time today, though, we actually operate somewhere in the middle....

At the POPs Summit, I hosted a panel on the “Pillars of Product Operations.” This article outlines the discussion from that panel. We make the case for the value of this “glue” work, why aligning incentives with the prod ops team is key, and what limits there are to the team taking it on....

When I first started as the head of product operations for Cognizant we realized that there were processes that shouldn’t be done anymore. In this article, we'll talk about why we have processes, how to kill (or modify) one, and finally how we avoid creating bad processes in the first place....

Product operations are effectively PM’ing the PM experience. A key component to this is knowing who we are focusing on. So who is the product ops customer? Who are the different groups that are “users” of our work?...

You can’t adopt the product mindset without changing in some significant ways. These questions are often just a distraction from rolling up our sleeves and getting on with that adoption process. In this article, I'm going to offer some practical strategies for how you can do just that....

I'll take you through the stages that teams go through to create great KRs for objectives. Before we write the KRs we should have great objectives first rather than creating an objective that fits KRs you already have. The evolution I’ve seen in teams first getting started goes like this......

My clients are looking to build the right thing for themselves and their customers. They rightfully see the product mindset as a way to enable that. In this post, I’ll tell you why this isn’t a simple functional mindset or even a refocus on outcomes over output....

In this piece, we will talk about how to build a comprehensive feedback program to help all product people be the best they can be. These are methods I’ve found to be useful over the last 20 years of product management leadership across large and small companies....