It’s Monday morning and your product manager is already juggling back-to-back meetings. The dev team is blocked, marketing needs clarity on the next feature launch, and leadership wants a roadmap update yesterday.
By lunchtime, there’s no time to breathe, let alone strategise. Sounds familiar?
For many product teams, this chaos isn’t just a bad day—it’s the norm. Why is everyone overwhelmed and unproductive? More importantly, how can we change the narrative?
I had a conversation with two product managers — Solomon Olalemi (VFD Micro Finance Bank) and Ibraheem Agbaje (Zedvance Finance Limited) to unpack the chaos and find the root cause. Spoiler: it’s not just about more tools or meetings. It’s about structure.
In this article, we’ll explore how product operations can shift your team from reactive to intentional and finally create breathing room for better decision-making.
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The Causes of Inefficiencies in Product Teams
To better understand the challenges, we looked into what product professionals say across different channels to identify common problems. Before diving into the solutions, let’s first unpack our findings.
1. Misaligned Communication
One of the biggest reasons product teams struggle with inefficiency is misaligned communication. When different teams: engineering, design, marketing, customer success, and leadership, are not on the same page, work falls through the cracks.
Ibraheem, Product Manager (Lending) at Zedvance Finance Limited, explains how poor communication and a lack of documentation can tank productivity.
When dealing with multiple teams—legal, risk, marketing, customer support—you quickly realize that documentation and clear workflows are the only way to prevent chaos. A lot of times or often, internal negotiations are just as vital as external ones. If stakeholders weren’t aligned, nothing moved forward. — Ibraheem
2. Inefficient Processes
Another challenge? Lack of streamlined workflows. Data silos, duplicated tasks and unclear priorities often lead to wasted time. Ibraheem shares how he avoids breakdowns in the work process:
To keep things running, I worked closely with someone who could take on part of the operational workload. I made sure they understood the processes well enough to execute them independently.
To further illustrate, consider how inefficient processes create chaos for product teams. It’s not a pleasant experience for any product manager, but it’s unfortunately the reality for some.
3. Overloaded Product Managers
Product managers wear too many hats. They’re strategists, executioners, and often the glue holding everything together. This multitasking often results in burnout and missed opportunities for deep work. For folks who have a remote team, it’s even a different ball game.
They discuss this in communities, on social media, and even in masterclasses, looking for guidance on managing their overwhelming schedules.
4. Lack of Data-Driven Decisions
Decisions made on gut feelings rather than insights leave teams spinning their wheels. Without proper data governance, teams struggle to make informed choices, which adds to the chaos.
To contextualize these internal operational issues further, Solomon shares an interesting experience from his early days as a product manager. He points out how product teams often get bogged down in tasks outside their core responsibilities due to unclear hand-offs and the inability to set boundaries:
The first problem I noticed in my product team when I resumed was that the product managers were doing support work that the support team should handle and because of that, they were leaving their actual job unattended. I told my team, ‘This is not your job.’ And because it is not your job, you cannot prioritize it. If you have issues with another department, please talk to me and then we will find a balance to solve it. — Solomon
These are common gray areas that need attention, especially if your company’s operations aren’t yet showing signs of red flags.
Breaking the Cycle: The Need for Operational Clarity
At this point, it’s clear that the problem stems from systemic inefficiencies rather than isolated incidents. Each challenge—whether it’s communication breakdowns, chaotic workflows, or overburdened team members—points to a deeper need: operational clarity.
But achieving clarity isn’t just about working harder; it’s about working smarter. This is where having a dedicated approach to solving operational issues becomes critical. Without a system to align teams, standardize processes and make data actionable, even the most talented product managers will struggle to stay afloat.
Addressing this gap requires more than good intentions. It takes a focused role, culture, or process dedicated to one thing: helping the product team operate efficiently. That’s the power of Product Ops.
Product Operations: Driving Efficiency, Alignment and Impact
So, what exactly is product ops, and why is it a game-changer?
At its core, Product Ops bridges the gap between strategy and execution. It’s the team’s operational backbone, optimising workflows, aligning communication and ensuring data is actionable. Here’s how it makes a difference:
- Streamlined Processes: Product Ops standardizes workflows, so teams spend less time figuring out “who does what” and more time delivering results.
- Enhanced Collaboration: By creating a single source of truth, Product Ops ensures everyone, from developers to executives, is on the same page.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Product Ops manages data governance, making it easier to track metrics, make informed decisions, and measure success.
Practical Ways Product Operations Solves Product Team Inefficiencies
Let’s break down exactly how Product Ops addresses these pain points:
1. Standardizing Workflows
We asked Ibraheem how he structures workflows to ensure processes are repeatable without starting from scratch every time:
If you’re handling both product management and operations, structure your time wisely. You won’t always get a perfect balance, but having a system helps. I made it a priority to document processes so I wouldn’t have to keep firefighting the same problems over and over again.
2. Improving Communication
Sometimes, better communication is all that’s needed to improve efficiency. Rather than adding more tools, focus on clear ownership and shared visibility across tasks. Open discussions around the why, what, who does what, and when help track inefficiencies, provide clarity and lead product teams effectively.
3. Data Governance
Product Ops ensures teams can access clean, reliable data, making it easier for product managers to make informed decisions. Different teams interpret data differently. Product Ops bridges this gap by ensuring that marketing, sales, and engineering all have consistent definitions for key product metrics. This prevents miscommunication, such as engineering tracking “active users” differently from marketing.
4. Freeing Up Product Managers’ Time
By handling operational tasks, product operations enables product managers to focus on their core job: building great products. Solomon advises that:
If you can’t hire a product ops person, at least put accountability systems in place. Structure your time: fix Mondays for check-ins, mid-week for product ideation, and automate reporting where possible. — Solomon
How to Introduce Product Ops to Your Team
The way to introduce Product Ops depends on your team’s structure, challenges, and resources. Here are tailored approaches based on different scenarios:
Scenario 1: You can afford a dedicated product ops role
Hiring a dedicated product operations professional can be transformative if inefficiencies consistently bog down your team. Look for someone skilled in operations, data analysis, and communication.
Scenario 2: Limited budget? Empower existing team members
For smaller teams or startups that can’t hire a dedicated product ops professional, consider upskilling existing team members. Identify someone with strong organizational skills and provide them with tools or training to manage operational tasks.
To keep things running, I worked closely with someone who could take on part of the operational workload. I made sure they understood the processes well enough to execute independently. — Ibraheem
Scenario 3: Teams without product ops but significant challenges
If you’re a solo PM or part of a lean team, focus on simple, actionable changes:
- Use Tools to Automate: Leverage tools like Airtable, Trello, or Jira to automate repetitive tasks and centralize workflows.
- Create a Playbook: Develop lightweight processes for everyday tasks like user interviews, bug triaging, or roadmap updates.
- Time Block for Strategy: Dedicate specific times for deep work and avoid letting admin tasks take over your day.
Scenario 4: Scaling teams with emerging needs
Start with a part-time or hybrid product ops role as your team grows. This could be someone already familiar with the team’s processes who can take on operational responsibilities while continuing in their current role. Over time, you can expand this into a full-fledged position as the impact becomes evident.
Product Operations as a Path to Clarity and Efficiency
An overwhelmed product team isn’t just stressed—it’s less effective. But the good news? Product Ops offers a clear path to clarity, efficiency, and better results. By tailoring your approach—whether through hiring, upskilling, or incremental improvements—you can transform how your team works.
Take the next step: Review your team’s current processes and identify one area where product ops could make a difference. Start small and watch the transformation unfold.
Want to Reduce Chaos in your Product Team?
Many inefficiencies result from poorly structured teams and unclear processes. If your team is always playing catch-up, it’s a sign that your product team setup might need a reset.
That’s why we created this course on Setting Up Product Teams — designed to help product leaders build efficient, collaborative teams from the ground up.
From defining roles to setting up clear workflows and rituals, this course gives you the structure to operate better, not just faster.
Loved this article? You’ll love this even more.
In our conversation with Kuburat Abubakar (Senior PM at Kora), she shares the behind-the-scenes of managing product operations and scaling teams. Watch below.