Bringing shadow product operations into the light
Having been a shadow product ops person myself, I can tell you it isn’t sustainable. I was trying to figure out ways to improve our roadmapping process and selling the other PMs on the new process. Meanwhile, I had the rest of my job to do: loop in stakeholders, build out my own roadmap, make sure my engineering partners had everything they needed, and manage my direct reports. The process work needed to happen, but it felt squeezed in and I was constantly teetering on the edge of burnout.