Should a Head of Product Make Strategic Product Decisions?
The head of product role and the product strategy are often linked. But should a head of product make strategic decisions for individual products? Or would it be better to empower the product people to own the product strategy? Read on to find out my advice.
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The Head of Product Role in a Nutshell
A head of product manages a group of product people — individuals who look after one or more products and who may be called product managers or product owners. Depending on the company size and org structure, the role might also be referred to as Director of Product Management, VP Product, and Chief Product Officer. Working as a head of product includes the following three duties, as I discuss in more detail in the article What Should a Head of Product Do?
First, develop the individual product people. For example, ensure that the individual’s role and responsibilities are clear; help the person grow as a product professional, be it by coaching and mentoring them or by encouraging them to attend training courses; offer clear and helpful feedback and hold them accountable for meeting agreed goals.
Second, develop the product management team. For instance, help the members collaborate, establish shared standards including product management processes, methods, tools, and templates; communicate strategic business objectives; and hire new product people.
Third, develop the organisation. For example, ensure that the individual product people are sufficiently empowered to succeed in their roles and establish a product-led way of working.
What Happens When the Head of Product Determines the Product Strategy?
As you might have noticed, the list above does not mention determining the product strategy. Here is why: When a head of product determines the product strategy on a regular basis, then this is likely to cause the following two issues.
First, the product people don’t have full ownership of their products. Instead, they are focused on the tactics/delivery. In the worst case, they are product backlog managers and user story scribes. This can lead not only to low motivation and high turnover. It can also give rise to what I call a strategy-delivery chasm: Strategic decisions are not effectively translated into tactical ones, and insights from the delivery work are not used to evolve the strategy.
Second, the head of product turns into a bottleneck and/or becomes overworked. As the products grow and as new people are added to the product management group, the workload of the individual rises. But there is only so much work someone can cope with, and being overworked for an extended period of time leads to low productivity, mistakes, and health issues.
There is, however, a situation when it makes sense for the head of product to determine the product strategy: when the individual is a contributor who manages a product in addition to leading the product management team. This can be an effective short-term fix, for example, to compensate for the lack of experienced product people on the team. But as a permanent solution, this approach is not advisable: It is likely to cause the second of the two issues mentioned earlier.
Read On …
To read the rest of this article and access the remaining tips, please head over to my website: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/head-of-product-and-product-strategy/
Learn More
You can learn more about being a successful head of product by attending my product leadership training and by reading my book How to Lead in Product Management.
Source: https://www.romanpichler.com/blog/head-of-product-and-product-strategy/
