Melissa Perri: The Right Questions for Product Operations Structure

In a recent LinkedIn post, Melissa Perri tackles a common organizational dilemma: whether Product Operations (Product Ops) should be embedded within teams or centralized. Perri argues that the way many leaders approach this question is fundamentally flawed, leading to ineffective structures.

She highlights that organizations often spend significant time debating the organizational chart for Product Ops before clearly defining the problems they aim to solve. This can result in structures that appear neat on paper but fail to alleviate practical bottlenecks.

“This is the wrong starting question. I’ve worked with companies that spent months debating the org chart for product operations before they were clear on what problem they were actually solving. The result is usually a structure that looks clean on paper but doesn’t reduce any friction in practice.”

Rethinking the Core Problem

According to Perri, the crucial first step is to identify what is currently hindering product teams’ efficiency. She suggests that the optimal structure for Product Ops depends entirely on the specific challenges a company faces.

Diagnosing Bottlenecks

Perri elaborates on this diagnostic approach:

“The real question is: what’s slowing your product teams down right now? If every team is running research differently and insights aren’t making it across the organization, you probably need centralized research ops that creates consistency. If teams have great data available but aren’t changing their behavior, you might need someone embedded who understands the team’s context well enough to make the data actionable.”

This perspective emphasizes a problem-first, solution-second methodology, moving away from adopting generic organizational models. As Perri points out, leaders often get stuck by mimicking what other companies do rather than analyzing their unique operational friction points.

The Hybrid Model: A Common Evolution

Perri further explains that as companies mature their Product Ops functions, a hybrid model often emerges. This model combines the strengths of both centralized and embedded approaches.

• Centralized Foundations: Perri notes the importance of centralizing core elements like data standards, tooling, and overarching best practices. This ensures consistency and efficiency across the organization.
• Embedded Support: For areas where context and adoption are critical, embedding Product Ops support directly within teams proves more effective. This allows for tailored assistance and better integration of insights into team workflows.

She suggests that the ideal ratio between centralized and embedded functions can shift as an organization grows and its needs evolve.

“Most mature product ops functions end up as a hybrid. Centralized foundations for data, tooling, and standards. Embedded support where adoption and context matter most. The ratio shifts as the organization grows.”

Addressing Common Pitfalls

In her post, Perri stresses that Product Ops is a frequent stumbling block for leadership teams. She observes:

“I wrote about this in Product Operations because it’s one of the most common places leaders get stuck. They pick a model based on what other companies do instead of diagnosing their own bottlenecks first.”

By reframing the question from organizational structure to problem-solving, Perri provides a practical framework for leaders to build more effective Product Operations functions. Her insights encourage a data-driven and context-aware approach to optimizing product team performance.

Perri also highlighted an upcoming workshop on Product Ops with co-author Denise Tilles in June, offering further support for leaders looking to refine their strategies.