Tom’s team was investing weeks of development time into features that weren’t gaining traction. As a newly promoted Product Management Lead, he knew experimentation was the answer, but he lacked the time to implement it. By bringing in a Product Ops Assistant, he was able to embed a structured experimentation process, leading to a 30% increase in feature adoption and a more efficient, data-driven team.
The challenge
Newly promoted to a Product Management Lead role, Tom was eager to help his team make better product decisions. In the past, they had spent valuable development time building features they believed would drive business goals, only for customers to barely use them. Tom knew fostering an experimentation mindset would be key to the team’s success, but implementing a clear process required significant guidance.
With his new responsibilities of managing a team and collaborating with senior executives to align product strategy with business goals, Tom was pressed for time. Despite recognizing the need for structured experimentation, he continually delayed its implementation.
The tipping point came when the team released another expensive feature that failed to gain traction, wasting four weeks of development time. Leadership was growing frustrated with the team’s inefficiency and Tom knew they couldn't continue this way. He convinced leadership to bring in Maya as his Product Ops Assistant. Maya had a strong grasp of Product Management principles, combined with an exceptional ability to manage operational tasks, implement new processes, and boost efficiency.
The solution
After discussing Tom’s vision for building an experimentation culture, Maya got to work.
Key actions taken:
- Team training: Maya ran a series of workshops over the first month, helping the team understand the principles of experimentation and how to design experiments that would validate their ideas before full development.
- Stakeholder collaboration: She recognized the value of stakeholder input in experiment design and worked to incorporate their perspectives, strengthening both engagement and alignment.
- Experiment tracking: Maya established a system to track experiments, ensuring that hypotheses, results, and learnings were clearly documented.
- Knowledge sharing: Maya facilitated regular experiment reviews, ensuring that insights were documented and shared widely across the company to improve decision-making beyond just Tom’s team.
- Continuous improvement: Maya facilitated retrospectives to refine the process, ensuring the team evolved their approach over time.
The results
- 30% increase in feature adoption: Within six months, the team saw a 30% increase in feature adoption, as they became better at identifying and prioritizing features that users actually needed.
- Reduced waste in development time: The team adopted an incremental approach, testing smaller changes before committing to major development efforts. This shift prevented costly missteps and increased their agility.
- Improved stakeholder trust: A stakeholder survey revealed a marked improvement in confidence in the Product Team. Stakeholders especially valued being included in the experimentation process.
- Empowered Product Team: With a clear experimentation framework, individual contributors gained confidence in backlog prioritization, leading to greater team autonomy and reduced overwhelm, as noted in a team retrospective.
- Tom could focus on high-level strategy: With Maya managing the experimentation framework, Tom reclaimed valuable time to focus on aligning product strategy with business goals without worrying about wasted development cycles.
Conclusion
Bringing in a Product Ops Assistant gave Tom’s team the specialized operational expertise needed to embed experimentation into their workflow, leading to more informed product decisions. Maya’s deep understanding of the Product Development Life Cycle allowed her to quickly diagnose challenges and implement structured solutions.
As a result, Tom’s team built features that truly drove business impact, strengthened stakeholder relationships, and became a more autonomous, data-driven team. Meanwhile, Tom was able to step back from process-heavy tasks and focus on guiding the company’s broader product vision, knowing that his team was making smarter decisions.
By embedding a Product Ops Assistant within the team, he ensured that operational improvements were not only tailored to their needs but also delivered lasting impact.
At Sarpa, we offer premium operational support tailored to Product Leaders. Our Product Ops Assistants, ready to contribute after only a brief onboarding, are trained to bring specialized skills to your team. Get started today and we’ll set you up with a dedicated professional to help you reclaim your focus.