Product Operations Transformation- From Chaos to Strategic Function

The Challenge

A newly formed product operations team at NHS England was struggling to establish itself while supporting a portfolio of three product areas encompassing 500+ people. The team faced:

• Unclear roles and responsibilities across Commercial, Finance, Risk, Governance, Data, and Reporting functions
• Chaotic stakeholder management with poor communication patterns
• No structured approach to prioritization or roadmap development
• A head of operations needing to develop product thinking and leadership skills

What I did

I implemented a comprehensive 11-month transformation program:

Discovery & Analysis

• Conducted stakeholder interviews across all organizational levels
• Created a comprehensive problems and opportunities assessment deck

Roadmap Development

• Applied the GROW model to build structured transition roadmaps
• Collaborated with portfolio leads to develop area-specific sub-roadmaps
• Established clear current-state to future-state pathways

Team Development

• Designed and delivered an “Effective Communications” workshop
• Prototyped a Slack bot for more efficient stakeholder request capture
• Provided ongoing 1:1 coaching for the head of operations
• Implemented co-location strategy to embed team leads within portfolio areas

The Results

Leadership Growth: Head of operations developed a clearer understanding of their career progression and adopted a genuine product mindset – focusing on user needs and outcomes rather than task completion.

Operational Excellence: The product operations team succeeded in transforming the new starter onboarding from a chaotic process to a smoother experience for both hiring managers and new employees. This was evidenced by frequent positive feedback from stakeholders.

Team Cohesion: Team members gained clarity on their roles and objectives, with significantly improved stakeholder feedback on interactions and service delivery. 

Stakeholder Satisfaction: Measurable improvements in communication efficiency and request handling processes. Increased transparency and more effective operations since members from the product operations team were embedded in each of the three product areas to understand their specific dynamics of each area.

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Do you want to set up effective product operations but don’t know where to start?

Is your team mostly fire-fighting and struggling to make a real impact?

I can help you build a solid base so your team can flourish while your product grows.