The Hidden Work of a Product Operating Model

Most product organisations don't struggle because their teams lack talent, frameworks, or motivation. They struggle because the environment around those teams is unclear. There's usually a strategy somewhere. People broadly understand the ambition. The roadmap is full, everyone is working hard, and from the outside things look productive. And yet decisions keep drifting upward. Teams check things with leadership more than they expected. Priorities move around more often than anyone planned....

They struggle because the environment around them is unclear

They struggle because the environment around those teams is unclear.

There’s usually a strategy somewhere. People broadly understand the ambition. The roadmap is full, everyone is working hard, and from the outside things look productive.

And yet, something doesn’t hold.

The pattern that shows up

Decisions keep drifting upward.

Teams check things with leadership more than they expected
Priorities move around more often than anyone planned
Roadmaps stretch and bend depending on who is asking the question

People start adding more process in the hope that things will settle down.

Over time, the organisation starts to feel busy but strangely fragile.

A lot seems to depend on a few people holding everything together.

What it actually is

When I see that pattern, it’s almost never a delivery problem.

It’s usually an operating model problem.

A product operating model is often described as a framework or a diagram.
Something you draw on a slide to explain how product, engineering, design, and commercial teams work together.

In reality, it’s much more practical than that.

It’s the set of systems that help everyone in the organisation take their first, next best step.

The questions it answers

It answers questions people are quietly asking all day, without necessarily realising it:

What are we trying to achieve right now?
What constraints are we working within?
How do we make decisions when things are unclear?
What trade-offs are acceptable?

When those answers are visible, something interesting happens.

People move with far more confidence.

Not because they’ve been told exactly what to do,
but because the environment makes the next step obvious.

A way to think about it

I often think about a healthy operating model like a skeleton.

The skeleton isn’t there to restrict movement.
It’s what makes movement possible.

Without it, everything collapses into a soft mass of effort.

Muscles pull in different directions, and the body quickly loses coordination.

With it, movement becomes fluid, fast, coordinated.

When the structural elements are clear, teams don’t need constant direction.

They already understand the shape of the system they’re working inside.

What happens when it’s missing

Across different companies I’ve worked in, from large platforms through to scaling technology organisations and mission-driven environments, the same patterns tend to show up when that structure is missing.

Example: SEEK

Early in my career at SEEK, the company was already large and successful.

But like many growing technology organisations, product teams were expanding faster than the operating environment around them.

Everyone was capable.
The ambition was clear.

But decisions about priorities, investments, and ownership were often happening informally.

Teams would move forward, then pause, then re-check alignment with leadership.

A lot of smart people were doing a lot of coordination work.

What helped wasn’t adding more delivery process.

It was clarifying the system around the work:

Making strategy visible in a way that translated into priorities
Making ownership boundaries clear so teams knew where they could move independently
Making decision pathways explicit so things didn’t constantly escalate upward

Once those pieces were in place, something shifted.

Teams moved faster, but leadership spent less time in the weeds.

The same pattern at scale

I saw a similar pattern later in high-growth environments like Envato and GO1.

Scaling companies often reach a point where they’ve outgrown the informal operating model that worked when the company was smaller.

In the early days, a founder or small leadership group can hold the whole system in their heads.

Decisions move quickly because everyone is in the same room, literally or figuratively.

But as the organisation grows, that implicit model stops working.

People still want autonomy, but the environment around them hasn’t caught up.

What it looks like in practice

Strategy lives in a few conversations.
Ownership overlaps.
Decision making becomes fuzzy.

Teams don’t slow down because they’re incapable.

They slow down because they’re trying to be responsible inside an unclear system.

And responsible people escalate decisions when they’re unsure.

What the operating model actually does

This is where the operating model starts to matter.

Not as a piece of documentation, but as a set of structural agreements that shape how the organisation moves.

1. Strategy becomes real

Strategy needs to translate into real boundaries.

Not just aspirations, but clarity about:

which problems matter most right now
which customers we’re prioritising
what trade-offs we’re prepared to make

2. Ownership becomes clear

Teams should know what they’re responsible for.

But also:

where collaboration begins
where decisions move to leadership

Not everything needs consensus.

Organisations work better when it’s obvious:

which decisions sit with teams
which involve architecture or commercial commitments
when leadership should step in

3. Cadence creates alignment

Not just sprint cycles, but leadership cadence:

strategy reviews
roadmap alignment
investment checkpoints

Moments where the organisation pauses together, recalibrates, and then moves again.

What this creates

None of this is about control.

In fact, a well-designed operating model does the opposite.

It gives people more agency.

If everyone understands:

the purpose of the organisation
the constraints we’re working within
the goals we’re pursuing
the trade-offs we’ve agreed to

Then people don’t have to wait to be told what to do.

They can move.

A simple test

What happens if leadership steps away for a week, or even a month?

Not perfectly, of course.

But would people still know how to make sensible decisions and keep things progressing?

If the answer is yes, the operating model is probably doing its job.

Because the goal isn’t to make leaders more central.

It’s to design an environment where people can do their best work without constantly needing permission.

What it frees up

When that happens, leaders are freed up to do the work only they can do:

sensing changes in the environment
adjusting the system when it needs to evolve

The organisation moves with more predictability, but also more freedom.

The quiet chaos that often sits underneath fast-growing companies starts to resolve into something much healthier.

The outcome

Just clear enough that everyone knows their next best step.

The work underneath

This is the work I find myself returning to again and again.

Not writing strategies, but shaping the environment that allows them to work.

Most organisations don’t lack smart people or strong intent.

What they lack is a system that makes the right actions easier than the wrong ones.

When it’s working

The work of a product operating model is often quiet.

It sits underneath the visible work of roadmaps, launches, and metrics.

But when it’s done well, the change is noticeable:

teams stop waiting for permission
leaders stop being the centre of every decision
the organisation starts to move with a kind of calm predictability

Not because everything is controlled.

But because everyone understands:

the purpose
the constraints
the trade-offs
how decisions move

At that point, the system begins to carry the weight of the organisation.

And people are free to do the work they came there to do.

I’ll be running a talk and workshop on this topic at this year’s Leading the Product – Leaders Forum.

Hope you can make it.