The Hidden Work of Success

Product OperationsProduct managementProductivity and focusExecutive coachingStrategy & Leadership

15 Jul

What great product teams get right before the process even starts

5 minute read

When I help companies implement new PM processes or tooling like Aha!, I’m often brought in at a moment of high expectation. The business case has been made. The procurement is done. The process or tool is seen as the missing link. And yet, I’ve come to learn that the presence or absence of success rarely rests on the process or tool itself.

Whether consciously or not, some teams bring the ingredients for success while others bring the reasons it won’t work. It’s not about talent or intelligence. It’s about mindset, beliefs, behaviours, and how deeply leadership is willing to back its own strategy or teams.

“The simple reality of our work is that we are the most important piece of the puzzle”

Yet amid the SMART goals, RACI charts, RAID logs, and Gantt timelines, how often do we stop to consider ourselves, and what we bring that might drive success or quietly block it?

Take the renewable energy company I worked with. After a number of mergers and acquisitions, they found themselves siloed, with scattered teams, competing approaches, and no shared visibility of their product roadmaps. Their solution was bold: implement SAFe, adopt Aha! as their strategic product tool, and move towards a unified platform-based offering.

A sound plan. But its strength lay not in the methodology or tool. It was their approach. The CPO and CTO were the figureheads, sponsoring the work. And more than that, they lived it. They created a mandate for change, accepted that not everything had to be perfect from the start, and focused on building the process as deliberately as they built the product. Committed confidence, clarity, and consistency flowed from the top down. They always attended project team meetings, actively participated in decisions at every level, not seeing the detail as for someone else to worry about. They modelled the importance of the work, making themselves highly visible. And it worked.

“Their success came from leadership that endorsed the change and then they embodied it, visibly and consistently, from strategy to detail.

Contrast that with organisations who struggle. They might say the right things, invest the money, hire the experts, but without time, consistency, and belief, the change withers. Politics takes root. Time is treated as an enemy. Teams lose trust in the why, or never fully had it to begin with.

That’s why I expanded my work beyond software implementation. I wanted to help organisations at every layer of their journey whether strategic, operational, technological, or psychological. Because underneath every dashboard and workflow is a person trying to do the right thing with what they have available to them. To lead well, deliver their function and make things better.

To do that, I use **The PFG Model of Transformation**: a framework built around three interlinked triads that together form a powerful lens for reflection and change.

The Productivity Triad: Effort → Simplicity → Productivity
The Feedback Triad: Feedback → Inspiration → Action
The Growth Triad: Vulnerability → Confidence → Growth

Whether I’m coaching an executive wrestling with their confidence or working with a product ops team struggling to align strategy and delivery, these loops help surface the truths that matter.

It’s through this model that I help:

Create confident tech leadership
Bring clarity to product strategy
Reduce friction within and across teams
Build a coaching lens for tech professionals to lead with integrity and impact

For product teams specifically, I offer a free Product Management diagnostic that can benchmark your perception of maturity, and provoke insight. The most powerful use of this tool is self-generated: teams see where maturity is lacking, where strengths could scale, and where to begin.

If you recognise any of these challenges in your world, I’d love to talk. Book a free strategy call or try the diagnostic — and let’s see where your next step could take you.

Request PM Diagnostic Questionnaire