The Product Leader’s Ultimate Guide to Process Changes
As a leader of product managers, one of your most important levers is process. So when should you add process? What process should you add? In today’s issue, 3 product leaders break it down.
Process Matters
Many of us are tired of talking about process. But here’s the thing:
Can improving your product processes a new growth lever?
Not only is the answer yes…
But, as a rising leader you must know the levers within process to pull – what, when, and why.
The Source of Process Talk “Hate”
We all grew up as ICs, so we generally get to feel the brunt of the impact from process changes:
Re-orgs cause hell for our relationships and roadmaps
New processes interrupt building time
New meetings clog the calendar
But actually having a really good knowledge of process - and when to add or substract - is super important.
Great product leaders typically drive process changes within their first few months, and on a regular basis.
Process it not your enemy. But, if you over engineer the process, it can be your enemy.
The Leadership Canyon is a Symptom of Lack of Knowledge
One of the most famous product concepts is Reforge’s Product Leader Canyon:
As ICs, we rarely get trained in these topics. We just experience their results.
This contributes to the canyon. But the truth is, which you hopefully believe too now: process is not your enemy.
Many people think that process will slow down your iteration cycle. It can if you force the process for the process’ sake.
Instead, today’s post will show you how to use process for good.
Introducing Kunal and Gaurav
I’ve teamed up with 2 other product leaders to bring you a definitive take:
Kunal Thadani is the Senior Director of Product & Growth at Houzz and Gaurav Hardikar is the Vice President of Product, Growth, and Ops at HomeLight.
Gaurav and Kunal run a Maven course on revenue growth, do growth advisory for early stage startups, and write a newsletter through the Insider Growth Group .
Today’s Post
This is the resource we wish we had before we became product leaders:
Encyclopedia of Process Changes
Tailored Process Changes by Company Stage
Case Studies in Process Changes
The Litmus Test
1. Encyclopedia of Process Changes
Launching a new process is a lot like launching a new feature—it all begins with first-principles thinking.
Every process change should drive, one or more of:
Speed
Quality
Impact
The outcome of a well-designed process change is either increased speed, higher quality deliverables, or greater impact on the company’s metrics.
The key is to anchor each change in first principles, ensuring it has a direct and lasting effect on the outcomes that matter most.
In 2025, there are fundamentally 12 levers you should have an understanding of:
We could have included a million more, but based on our experience, these are the 12 you need to nail.
Let’s go one by one to build your first principles understanding on each:
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