Experimentation VS Product Operating Models

I’ll argue that experimentation as a growth framework is broader and more encompassing than a product operating model. Why? Because it transcends product development and serves as a holistic operating system for the entire business. 

Here are specific ways in which experimentation expands beyond the scope of a product operating model and why it should be considered a core operational language for modern growth organizations:

If you align with my argument, the next fun question set is around “what tech stack and set of processes should be used to efficiently and effectively push this way of working?”

• Modern Tech Stack to create a learning organization
• Modern Operations (Growth Experimentation) rituals for growth teams

1. ELG Applies Across the Entire Business

Experimentation-Led Growth (ELG): Encompasses all areas of an organization—product, marketing, operations, customer support, pricing, HR, and more. It embeds a testing mindset into every decision-making process, ensuring the entire company operates with a culture of learning and adaptation.

Product Operating Model: Focuses primarily on product development and delivery, with a scope limited to features, user experience, and product-market fit. While customer-centric, its reach is narrower.

2. Framework for Strategic Decision-Making

Experimentation-Led Growth: Acts as an overarching decision-making framework. For example:

• Testing new business models or market entry strategies.
• Experimenting with operational processes, such as supply chain optimizations or internal workflows.
• Iterating on HR policies or talent acquisition strategies.

Product Operating Model: Primarily addresses decisions about creating and managing products but rarely extends to broader organizational strategy.

3. Holistic Learning System

Experimentation-Led Growth: Creates a unified learning system across departments. Insights from marketing tests, operational pilots, or customer service experiments can inform product decisions and vice versa.

Product Operating Model: While iterative and agile, its learning cycles are confined to the product development lifecycle, with less integration of insights from other functions.

4. Focus on Cultural Transformation

Experimentation-Led Growth: Requires a company-wide cultural shift toward curiosity, risk-taking, and trust in data-driven decision-making. It fosters collaboration across silos and encourages all employees to think scientifically, regardless of their function.

Product Operating Model: Promotes a product mindset but is typically more functional in scope, focusing on the teams involved in product lifecycle management rather than the entire organization.

5. Encourages Cross-Functional Collaboration

Experimentation-Led Growth: Builds deep collaboration between functions like marketing, operations, finance, and product to design experiments that serve broader organizational goals.

Product Operating Model: Relies on cross-functional teams (e.g., product managers, designers, engineers) but typically inside the product domain.

6. Broader Impact on Business Goals

Experimentation-Led Growth: Aims to influence macro-level business objectives, such as revenue growth, cost reduction, market expansion, or customer lifetime value. For instance, a company could experiment with subscription pricing models that span marketing, product, and finance.

Product Operating Model: Focuses on improving customer satisfaction, feature adoption, or market differentiation through product enhancements.

7. Centers of Excellence for Scale

Experimentation-Led Growth:: Establishes organizational structures like Experimentation Centers of Excellence (CoEs) to scale the practice across all business areas, ensuring consistent methodologies and shared insights across diverse functions.

Product Operating Model: While scalable, typically doesn’t extend beyond the structures supporting product management and delivery.

8. Solving Broader Strategic Problems

Experimentation-Led Growth:: Tackles broad and complex strategic challenges (e.g., “How do we increase our penetration in a new demographic?” or “What operational changes will reduce our time-to-market?”). It focuses on hypotheses that could impact multiple domains.

Product Operating Model: Addresses more focused problems, such as “How do we improve this feature?” or “What’s the next priority for this product line?”

9. Future-Readiness

Experimentation-Led Growth:: Prepares organizations for unpredictable environments by creating a systemic capability to adapt and learn quickly. It’s a business-wide evolution that touches every part of the organization’s DNA.

Product Operating Model: Offers adaptability within the product lifecycle but lacks the breadth to address external shifts that require non-product interventions (e.g., sudden shifts in market regulation, economic conditions, or supply chains).

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