Welcome folks! 👋

This edition of The Product-Led Geek will take 10 minutes to read and you’ll learn:

• Master the 5 key pillars of effective product and growth team collaboration

• How to build shared ownership of outcomes between product and growth teams to accelerate your company's growth trajectory.

• Practical tips for implementing a collaboration framework that prevents silos and maximises learning velocity across teams.

Let’s go!

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GEEK LINKS

3 interesting, amusing, or enlightening links

• Connect day-to-day work to goals with this marketing operating cadence

• The anatomy of a breakthrough “Service-as-a-Software” business

• Is your retention "too good”?

GEEK OUT

👓 Beyond Silos: The Ultimate Framework for Product and Growth Team Collaboration

If your company has distinct product and growth teams, I'm willing to bet you've seen or felt something about their relationship that doesn't quite sit right.

That feeling? It's dysfunction.

And while it might not be catastrophic, make no mistake - it's impacting your product growth and probably taking casualties along the way.

Here’s a cautionary tale that I first heard from Elena Verna:

Back in 2014 at SurveyMonkey, a growth team implemented a "try-before-you-buy" feature by hacking together a quick solution without properly involving the core product team. While the experiment showed an impressive 20% lift in conversion, the technical debt and strained relationships that followed created long-lasting damage. The core product team avoided eye contact with growth team members for nearly a year!

Put hurt feelings aside and you quickly realise the damage to the business that (all too common) situations like this can cause.

When product and growth teams work well together, both teams learn faster, move faster, and help the product grow faster.

When they don't, it creates a drag on everything from experiment velocity to feature adoption.

The good news is you can prevent (or fix) this.

Here's a comprehensive framework for building effective collaboration between product and growth teams.

Early-stage companies should embody these principles from day one and be intentionally preserve them as they scale.

Later stage companies should apply the principles to reset problematic dynamics and set themselves up for future success.

1. Cultural Foundations

The bedrock of effective collaboration is cultural.

You need to establish:

Shared Ownership of Outcomes

This often implies fundamentally shifting how teams think about their work:

• Growth metrics become everyone's responsibility. When a product manager is planning their next feature, they're thinking about adoption and engagement metrics just as much as the growth team.

• Wins are celebrated as company victories, not team victories. When that new onboarding flow drives a 10% increase in activation, both teams share the spotlight.

• Failed experiments become valuable learning opportunities for the entire organisation. That A/B test that showed negative results? It's not swept under the rug - it's analysed/discussed jointly to extract insights that inform both product development and growth initiatives.

Inclusivity

Inclusivity is a critical mindset shift that prevents the "us vs. them" mentality that often plagues product and growth teams.

Here's what it looks like in practice:

❌ The Typical Way:

• Growth team develops ideas in isolation

• Product team is brought in only for final approval

• Decisions feel like negotiations

• Teams operate as separate entities

✅ The Inclusive Way:

• Growth team includes product representatives in ideation sessions

• Product team shares roadmap early and often

• Both teams contribute to experiment design

• Decisions emerge from collaborative discussions

For example, instead of saying:

"We'll loop in product when we need sign-off."

…teams should default to:

"Let's get product's perspective as we ideate."

This small shift in thinking can prevent weeks of wasted effort and strengthen cross-team relationships.

A Learning Mindset

A learning mindset transforms how teams approach their work and interact with each other.

Here's how to cultivate it:

Rate of Learning > Rate of Shipping

• Instead of measuring success by features shipped or experiments launched, measure it by insights gained

• Create a shared knowledge base where both teams contribute learnings

• Regular joint learning sessions where teams share insights from recent work

Documentation is Key

• Every experiment, successful or not, gets documented

• Include not just what happened, but why decisions were made

• Make learnings accessible to both teams through shared wikis or knowledge bases

Psychological Safety

• Celebrate "successful failures" that generate valuable insights

• Encourage teams to take calculated risks without fear of blame

• Create forums where both teams can openly discuss challenges and mistakes

2. Structural Elements

The right organisational structure creates the foundation for sustainable collaboration.

Here's how to build it:

Team Composition

Growth teams should mirror product team structure while adding specialised expertise:

Core Roles (Mirroring Product):

• Product Manager (Growth)

• Designer (Growth)

• Engineers (Growth)

Specialised Roles:

• Decision Scientists for modelling, insight generation and experimentation support

• Growth Marketing for stage-relevant optimisation (e.g. lifecycle marketer in a team focused on activation and engagement)

The key is maintaining clear reporting lines while fostering cross-team collaboration.

For example, a Growth Marketer might report to the Head of Marketing but have a dotted line to the Head of Growth, and day to day is an integral part of the product growth team.

Shared Ceremonies

Regular touchpoints build relationships and keep teams aligned:

Sprint Ceremonies:

• Joint sprint demos where both teams share progress

• Combined retrospectives to identify cross-team improvements

• Shared planning sessions for upcoming quarters

At Snyk, core product teams (and others) were invited to Impact and Learnings reviews and to Growth Syncs where teams would:

• Share experiment results

• Discuss upcoming initiatives

• Identify collaboration opportunities

• Surface potential conflicts early

Common Platforms

Using the same tools eliminates friction and ensures everyone speaks the same language:

Essential Shared Tools:

• Behavioural Analytics Platform (e.g., Amplitude, Mixpanel)

• Feature Flag and Experimentation Framework (e.g., Eppo, Amplitude, LaunchDarkly, homegrown)

• Documentation Hub (e.g., Notion, Confluence)

3. Process Framework

Clear processes prevent confusion and ensure smooth collaboration between teams.

Here's how to structure your key workflows:

For Major Product Launches

Pre-Launch (6-8 weeks before):

• Growth team joins product planning sessions to identify optimisation opportunities

• Product team shares feature specs and technical constraints

• Joint development of success metrics and measurement plan

• Growth team plans complementary experiments

For example, when launching a new feature, the growth team might plan:

• Optimisation of the feature announcement

• A/B tests of different onboarding flows

• Targeted activation campaigns

Launch Phase:

• Coordinated communication strategy across all channels

• Clear ownership matrix for different components

• Shared dashboard for monitoring launch metrics

• Daily standups between teams during critical first week

Post-Launch:

• Joint analysis sessions after 2, 4, and 8 weeks

• Collaborative identification of optimisation opportunities

• Shared documentation of learnings

• Agreement on follow-up experiments

For Growth Experiments on Core Product Surfaces:

Planning Phase:

• Growth team creates experiment brief using standardised template

• Product team reviews and provides technical input

• Joint refinement of experiment design

• Agreement on:

  • Success metrics

  • Technical implementation

  • Monitoring approach

  • Roll-forward/back criteria

Execution Phase:

• Implementation follows agreed technical standards

• Code reviews include both teams

• Clear change management process:

  • Feature flag strategy

  • Monitoring plan

  • Emergency contacts

  • Rollback procedures

Analysis Phase:

• Results reviewed in joint sessions

• Decision framework for:

  • When to ship

  • When to iterate

  • When to kill

• Learnings documented in shared repository

• Next steps agreed by both teams

4. Communication Framework

Clear communication channels and expectations are vital for maintaining healthy collaboration.

Here's how to structure your communication framework:

Regular Touchpoints

Daily/Weekly:

• Async updates in shared Slack channels

• Weekly growth reviews with key stakeholders from both teams

• For critical experiments, consider daily standups between growth and product teams working on shared surfaces (inviting someone from the core product team to a growth team daily standup can work well)

Monthly:

• Impact & Learnings review sessions examining key learnings and metrics

• Joint prioritisation meetings

• Technical debt review and planning

Quarterly:

• Strategic planning sessions

• OKR alignment workshops

• Team health checks

Documentation Standards

Standardise how information is shared to ensure clarity and accessibility:

Experiment Documentation:

• Standardised briefs that both teams contribute to

• Clear technical implementation plans

• Impact and Learnings templates

• Central repository of all experiments (past and planned)

Technical Documentation:

• Shared coding standards

• Implementation guidelines

• API documentation

• Performance requirements

Knowledge Sharing:

• Weekly team newsletters

• Shared learning repository

• Case studies of successful collaborations

• Post-mortems of failed initiatives

Feedback Loops

Create multiple channels for ongoing communication:

Formal Channels:

• Monthly retrospectives

• Quarterly surveys

• Performance reviews that include cross-team feedback

Informal Channels:

• Office hours where teams can drop in

• Shared Slack channels for quick questions

• Regular coffee chats between team leads

5. Best Practices

After working with dozens of companies on product and growth team collaboration, here are the practices that consistently lead to success:

✅ DO:

Start Early, Start Right:

• Involve surface owners as consultants from day one

• Share upcoming experiments in planning phase

• Get technical input before committing to solutions

• Build relationships before you need them

Share Success and Failure:

• Distribute credit across all contributing teams

• Present results as joint achievements

• Share learnings from failed experiments openly

• Celebrate team collaboration, not just outcomes

Build for the Long Term:

• Prioritise sustainable technical solutions (note this doesn’t mean not testing things quickly, but have plans for transitioning to maintainable implementation)

• Document decisions and their rationale

• Create reusable experiment frameworks

• Invest in shared tooling and infrastructure

Maintain Radical Transparency:

• Keep planning documents accessible to all

• Share roadmaps early and often

• Be open about constraints and limitations

• Communicate changes as they happen

❌ DON'T:

Surprise and Disrupt:

• Launch changes without consulting surface owners

• Make technical changes without review

• Implement solutions that create maintenance burden

• Push code that doesn't meet agreed standards

Create Silos:

• Take unilateral credit for wins

• Hide failed experiments

• Withhold information about upcoming changes

• Build team-specific tools when shared ones exist

Ignore the Human Element:

• Dismiss the importance of relationship building

• Let conflicts fester without addressing them

• Forget to celebrate joint wins

• Undervalue the importance of trust

Geek Tips 🤓

Here are some practical, battle-tested tips that can make a real difference in your team's collaboration:

1. Set Up Your Communication Hub

   • Create a dedicated Slack channel (e.g., #product-growth-collaboration)

   • Pin important documents and dashboards

   • Set channel guidelines (what belongs here vs. elsewhere)

   • Use threads to keep discussions organised

2. Establish "Growth Office Hours"

   • Weekly 2-hour slot where growth team is available

   • Product teams can drop in for quick consultations

   • Record common questions for documentation

   • Share insights from these sessions in your newsletter

3. Build a Shared Experiment Calendar

   • Use a tool like Airtable or Notion, consider pushing to a shared Google Calendar

   • Include experiment status, owners, and dependencies

   • Highlight potential conflicts with product releases

   • Make it visible on dashboards (and on office TVs for co-located teams)

4. Create Your Technical Playbook

   • Document coding standards for experiments

   • Include performance requirements

   • Provide templates for common experiment types

   • Update based on learnings from each experiment

5. Standardise Your Templates

   • Experiment brief template

   • Technical specification document

   • Results sharing format (e.g. Impact and Learnings Reviews)

   • Post-mortem structure

   • Learning documentation

Start small with these practices and iterate based on what works for your team. Not everything needs to be perfect from day one.

In Practice at Snyk

When I joined Snyk, we made sure growth teams were part of the broader R&D organisation, ran the same sprint cadence as product teams, and participated in company-wide ceremonies like sprint demos.

We established a growth group hub on Notion that highlighted:

• Team structure and remits

• Growth principles

• Growth process documentation

• Analytics and experimentation paved roads

• Shared learnings

This created alignment while maintaining the speed and autonomy growth teams need to be effective.

Remember

The relationship between product and growth teams should be about amplification.

When these teams truly collaborate, they create a multiplier effect where:

• Product innovations get better distribution

• Growth experiments have deeper product integration

• Both teams learn and iterate faster

• The ultimate winner is the customer

As Elena Verna puts it:

This metaphor perfectly captures the delicate balance required.

Growth teams bring fresh perspectives and optimisation expertise, while product teams bring deep surface knowledge and long-term vision.

When both respect each other's domains while working toward shared goals, magic happens.

The framework I've shared isn't just theory - it's battle-tested across multiple organisations.

Choose what resonates for you at your stage and context.

Some of what I’ve shared in this post is more useful in larger orgs, but much is universally applicable.

Think of it as good growth hygiene.

Until next time!

Ben

PS: Have you found effective ways to build collaboration between product and growth teams? Drop me a line at [email protected] - I'd love to hear your story.

THAT’S A WRAP

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That’s all for today,

If there are any product, growth or leadership topics that you’d like me to write about, just hit reply to this email or leave a comment and let me know!

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Until next time!

— Ben

PS: Thanks again to our sponsor: Inflection.io