Product Management
Radical Focus on Outcomes
We believe that good product management requires pragmatism. Our product mindset and modes help us to show up to ambiguous, complicated situations and radically focus teams and organisations on the best way to get the outcomes they need.
We help senior leaders reduce delivery risk, regain confidence in where money is going, and improve decision quality across products, programmes, and policy areas. Especially where priorities compete, ownership is unclear, or outcomes aren’t landing. Leaders use us when the cost of getting decisions wrong is too high to leave to chance.
Our Product Mindset
We don’t believe there is one “true” version of product management, and have seen time and again that trying to drop a neat methodology or framework onto an organisation often makes things worse. We have a mindset that lets show up and work in our clients’ reality. We don’t preach about purity, we adapt to reality. There are three elements to our mindset:
- Aim. Know what matters and stay radically focused on it.
- Experiment. Think like a scientist – manage risk whilst keeping things moving.
- Be decisive. Decisions are what keeps things moving in the right direction.
Our Product Modes
We make sure we can provide the type of product management our clients needs and this falls into these four modes:
- Engineering-centred product management. Focus is on delivery – for when the pressure is on and something needs to get done
- Value-stream product management. Focus is on owning a whole problem, end-to-end – when a joined up approach is needed for a user experience or a platform
- Opportunity and vision-led product management. Focus is on exploring and shaping opportunities – this is the big, ambiguous work that goes on before a Discovery, often working with Policy or a Programme
- Transformational product management. Focus is on joining-up and integrating – for when lots of things have been digitised and the challenge is now to join them up, simplify things, and get more from what you already have.
We don’t sit neatly in one mode – sometimes we have to cycle through all of them in a single day. We know when you need each mode, and how to blend them together to get you the outcomes you need.
Where We Make
the Biggest Difference
Leaders use us when the cost of getting decisions wrong is too high to leave to chance.
When products are underperforming — we work alongside live delivery to diagnose root causes quickly. We don’t pause your teams. We work with them to unblock stalled decisions and restore momentum.
When investment decisions are unclear — we surface the real risks early and provide clear, defensible options. Something you can stand behind in a board meeting, not just in a Confluence page.
When capability needs to grow — we don’t just fix the immediate problem. We build the internal skills and structures so your team can sustain good product practice after we leave.
We have deep experience within public services, financial services, and higher education. We’re equally comfortable in a GDS-assessed service as we are in a regulated financial environment or a Russell Group university.
We specialise in Senior, Lead/Principal, Head of, and Director of Product roles. For public sector clients, we’re experts in GDS Digital Spend Control, Service Standard and the DDaT/GDaD capability framework.
WHY HERD?
Here's just a few of the benefits Herd can offer:
Confident decisions under pressure
Clear, defensible options when the stakes are high
100+ years of combined experience
Drawn from across public services, financial services, and higher education
GDS and DDaT specialists
Digital Spend Control, Service Standard, and capability framework experts
Community of Practice support
Helping product people grow and share knowledge internally
The Power of the Herd
Every consultant backed by the collective experience of the whole team
9 in 10 clients return
Because the impact is significant
Project Coming Unstuck?
We'll get
stuck in
Speak to one of the team today by emailing hello@herd.consulting or fill out our contact form to see how we can help.
Contact One of the Team