What Product Management Really Looks Like in the Public Sector
June 2025 Month Note
Welcome
This is the Product in Service Month Note for June from Scott Colfer.
Product in Service is for product people working in the service sector, particularly non profict services from Central Government, Local Government, Healthcare, Education, and Charity.
This month’s feature is on what product management really looks like in the public sector. There’s also an update on my book and some quick notes from the last few weeks.
You’re Closer Than You Think
What Product Management Really Looks Like in the Public Sector
Product in Public Service
Many of the best product managers I’ve met working in the public sector have one thing in common: they quietly worry they’re not “doing proper product.”
They’ve done the training. Read the books. Watched the talks. And yet, in their day-to-day work of shaping policy, navigating complexity, and managing ambiguity something feels... off-script.
I’ve spoken with product managers across the public service, from juniors to Chief Product Officers, and I keep hearing the same things:
If you're a new PM, it might feel like you're not doing 'proper product'. You've read the books, watched the talks, done the training, but it doesn't match your day-to-day
If you're a senior PM or lead, maybe it feels like you're not hands-on any more. You're busy, but not in the way you expected to be. You feel more like a people manager than a product manager
If you're a product leader, maybe you've reached a level where you thought you'd finally get to be strategic. But instead, you don't have the time or headspace to think strategically. You're doing work that's invisible, side-of-desk, held together with goodwill.
If that’s you, I want you to know: you are not alone. This feeling is more common than you’d imagine. And I want to offer a new way of thinking about it: You’re closer than you think.
You’re already doing the work. You just haven’t been told that’s what it is.
Product ≠ Tech Only
Here’s the framing I use: product in public service = technology × social systems.
Commercial product guidance focuses on tech. Discovery, delivery, scaling, growth. But here, we’re working in systems: policy, politics, funding cycles, service operations, legislation, public trust. If we only bring technical tools, we fall short.
We need the tech literacy, yes. But the value often lies in the social systems:
Who holds power?
How do decisions get made?
What story makes this change desirable, feasible, and timely?
This isn’t ‘soft’ work, or ‘politics’. It’s the work.
So if you feel like things don’t quite work the way they’re 'supposed' to in the generic product guidance: it’s not you. You’re operating in a different ecosystem.
From hiding it to owning it
When I started in product, I thought I had to prove I was technical. So I talked about features, APIs, sprints, continuous integration, etc. I hid the other stuff I was doing (community engagement, policy shaping, org change, etc) because I thought it made me less of a PM.
Now I see that work was my superpower. That was the work that made the rest possible.
What I used to hide: Community advocacy, involvement in policy, organisational transformation, facilitating change, networking, being ‘hands-off’.
What I now see as superpowers: Navigating and mobilising social systems, understanding how decisions really get made, seeing and shaping systems (not just features), coaching, influence, and storytelling.
These are the skills that move the dial in government. They’re the reason some of the best product people I know don’t come from tech at all.
Brilliant in SaaS, Stuck in Service
I recruited some incredibly talented product managers from well-known SaaS companies. These folks were brilliant in their context: sharp, decisive, commercial, fast.But once inside central government? I watched them unravel.
One of them, deeply experienced, literally had their head in their hands one day, in tears. Not because they weren’t good at product. But because they didn’t know how to be good at product here.What had always worked for them (short feedback loops, fast pivots, clear incentives, direct access to customers) didn’t apply. And they felt like they were failing.But they weren’t failing. They were just in a different system. And they hadn’t been prepared for what it meant to do product in a place like this.
Diverse Backgrounds Thrive
I once did a deep dive into the backgrounds of the Lead Product Managers I was working with. You know what I found? The most common previous career wasn’t in tech. It was science. Lab scientists. Forensic scientists. Pharmaceutical researchers.
Across our wider community, you’ll also see literature grads, policy experts, people from marketing. And here’s what they all have in common:
They’re good at working where technology meets people and systems
They can handle ambiguity.
They can tell a story with evidence
They know how to translate complex ideas for different audiences
They understand that change is never just about the thing, it’s about the system around the thing.
In public service, that’s the job. And it’s why diverse backgrounds don’t just belong here, they thrive here.
What Good Looks Like In Our World
Here’s the good news: once we understand that product in public service = tech × social systems, we can stop feeling broken. And we can start building the skills that actually work.
Yes, we still need to be good at research, prioritisation, delivery. But we also need to learn the social side of the work. Coaching. Negotiation. Conflict management. Change. Storytelling. Pitching. These are not soft skills. They’re hard-won, deliberate capabilities.
And as you move through your career, your role changes too.
As a practitioner, you deliver
As a middle-manager, you coordinate
As a senior leader, you make a small number of high-quality, high-consequence decisions.
The more senior you get, the more the job is defined by this 'invisible’ the work becomes. It’s no longer about output. It’s about impact. If you feel like you’re not “doing product” because you’re not in the detail — maybe it’s because you’ve levelled up.
Why are you stuck?
If you’re stuck, it might not be a product problem, it might be a systems problem.That’s what makes this work challenging and valuable. Here’s a tool that might help you decide what’s blocking you.
And to maintain your confidence in those moments when we feel like we’re not doing ‘proper product’, here’s a daily/weekly tool for reflection.
In public service, progress often looks like conversations, clarity, and alignment. Not just shipping features.
You’re not doing it wrong.
Let’s come back to where we started.
If you’re new to product and feel unsure, if you’re a lead wondering where your hands-on work has gone, if you’re a head of product doing invisible work that no one sees: you are not failing.
You’re doing complex, meaningful work in a complex, meaningful space. It takes more than features and tech. It takes nerve. Empathy. Systems thinking. Political savvy. Care. Stop waiting to feel like a 'proper' product manager. You’re already doing it. Maybe not the textbook version, but the real one. This is your context. And it needs committed people like you.
You’re closer than you think.
Book Update
My book, Product in Service: A Manifesto for Pragmatic Product Management, is almost done! I’ve got an Air BnB somewhere quiet to finish it off this weekend. Expect more info in the coming months.
June Notes
Lots of reading on systems thinking and about to re-read Management 3.0 by Jurgen Appelo
Been playing with ChatGPT, keeping a track of the articles I read, looking for themes and related suggestions
Thinking about the difference between multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary teams; multidisciplinary only means people from different disciplines working independently on different aspects of a problem; it’s not until we get to transdisciplinary that we’re talking about blending these disciplines together and truly creating a sum greater than its parts.
Thanks
That’s it for June, thanks for reading.
I’d love to hear your experiences of produt management in the public sector, you can comment below or connect on LinkedIn.
See you in July,
Scott
Such a great essay. I'm very curious to learn more about product management in the public sector. Thank you!