Skip to main content

Most Companies Unable to Achieve Project-to-Product Transformation

Many companies are unable to complete transformational work due to immature operating models and management systems, according to the 2023 Project to Product State of the Industry Report from Planview.

The report found that only 8% of organizations have successfully operationalized their project to product transformation. The low success rate contradicts the previously optimistic outlook from a 2018 report claiming that 85% of executives said they had either adopted or had plans to adopt a product-centric model, motivated by a desire to improve speed to market and agility and to support the move to digital business. Five years later, the report's data underscores the complexity of this multi-year process and its required buy-in and commitment across all levels of the organization.

"In boardrooms across the globe, executives are being mandated to prioritize technology investments that ensure their companies transform and emerge from the current downturn stronger. While some enterprise initiatives are managed as projects, a product-based operating model holds the key to increased efficiency, better customer outcomes, and profitable growth for digital portfolios," said Dr. Mik Kersten, CTO, Planview and author of Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework. "The consequences of slow delivery and technical debt can be seen in very public profit losses and system-wide malfunctions. While there are no shortcuts, there is a roadmap of best practices that accelerates the transition, which the report outlines."

The report reveals that five years into the shift from project to product:

■ 92% of businesses do not have the foundation for a product-oriented model, causing their digital transformation efforts to fail.

■ Business leaders believe their IT and software development teams, in charge of transformation efforts, can deliver 10x more than their actual capacity, leading to team burnout.

■ 40% of digital innovation work from IT and engineering teams are wasted due to shifting priorities at the C-level.

■ Only 8% of what's planned by IT and software development teams gets delivered, inefficiency that can no longer be ignored given today's cost and performance pressures.

Given the criticality of this shift for the future success of traditional companies versus early adopters, the report outlines the critical steps needed to accelerate this transition: a partnership between executives and senior product and development leadership to do the following:

1. Benchmark their progress versus their competitors.

2. Understand and implement best practices to shorten the time it takes to capture the ROI of transformation efforts.

3. Identify the organizational attributes that increase the likelihood of operationalizing the product model by learning which efforts to prioritize.

Methodology: The report combines survey data from 326 respondents with systems data from 3,600+ software development value streams in 34 of the world's leading enterprises

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Most Companies Unable to Achieve Project-to-Product Transformation

Many companies are unable to complete transformational work due to immature operating models and management systems, according to the 2023 Project to Product State of the Industry Report from Planview.

The report found that only 8% of organizations have successfully operationalized their project to product transformation. The low success rate contradicts the previously optimistic outlook from a 2018 report claiming that 85% of executives said they had either adopted or had plans to adopt a product-centric model, motivated by a desire to improve speed to market and agility and to support the move to digital business. Five years later, the report's data underscores the complexity of this multi-year process and its required buy-in and commitment across all levels of the organization.

"In boardrooms across the globe, executives are being mandated to prioritize technology investments that ensure their companies transform and emerge from the current downturn stronger. While some enterprise initiatives are managed as projects, a product-based operating model holds the key to increased efficiency, better customer outcomes, and profitable growth for digital portfolios," said Dr. Mik Kersten, CTO, Planview and author of Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework. "The consequences of slow delivery and technical debt can be seen in very public profit losses and system-wide malfunctions. While there are no shortcuts, there is a roadmap of best practices that accelerates the transition, which the report outlines."

The report reveals that five years into the shift from project to product:

■ 92% of businesses do not have the foundation for a product-oriented model, causing their digital transformation efforts to fail.

■ Business leaders believe their IT and software development teams, in charge of transformation efforts, can deliver 10x more than their actual capacity, leading to team burnout.

■ 40% of digital innovation work from IT and engineering teams are wasted due to shifting priorities at the C-level.

■ Only 8% of what's planned by IT and software development teams gets delivered, inefficiency that can no longer be ignored given today's cost and performance pressures.

Given the criticality of this shift for the future success of traditional companies versus early adopters, the report outlines the critical steps needed to accelerate this transition: a partnership between executives and senior product and development leadership to do the following:

1. Benchmark their progress versus their competitors.

2. Understand and implement best practices to shorten the time it takes to capture the ROI of transformation efforts.

3. Identify the organizational attributes that increase the likelihood of operationalizing the product model by learning which efforts to prioritize.

Methodology: The report combines survey data from 326 respondents with systems data from 3,600+ software development value streams in 34 of the world's leading enterprises

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...