The majority of organizations seeking to make a digital transformation are not equipped to do it successfully, according to the results of the recently released “2023 Project to Product: State of the Industry” report by portfolio management company Planview.

Only 8% of respondents stated that they have operationalized the shift from project to product, meaning that 92% have yet to realize or capture the full value of a product operating model at scale. However, 63% reported that they are in the exploratory phase and 29% said they are expanding on earlier experiments.

It was also found that, until a mature product model is in place, enterprises spend 70% of their delivery capacity on defect remediation and waste 40% of their efforts due to overload and bottlenecks.

The survey concluded that there are certain attributes that increase an organization’s likelihood of operationalizing a product-oriented model, such as

  • Organization design and resourcing: Organizations that continuously fund teams that are dedicated to building, deploying, and supporting software and applications once they are running 
  • Market response: Companies with agility and capacity management that allow for the quick incorporation of user feedback 
  • Metrics: Businesses performing operational reviews based on outcomes and flow metrics 
  • Prioritization: Organizations with a product management function that governs product vision, roadmap, and viability
  • Dependency management: Companies with independent release processes backed by internal, self-service capabilities

Additionally, the survey found that organizations are still lacking visibility into the technology “black box” as well as the right set of metrics for both in-house and outsourced software delivery, leading business leaders to over-plan by 10x actual capacity.

These problems are made worse by the lack of a scaled product operating model, putting organizations at risk for lost revenue and miss customer and boardroom commitments. 

Lastly, the report revealed that 90% of software delivery value streams measure outputs instead of impacts as key results. 

With this, it was found that completed code usually sits for three or more months before it is actually released and that Agile, DORA, and developer productivity metrics are not enough to support this transformation.

Visit the website to download the full report.