Project to Product: How Value Stream Networks Will Transform IT and Business: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework

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In the Age of Software, will your business dominate and maintain relevance—or will it become a digital relic? In Project to Product, Value Stream Network pioneer and technology business leader Dr. Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework—a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery. The Flow Framework will enable your company’s evolution from project-oriented dinosaur to product-centric innovator that thrives in the Age of Software. If you’re driving your organization’s transformation at any level, this is the book for you.

As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th. Unfortunately, business and technology leaders are woefully ill-equipped to solve the problems posed by digital transformation. At the current rate of disruption, half of S&P 500 companies will be replaced in the next ten years. A new approach is needed. Under the old model, teams are organized around projects and responsible for specific sections of the company’s initiatives. Teams are regularly rearranged to meet changing needs. An insurance company sees how the industry and the competition are evolving. A dedicated product manager watches the pipeline for changing customer trends and proactively adjusts the product to match the demands. With a project-based approach, no one is tasked with looking ahead to what’s best for the product and company, meaning the company risks losing relevance. A product-focused strategy and mindset can create agile organizations, increase productivity, and drive innovation. In this article, we’ll take you through what it means to move from project to product and how to navigate your way through the journey. What Does Moving from Project to Product Mean?

According to Kersten, the following are the main differences between IT project and product management: The product-based approach organizes teams around specific products to create end-to-end owners of everything related to that product. Before you embark on the project to product journey, you first need to know your starting point. Each step on the journey builds upon itself to successfully implement a new business focus, workflow, and organizational structure.

Companies in the first stage are just beginning their journey of moving from project to product. But without a strong foundation and the right metrics in place, they run the risk of a challenging and inefficient transition. In this stage, determine why you need to change and set a vision for the positive business outcomes you want to achieve. Stage 2: Experimentation For an in-depth understanding of what each question means and how to evaluate your responses to ensure your transformation is moving in the right direction, watch the on-demand webinar, The 7 Dimensions of a Project to Product Transformation. Product Focus is the Future Mik’s experiences working with some of the largest digital transformations in the world has led him to identify the critical disconnect between business leaders and technologists. Since that time, Mik has been working on creating new tools and a new framework for connecting software value stream networks and enabling the shift from project to product. Moving from project to product is a fundamental shift in how teams are organized and how work gets done. Anyways. The book consists of three parts: (1) the flow framework, (2) value stream metrics, and (3) value stream networks. The book starts with an introduction in which it introduces a thinking model which is referred to in the rest of the book, which is structures of technological revolutions. According to the model, these consist of an "installation period" in which the new technology rapidly develops and the "deployment period" in which is the new technology becomes widespread. In between these is "the turning point" and the author claims we are in at that point.Dr. Mik Kersten started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC where he created the first aspect-oriented development environment. He then pioneered the integration of development tools with Agile and DevOps as part of his Computer Science PhD at the University of British Columbia. Founding Tasktop out of that research, Mik has written over one million lines of open-source code that is still in use today, and he has brought seven successful open-source and commercial products to market. Changing long-held assumptions about how work gets done isn’t easy but could be key to competing effectively in today’s market. By transitioning from an IT project management mindset to a product-oriented approach, organizations can define success according to the areas that truly matter to users and design software that delights and engages their customers.

Risk. Software delivery risks, such as poor market fit, are more likely with project management because specifications are set and strategic decisions are made at the start. The product-oriented approach spreads risk across a longer timeframe and multiple iterations, creating opportunities to adjust product features if initial assumptions prove incorrect or strategic opportunities arise. A useful tool for benchmarking your organization’s project to product maturity is the Tasktop Product Maturity Assessment. A 2018 Gartner survey found that 85% of companies prefer a product-centric model. And with the acceleration of digital transformation and technology in recent years, that number has likely increased. Below is a breakdown of the five stages in the project to product journey. The assessment takes you through each stage in greater depth. Stage 1: Starting Out The way we work and organize is changing. And so is the mindset around productivity and team structure. In the traditional project-centered model, companies are organized around tasks, with each group focused on one element of a project. But greater emphasis is being placed on moving from project to product, which focuses on enabling teams to become end-to-end experts.Budgeting. Project management typically assigns funding according to milestones defined during initial project scoping, and new budget requires the creation of a new project. Product-oriented management, meanwhile, funds based on business outputs, with new money allocated as needed and based on the delivery of incremental results. To undertake the project-to-product transition, “IT leaders can assess software organizations not by the lines of code written or microservices produced, but by how much business value their products deliver to customers,” Kersten says. Transitioning to a product-based approach can be challenging, but you aren’t alone. While the five-stage journey is well defined, the road to get to your destination can be difficult and nonlinear. In Dr. Mik Kersten’s book, Project to Product, that path is charted using the Flow Framework®, a lean and prescriptive framework for technology leaders to guide and measure the journey. Timelines. Projects typically have a defined end date, with little focus on the performance of the software after the initiative ends. A product-oriented approach emphasizes the software’s multiyear lifecycle, including ongoing maintenance and health activities.

Take the assessment to see how far along you are in the five-stage journey. From that point, you’ll be able to understand what you’re already doing right and where improvements can be made to advance to the next stage. Organizations can measure those four flow items at a business level and optimize accordingly,” Kersten says. “Using this approach, software teams can move from a world in which an upfront project plan specifies everything to a product development budget that allows for reallocating between value streams and adapting according to where leaders are seeing business results.” *****Organizational change and mindset shifts can be daunting. A product shift doesn’t happen overnight. Organizations may be tempted to rapidly pivot toward a product-led approach and neglect to build the foundations and experiences necessary to scale effectively. Digital transformation brings numerous changes, but among the most important is transitioning to a product-focused model. When it comes to increasing productivity, creating value, developing agility, and driving customer-centricity, there’s simply no better approach than the product-oriented model. Teams. Project management allocates resources early on, and individuals often work across multiple projects simultaneously, with frequent churn and reassignment. The product-oriented discipline flips this approach, with crossfunctional teams (and teams of teams) assigned to one product at a time, which can result in more stability and incremental adjustments to staffing levels. As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th. Unfortunately, business and technology leaders are woefully ill-equipped to solve the problems posed by digital transformation. At the current rate of disruption, half of S&P 500 companies will be replaced in the next ten years. A new approach is needed. Prioritization. Disciplines like IT project and portfolio management drive more traditional projects, with a focus on delivering software according to requirements. Product-oriented management, meanwhile, is guided by road maps and hypothesis testing, with an emphasis on feature and business value delivery.