The recent success of TUI Group’s migration to the cloud is a powerful example of what is possible by adopting a project to product mindset. With planes grounded and hotels closed due to the pandemic, the global travel company took proactive steps to refine the digital experience for employees and customers.
Recognizing that the customer experience has dramatically changed, and will continue to change, the company’s Group CTO, Pieter Jordaan—with the support of his business counterparts—spearheaded the development of a centralized cloud platform to consolidate and simplify the way multiple business units support the customer journey.
After trialing the system in a low-volume region, TUI has now moved all regions onto the system. Embracing a more modern digital experience, TUI was generating 50% of its revenues through the cloud platform in less than six months. A technology transformation that accelerated business transformation, the company is now in a fine position to respond to the market faster and adapt service offerings based on customer feedback to remain competitive.
Not only is TUI’s story a reminder of what digital transformation is really about—real business model modernization to protect the business, drive growth and create new revenues—it’s also a reminder of what the project to product transformation looks like in reality. It also illustrates how the Flow Framework®, the only measurement paradigm for value stream management (VSM), can guide and accelerate that shift.
To quote Carmen DeArdo, author of Standing on Shoulders: A Leader’s Guide to Digital Transformation, the project to product transition is about moving away from a temporal view of managing initiatives to a persistent view of improving products that are the lifeblood of the business. TUI didn’t devise a “move to cloud” project with no clear business goal: the company developed a cloud product that could become the heartbeat of its operations moving forward.
Tales such as these emphasize why the project to product movement—galvanized by Dr. Mik Kersten and his bestselling book—continues to go from strength to strength. It’s crystal clear long-term ownership of a product improves business value delivery, employee engagement and product quality. The latest DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) survey found that highly evolved organizations are twice as likely to be very product-oriented compared to mid-level organizations. Meanwhile, 40% of large enterprises are estimated to manage internal business capabilities as products by 2022. There’s no beating around the bush: an IT product-operating model is the dividing line for future business success.
Measure Your Project to Product Journey
It’s never been more important, then, for leadership to track their progress to ensure a successful transition. When beginning or assessing your product journey, it’s critical to stay true to the principles of agile and take an incremental approach using a specific set of metrics. That means measuring and analyzing each step to ensure you’re meeting key business milestones and goals.
The new VSM Portfolio Insights dashboard in Planview Viz™ lays out and monitors those steps. Technology and product leaders now have a single dashboard to track their project to product journey across portfolios, step by step:
- Generate Flow Metrics: Which products are measuring the flow of business value through their end-to-end value streams, and which products still haven’t taken that first step?
- Track Business Results: Which products are working closely with their business partners to ensure they are delivering tangible business value, and which products still need help with that? This data helps leaders understand which products are prioritizing the right set of features to achieve business goals.
- Track Timeline Events: Which products are actively taking action to improve their flow and focus on high-value business initiatives, and which products still need help with that?
Speak to us today for a highly personalized product tour of the VSM Portfolio Insights dashboard to track your project to product journey and improve your organization’s Agile practice and Product Management discipline. As always, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. Let’s make sure you’re on track to transform effectively and see real change like TUI and other Fortune 500 customers.
Download The Technology Leader’s VSM Playbook
Learn the 12-steps to running a high-performing technology organization within a large-scale enterprise and how to get started:
- Part I: Drive business outcomes
- Part II: Invest with intent
- Part III: Measure true business agility
- Part IV: Outpace the competition
