Six steps to reorienting your IT operating model around products

3. Manage your portfolio with a capability-driven mindset

A project-to-product transformation requires that an enterprise think first in terms of products, and this shift hangs on the structures and processes by which the company manages its portfolio. A company should organize its portfolio around the outcomes it seeks, and those should in turn dictate the capabilities initially staffed to mature at a higher rate. When resources are limited, start by productizing 2-5 key areas, do it well, and scale from there.

Hyatt, for example, has organized its portfolio around customer-focused capabilities, and so has caused the enterprise at large to think in terms of customer outcomes. As Hyatt’s Global CIO, Eben Hewitt, has explained: “Moving to a product mindset, to me, means, number one, it’s for a customer… You’re thinking about the outcomes that people want.”

Further, an organization will do well to manage its portfolio according to Agile principles and to align its product teams to business outcomes. Not only will product teams then naturally align to each other and their shared objectives; the organization itself will think in terms of products and outcomes.