Product organisation
Operating Model, Decision Rights and Portfolio Governance.
Most product organisations that underperform do not have a talent problem. They have a system problem: decision rights that no one will name, a funding model built for projects rather than outcomes, and a cadence that confirms plans instead of testing them. I assess that system candidly, and I correct it from within.
My practice sits within the product operating model tradition that Marty Cagan and the Silicon Valley Product Group established as the industry's reference point, and that Gartner now describes as the product-centric operating model: empowered, cross-functional product teams aligned to value streams, outcomes over output, continuous discovery and leaders who coach rather than direct. What I bring in addition is an operator's record. I have run these functions, re-platformed under them, taken them through acquisitions, and observed which elements survive contact with the organisation chart of a FTSE 100 company.
The pattern I encounter most often is an organisation that has adopted the vocabulary and retained the old system: squads without authority, discovery without budget, a roadmap that functions as a contract. The remedy is rarely another restructuring. It is decision rights, funding flows and cadence, addressed in that order.
I have led and transformed the department rather than advised upon it from outside, and nowhere does that matter more than on the question of who should own what. Draw team boundaries without regard to system boundaries and Conway's law will quietly rebuild the architecture around the organisation chart. A restructuring that looked sensible in presentation becomes a failure within a quarter. I have watched it happen, and I have prevented it, which is why ownership precedes structure in everything that follows.
Operating Model Assessment
An accurate account of how the product organisation functions, as distinct from how its operating model is described. I interview the leadership team and a cross-section of product, engineering and design, review the artefacts in actual use, and run the thirty-statement health check with the leadership team together. Where the scores diverge, the findings lie.
The result is a plain-language diagnosis: how decisions are made, where funding flows, what the teams are optimising for, and the three changes that would make the greatest difference.
Deliverables
- Decision rights, as practised
- Funding and portfolio flow, as practised
- Discovery and delivery cadence, measured
- Three prioritised changes, each with an owner
Two to four weeks
Organisation Design and Decision Rights
Durable, cross-functional teams, what Gartner calls fusion teams and the product community calls empowered product teams, shaped around customer outcomes and value streams rather than system boundaries, with product, engineering and design together and the authority to act on what they learn. I design the topology, the roles and the escalation paths, and I record the decision rights in a form that people will actually consult.
I have done this within banking, health, retail and media organisations, each time against the same test: can a team ship something of consequence without seeking permission from someone who took no part in the discovery?
Scope
- Team topology and ownership map
- Role definitions for product, engineering and design leadership
- Decision rights and escalation, documented
- A transition plan that does not interrupt delivery
Portfolio and Funding
Project funding makes outcomes unattainable, because the money is exhausted before the learning begins. I help leadership teams move from project to product funding: persistent teams funded against outcomes, a portfolio of explicit bets with stated kill criteria, value realisation reviewed each quarter, and a product strategy that can be expressed on a single page. Finance is in the room from the outset; a product operating model the Chief Financial Officer does not understand is a presentation, not a model.
Instruments
- The Product Strategy One-Pager and its five tests
- The Opportunity Brief, required before any roadmap commitment
- A portfolio review cadence with kill criteria
AI Transformation of the Product Organisation
Leadership teams are now working out what artificial intelligence, and agentic AI in particular, changes in their structure, their roles and their ways of working, and how to lead through it. Having worked on machine learning products since 2017, I can distinguish the changes that are real. Discovery becomes faster and cheaper, so the constraint moves to decision-making. Evaluation sets become product artefacts that the product function must co-own. Unit economics enter the roadmap conversation. Trust becomes a metric.
This runs as working sessions with the leadership team rather than a lecture series: your own AI initiatives examined through the AI Feature Readiness Check, and your own operating model redrawn for what AI actually alters.
What Changes First
- Decision rights for AI investments and their kill criteria
- Discovery cadence with AI-assisted synthesis
- Evaluation, data and model governance owned by product
- The product manager's role, redefined
Leadership team format, four to six sessions
Acquisition Readiness and Due Diligence
An assessment of a product organisation against a modern product operating model, ahead of a merger, an acquisition or an investment. For the acquirer, I report what is actually being acquired: the real decision rights, the debt embedded in the product process, and the individuals on whom the outcomes depend. For the vendor, I prepare the product function for that scrutiny before it arrives.
I have undertaken the vendor side from within a UK bank, preparing its product and technology function for an acquirer. That is a different order of knowledge from reading a data room.
Two Formats
Acquirer: product organisation diligence over two to three weeks, with written findings for the deal team
Vendor: a readiness programme, typically one quarter, run from within the function
Method
Assess Candidly. Agree What Good Looks Like. Correct from Within.
Assess
The health check, the interviews and the artefacts, yielding a diagnosis in plain language with the disagreements preserved.
Agree
A definition of good for this organisation, written with the Chief Executive, the Chief Financial Officer and the product leadership together.
Correct from Within
Decision rights, funding and cadence, in that order, with me embedded alongside the leaders who will live with the result. The function I leave is stronger than the one I found.
"Unlike some coaches and programme managers, she talks the talk and walks the walk. She coached at enterprise level and had delivery accountability while under tight timescales... We began with a chaotic structure and ended up with a collaborative scaled agile environment."
Zeynab Khalesi · Senior Program Manager, Capital One
Arrange an Assessment Conversation.
A free 15-minute consult, without obligation. If you would prefer to begin with evidence, run the health check with your leadership team first and bring the results.