Managing It as a Product—Not a Project

According to Mik Kersten, author of Project to Product, an historical pattern occurs during technology revolutions.

This pattern holds great significance for digital transformation during our current revolution, the “Age of Software”. Kersten makes the case that, as organizations undergo digital transformation, they must treat their digital initiatives as products—not projects.

Organizations that master the means of software production will dominate the rest of this age. This means deploying software-based solutions at scale as a product, not as a cost center. Those continuing to use project and cost-center management will become irrelevant.

This article will cover an overview of Kersten’s Project to Product argument, how it makes the case for managing software as a product, and how IT professionals can change management systems to meet that challenge.

The three periods of a technology revolution

Per Kersten’s book, the world usually resides in one of the following three periods of a technology revolution.

• The Installation Period. A new technology wave combines with new financial and innovation ecosystems to launch the technology. A “Cambrian explosion” of startups disrupt entire industries, provoking a frenzied migration into the new technology. Financial capital drives the Installation and fuels the disruption. The Installation Period ignites one or more economic bubbles and ends with a crash.
• The Turning Point. After the crash occurs, a long period of economic prosperity ends. The current economic context changes. Businesses must quickly adapt to new economic conditions or disappear. Societal problems speed the technology’s adoption, as the world progresses to the next period.
• The Deployment Period. Here, the focus shifts to production. Organizations mastering the new means of production earn larger shares of economic activity and control the new infrastructure. Society, business, government, and economies are reshaped to fit the new age. Organizations that cannot adapt die. The Deployment Period continues until the next technology revolution arrives, and the cycle begins again.

The previous technological revolution was the “Age of Mass Production”, lasting from about 1908 to 1974. Advances in manufacturing, transportation, energy, synthetic materials, and infrastructure drove that age.

At the Turning Point in the Age of Software

We are currently living in the Age of Software, which began in 1971. Advances in microprocessors, communications, the internet, and software drive this age.

The Age of Software’s Installation Period ran through the first decades of the new millennium, where the world rushed to adopt new hardware, software, and communications technologies. Kersten recently asserted that 2020 has catalyzed the Turning Point in the Age of Software. The Turning Point can last many years until we move into the Deployment Period.

Survival in the Age of Software depends on an organization’s ability to deliver value by creating digital experiences and delivering software products. Digital technology becomes the organizational core. It cannot be siloed away from the rest of the business, as is common with traditional IT.

Companies in all industries that master new means of production will displace companies that are slower to adapt. The big tech giants—companies like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix—are taking over more of our economic capacity and markets. They treat software as a product, not as a project. Companies that can deploy software-based solutions as a product at scale will survive. Those that cannot die or become irrelevant.

Many of us talk about treating software as a product not as a project, but what does that mean and what does it take to make it a reality?