Every organization is feeling the pressure to adapt faster than ever. Successful transformation demands clarity, commitment, and the right tools, far beyond a simple acknowledgement that change is necessary.
We brought together a panel of industry leaders for a frank discussion on the challenges and successes of modernizing organizational practices. The conversation spanned topics from shifting mindsets to integrating new technology and revealed key insights for any company preparing for its next stage of evolution.
The potholes on the road to agility
A common pain point emerged immediately: the pace of change itself. Many established organizations move too slowly, weighted down by traditional practices and rigid annual cycles. This adherence to old ways often leads to weak prioritization and delayed value, especially when it comes to deciding what work truly matters.
The real risk lies in prioritizing opinion over economic value. A traditional project-based mentality encourages big, front-loaded expectations with a fixed scope, leaving little room for learning or incremental delivery. This pattern erodes return on investment because much of the potential value surfaces only at the very end of a long project.
Key challenges highlighted
The funding shift: Moving from project cost accounting to a product-based operating model is a major financial and cultural hurdle. It requires senior leadership to fund autonomous value streams with an eye toward continuous delivery instead of a single, fixed outcome.
Mindset and cultural entropy: Getting long-tenured employees to abandon deeply ingrained workflows is challenging. Leaders need to actively support and reinforce the new way of working to prevent teams from reverting to comfortable but ineffective old habits.
Initial expectations vs. reality: While the promise of Agile is often speed, the immediate gain is usually increased transparency and earlier feedback. Adopting a new framework enables you to deliver valuable increments sooner and surface issues earlier, even when the underlying work remains complex.
The strategic path to product-centricity
For organizations committed to making the leap, one team’s transition from an older tool (Planview) to Targetprocess provided a powerful case study.
A key to their success was acknowledging early that they could not do it alone. Bringing in external partners and coaches added a “new voice in the conversation” and helped accelerate adoption of a structured scaling framework such as SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework).
A pivotal decision was their shift in focus: they used the migration as an opportunity to re-evaluate their core processes. Instead of configuring a new tool around broken, outdated processes, they first defined how they wanted to work and then configured the platform to support that modern, product-focused methodology.
The result was rapid deployment of the new system, immediate visibility into data quality issues that had been hidden for years, and, most importantly, the ability to challenge existing norms based on rich, objective data. This new transparency provided a clear line of sight from strategy to execution, helping to eliminate noise and focus capacity on the most valuable work.
Looking ahead: the AI-powered portfolio
Looking ahead, AI dominated the conversation. For many organizations, AI investment is a given; the real question is how to manage the corresponding surge in new, complex initiatives. Technology leaders must treat AI as a critical area for portfolio investment and move beyond viewing it as just another cost line. That shift requires leaders to:
Quantify business value: Accurately measure the financial impact of AI initiatives, whether through cost savings, new revenue streams, or risk reduction.
Manage the portfolio for innovation: Use the enterprise portfolio tool to track AI investments alongside core product development and ensure alignment with top-level organizational goals.
Harness AI for the portfolio itself: Use new AI capabilities to analyze portfolio data, predict outcomes, and flag potential bottlenecks so prioritization becomes an informed, data-driven activity rather than a political one.
Final takeaway: start simple, be tenacious
For any organization on this journey, the advice from the panel was clear: anchor every decision in a specific business outcome. Be clear on the result you are trying to achieve, invest in the right expertise and tooling with confidence, and approach the work as a marathon that rewards sustained commitment.
The incremental gains of true agility, transparency, and data-driven decision-making become the foundation for sustainable success.
Ready to explore how these insights apply inside your organization?
Request a free strategy session to evaluate your operating model and identify high‑impact opportunities for change.