Modern Product Delivery is the process of connecting your business to your product development process, from concept to launch — and it’s mission critical. Why? Your core business value derives from the product you deliver to customers. To illuminate the trends in product delivery today, Jama Software partnered with Forrester Consulting on an industrywide survey. We’ve distilled the results into three challenges that all companies must address: speed, complexity and misalignment. So, how does your company stack up? Take a look at the data in the infographic and visit www.JamaSoftware.com/MPD for more information.

1. 20MODERN
PRODUCT
1 4 DELIVERY
STATE OF
MODERN PRODUCT DELIVERY is the process of connecting your business to your product development
process,from concept to launch — and it’s mission critical. Why? Your core business value derives from the
product you deliver to customers. Approximately 700 of the Fortune 1000 have joined the list in the last decade,
a shake-up that speaks to the changing competitive landscape.
Companies are under pressure to push higher-quality, smart products to market even faster. How do large
companies with billions of dollars in revenue respond to disruption to deliver products that meet customer needs?
To illuminate the trends and challenges in product delivery today, Jama Software partnered with Forrester
Consulting on an industrywide survey, “The State of Modern Product Delivery.” We’ve distilled the results
into three challenges that all companies must address: speed, complexity and misalignment.
ABOUT THE SURVEY Forrester Consulting conducted in-depth surveys with 150 senior business and IT professionals at enterprise organizations.
61% OF RESPONDENTS WORK FOR
COMPANIES WITH AT LEAST $5 BILLION
IN ANNUAL REVENUE
57% OF RESPONDENTS WORK
FOR COMPANIES WITH 20,000
EMPLOYEES OR MORE
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
FOR 96% OF RESPONDENTS,
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP IS INVOLVED
IN THE PRODUCT DELIVERY PROCESS
35% OF COMPANIES HAVE BETWEEN
6-100 EXECUTIVE LEADERS INVOLVED
IN PRODUCT DELIVERY
60%
5%
15%
25%
35%
45%
55%
65%
20,000 OR MORE
57%
1 TO 5
61%
5,000 TO 19,999
25%
6 TO 20
25%
1,000 TO 4,999
14%
21 TO 50
7%
500 TO 999
3%
51 TO 99
3%
LESS THAN 500
1%
N/A
4%
These are complex organizations with at least 20,000 employees and $5 billion in annual
revenue. These kinds of companies are meeting disruption head on, out-innovating their
competition and delivering value to the business.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
Product Delivery is the last frontier in the enterprise. Traditionally relegated to the product and
engineering teams (until something goes wrong), product delivery in modern organizations is a
cross-departmental activity, involving stakeholders from across the business, including a significant
number of executive leaders.
50%
60%
COLLECT AND COMMUNICATE REQUIREMENTS
COLLECT AND COMMUNICATE ISSUES
50%
DEVELOP DECISIONS
45%
SCOPE DECISIONS
44%
VALIDATE REQUIREMENTS
WHAT IS YOUR AREA
OF INFLUENCE IN
PRODUCT DELIVERY?
55%
SPEED MATTERS. The quicker you can get a
product into customers’ hands, the faster you
get feedback and ultimately realize value.
42%
SPEED
COMPLEXITY IS A REALITY. Both product
complexity and organizational complexity is
growing across all areas.
COMPLEXITY
MISALIGNMENT WREAKS HAVOC.
Communication is getting harder in
today’s modern organizations.
MISALIGNMENT
SPEED MATTERS. This is nothing new. But companies are releasing products more
frequently than ever before. Quarterly releases have become the gold standard, while an
increasing number of teams are releasing almost continuously. Yet, a third of companies
are still delivering late.
SPEED
What’s causing the delays? Not surprisingly, unclear or changing requirements is the most
common reason. Year after year, requirements — the very core of any product, the what you’re
building and why — are the root cause of failure. But, what's new this year is the recognition
that slow decision-making also leads to product delays.
⅓
HOW OFTEN ARE COMPANIES RELEASING PRODUCTS?
25%
25%
are the disruptors
42%
70%
70%
18%
30%
15%
58%
OF COMPANIES
RELEASE
PRODUCTS
LATE
TOP 5 REASONS FOR PRODUCT DELAYS
release monthly
or more
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
Quarterly or more
Weekly or more
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
WHY COMPANIES CHOOSE THEIR PROCESSES
25%
30%
35%
40%
TRADITIONAL LINEAR
36%
HYBRID TRADITIONAL-ITERATIVE
19%
DON’T KNOW
2%
9%
8%
HALF OF RESPONDENTS SAY WHEN A RELEASE IS LATE IT
TAKES UP TO 150% OF ITS ORIGINAL EXPECTED TIMELINE
20%
DIFFERENT BY TEAM
12%
23%
ITERATIVE
9%
12%
RESOURCE COORDINATION PROBLEMS
Monthly or more
15%
LACK OF RESOURCES
Daily or more
23%
QUALITY ISSUES
OF THE 70% WHO SAID QUARTERLY OR MORE
Quarterly or more
Quarterly or less
UNCLEAR OR CHANGING REQUIREMENTS
DELAYED DECISIONS
100% OF RESPONDENTS
41%
38%
We would use agile but
cannot due to funding
We would use agile but
our business is unprepared
It best meets our needs given
our team composition and skills
We would use agile but cannot
due to team coordination needs
Actual Timeline
Expected Timeline
PRODUCT COMPLEXITY IS GROWING. As products get “smarter” and combine
hardware and software, building them becomes more complicated. Products have more
requirements, and companies have more products in their portfolios. One application
might have numerous variants – mobile, desktop, web, and the different platforms and
devices. Suddenly, the product line multiplies into the hundreds.
COMPLEXITY
Organizational complexity is growing also. Thousands of people work on products in a company’s
portfolio. Only 4 percent of those employees are co-located in close proximity. Additionally,
different teams use different processes. Tackling organizational complexity to keep everyone
connected to the work is the key to product delivery success.
NUMBER OF PRODUCTS IN A COMPANY’S PORTFOLIO
NUMBER OF TEAMS PARTICIPATING IN A PROJECT
87% HAVE MULTIPLE TEAMS
55%
38%
HAVE OVER 100
64% HAVE AT LEAST 4 TEAMS
41% HAVE 4 TO 6 TEAMS
4%
LESS THAN 10
S
AT L 23%
EAS
T4T
EAM
21%
3%
2-3 23%
TEAM
S
100
17%
87%
%
17%
DON’T KNOW
41%
4 TO 6 TEAMS
64%
50 TO 99
10 TO 49
100 TO 249
OVER 250
23%
ONLY 4% OF STAKEHOLDERS ARE
CO-LOCATED IN CLOSE PROXIMITY
OF PRODUCTS CONSIST OF
HARDWARE AND
SOFTWARE / FIRMWARE
NUMBER OF TEAM MEMBERS
ON A PROJECT
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
53% SAY DIFFERING BUSINESS
PRIORITIES IS THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH
TURNING IDEAS INTO PRODUCTS
60%
6 TO 10
51%
2 TO 5
18%
11 TO 20
17%
20 +
12%
DON’T KNOW
2%
PRODUCT DELIVERY SUFFERS FROM MISALIGNMENT on top of increasing
MISALIGNMENT
complexity and the pressure to release faster. When critical product information is lost in emails
or locked up in documents, your teams can’t be on the same page. Likewise, misalignment
leads to expectation gaps between the development team and the business, and between the
business and external customers.
When you don’t meet customer expectations, your products will fail and you won’t realize
business value. For two-thirds of companies, customer satisfaction is the No. 1 measure of
success. But almost half of companies say they aren’t meeting customer needs. It’s our job to
understand the challenges customers face and problems they are trying to solve.
64% OF RESPONDENTS SAY IMPROVED CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS THE
NUMBER ONE MEASURE OF A SUCCESSFUL PRODUCT
ALMOST HALF OF PRODUCTS FAIL TO MEET CUSTOMER NEEDS
48%
of respondents say they deliver solutions
that give customers what they ask for, but
sometimes do not meet their needs
5% Other
47%
of respondents say they consistently deliver
solutions to meet customer needs even
when they ask for something different
COMMON PROBLEMS DURING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
TOP FIVE PROBLEMS BRINGING PRODUCTS TO MARKET
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
EXPECTED VALUE AND ACTUAL VALUE DO NOT MATCH
30%
VALUE IS NOT COMMINICATED TO THE ORGANIZATION
29%
DO NOT ENCOUNTER ANY PROBLEMS DURING THIS PHASE
27%
DO NOT HAVE EFFECTIVE GO-TO MARKET STRATEGY
27%
DO NOT COMMUNICATE PRODUCT VALUE TO CUSTOMER
26%
WHEN PEOPLE ARE LOOPED
IN LATE, COMPANIES CANNOT
27%
31%
COMMUNICATE VALUE.
31%
THIS IS A TOP CAUSE OF
PRODUCT DELIVERY
DELAYS.
SOLUTION
48%
Miscommunication of
goals and requirements
slow progress
Technology issues
slow progress
Quality issues affect
schedule and/or
final deliverable
Resource constraints
slow progress
CLEARLY, EVERY INDUSTRY IS BEING DISRUPTED. With the realities of today’s
product complexity, the greater influence of the customer and the evolution in business
processes and tools, change is afoot. In order to serve customer needs, you must align teams
and iterate quickly.
Delight the customer and you deliver value. Fail to meet customer needs, you lose and the
stakes only go up. It’s time to elevate product delivery and work in a way that enables fast
decisions, reuse and stakeholder involvement.
MAKE DECISIONS FASTER
REUSE YOUR ASSETS
INVOLVE STAKEHOLDERS
Making decisions quickly unblocks teams, so everyone
can iterate faster and get products to market. The quicker
you get products into customers’ hands, the quicker you
get feedback and realize value.
Your product data is a strategic asset. When you are
managing product lines in the triple digits, reusing your
IP across products can dramatically increase your
time to market.
Bring stakeholders in and keep them connected throughout
the process. Stakeholders have insight into customer needs,
and they need visibility and a voice so they aren’t surprised
by decisions or changes.
THE OLD WAY DOES NOT WORK.
Most organizations are still stuck in the old way of doing things. They focus on the project’s
tasks and look for ways to stop or manage change. They’re slow; they send documents via
email attachments and have meetings to discuss decisions.
Transform your business by shifting to the new way of working. Don’t think about how to manage
or contain change; embrace it. Empower people to make decisions based on the new information they
get every day. To make sure your product isn’t straying from your core business value, bring in
stakeholders and provide context so that everyone understands what they’re building and why.
OLD WAY
NEW WAY
- Focus on tasks
- Focus on outcomes
- Control change
- Embrace change
- Confine communication
- Bring stakeholders in
- Limit context
- Provide context in real-time
THE NEW WAY IS MODERN PRODUCT DELIVERY
Innovators are working this way. You can do it too, and Jama can help. Learn more at www.jamasoftware.com/mpd
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