Product-Mode is more than just Durable or Persistent Teams

My experience report on this topic stressed the importance of teams that are longer-lived that typical project teams. Among other arguments, it said:

Knowledge grows and stays better within stable, long-lived teams that work in the same general area for several years. This contrasts with project teams that ramp up and down every few months. Unmaintainable code results—at least partly—from unmaintained teams.

The illustration below contains the full definition of what makes for a product-centric operating model. However, many consultants have considered longevity to be the sole defining characteristic of teams operating in product-mode. They have gone and sold the virtues of durable or persistent teams to their clients instead of talking about teams operating in product-mode. The results of making only this change have been underwhelming.

Durability/persistence/longevity is only one of several necessary attributes of a product-centric operating model. The illustration shows that each attribute opens up some opportunities and might pose a few challenges.

The only (potential) advantages of switching to teams that are long-lived but not otherwise different from project teams, are better knowledge retention and team dynamics. Even knowledge retention is not a given if the association between a long-lived team and its area of work isn't long-lived. Only changing team longevity does not make for a project-to-product transition.

Refer to my original experience report for a fuller explanation. Since its publication, this report has become a de-facto industry reference.

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