The 5 Operational Barriers to Becoming a High-Performing Product Org
Every organization wants to move faster, align better, and unlock more value across its tech and business teams. But most don’t realize how much friction is embedded in the way their organization actually works until they try to change it.
That’s where the work gets sticky.
When we talk about Operating Model Clarity™, we’re not just talking about structure charts or a process audit. We’re talking about untangling the full web of how work flows (or doesn’t), how decisions get made, how teams are formed, and how business and tech actually come together to create value. That path is full of sticking points—the places where inertia, history, and unspoken dynamics slow everything down.
This is a roadmap for understanding those friction points. Because naming them is the first step to moving through them.
Where Most Organizations Start: Chaos in the Middle
The majority of clients we work with start their journey toward Operating Model Clarity™ somewhere in the messy middle.
You’ve already decided that the old model of project-centric delivery, siloed departments, handoffs without accountability, and long build cycles disconnected from customer feedback isn’t equipped to deliver.
You may have even experienced things like:
Agile delivery working (kind of) inside tech.
Business units still working in waterfall.
PMO-led project portfolios that don’t match the product backlog.
Functional silos protecting their turf.
Confusion about who owns what, who decides what, and how priorities get set.
Implementing new technologies that promise speed, but just end up accelerating inefficiency.
It’s not broken, exactly. But it’s definitely not clear.
You know you’ve outgrown old ways of working. But the minute you try to define a consistent model across the org, you run into resistance—and the very real complexity of change at scale.
This is the beginning of Operating Model Debt: the compounding cost of continuing to run your business on outdated structures that weren’t designed for speed, customer connection, or measurable business impact.
Organizations that proactively address this debt unlock faster growth, attract and retain exceptional talent, and outpace competitors. Those that delay risk erosion of market share, stakeholder confidence, and competitive advantage.
But resolving this isn't about technology alone, nor is it solved by simple checklists or motivational offsites. Real operating model transformation requires aligning teams, incentives, and leadership around shared customer-centered outcomes.
That’s where Operating Model Clarity™ enters the chat. It creates an intentional, capability-focused, customer-aligned approach designed specifically to deliver tangible, measurable results.
It isn't another reorg: It's a clear, strategic redesign of how your teams operate, collaborate, make decisions, and deliver value.
You may be thinking, “We’ve done a bunch of this stuff already!” But things like blending agile terminology into fundamentally waterfall processes, or isolating innovation initiatives from core product and engineering efforts, or collecting a plethora of customer insights that never truly influence decisions are all indicators that Transformation Theater is at play. In other words, you’ve made some safe, surface-level adjustments rather than substantive operational changes.
Let’s look at some of the biggest sticking points along the way to Operating Model Clarity™ to illustrate common sandtraps that take you off course.
Sticking Point #1: Functional Silos
Silos are one of the biggest barriers to clarity and velocity.
Why? Because they’re optimized for local efficiency, not enterprise value.
When product, engineering, marketing, operations, and finance all work in parallel but not in sync, you get value that moves in chunks, handoffs that introduce delay, and priorities that don’t line up.
To shift from siloed output to cross-functional outcomes, you need to:
Redesign teams around value streams, not functions.
Create shared incentives for cross-functional collaboration.
Make work visible across boundaries.
It sounds simple, but it never is. Especially when power, budget, and performance management are still tied to the old structure and ways of thinking.
Sticking Point #2: Mixed Methodologies and Competing Cadences
You can’t ship software in sprints if funding comes in annual cycles. You can’t run experiments if your project governance requires a full business case before any work starts.
Many organizations live in a kind of methodological limbo:
Product teams trying to run lean, but dependent on shared services stuck in waterfall.
Business units using project portfolios while engineering has moved to backlogs.
Product management and product operating models coexisting—badly.
The result is confusion, duplication, and delay. No one’s wrong—but the system is working against itself.
Real Operating Model Clarity™ comes when the entire model is redefined to outline:
How work is funded.
How work is prioritized.
How value is measured.
How decisions are made.
Until then, velocity will always be capped.
Sticking Point #3: Decision-Making Confusion
This is one of the biggest and most overlooked barriers to progress.
Who gets to say yes? Who can say no? Who needs to be informed?
When these questions go unanswered, you get shadow politics, decision delays, and endless steering committees that debate but don’t decide.
Confused decisions slow down everything.
One of the most powerful things we do with clients is help them:
Map real decision flows (not just theoretical ones).
Define roles and responsibilities with clarity.
Align on what gets decided where—and what doesn't.
Clarity here is transformational. It builds trust. It accelerates progress. And it cuts the drag created by unspoken tension.
Sticking Point #4: Mindset and Behavior Change
We love to say that culture eats strategy for breakfast. That’s because the best laid plans don’t stand a chance unless cultural behaviors and legacy ways of working are addressed.
That’s why Operating Model Clarity™ isn’t just a structural shift. It’s also a behavioral one.
You can spend hours upon hours drawing the org chart of the future, but unless people act differently—lead differently, collaborate differently, prioritize differently—you’ll slide right back into the old ways of working.
This is why so many transformations stall in the messy middle. Because the hard part isn’t designing the new model, it’s living into it.
That means:
Leaders loosening their grip to provide more team autonomy.
Teams stepping into ownership.
People embracing outcomes over outputs.
It takes time. It takes repetition. And it takes support systems that reinforce new behaviors, not just new structures.
Sticking Point #5: Talking About Work in Outputs, Not Outcomes
This one seems small. It’s not.
Most teams are trained to talk about what they built: We launched a new tool. We shipped a feature. We implemented a system.
But clarity only emerges when teams start talking about what changed as a result.
Did it improve customer engagement?
Did it reduce churn?
Did it unlock new revenue or reduce cost to serve?
That shift from outputs to outcomes is the signal that the new model is working because it means people are connecting their work to enterprise value.
When it’s working, you can listen for these green flags:
“We changed how we engaged this customer segment and saw a 12% lift in activation.”
“We improved time to quote by 30% by redesigning this flow.”
Those statements tell us the team has clarity and agency.
A Real-World Example
One of our clients—a large, complex enterprise—had struggled for years with a loosely defined operating model. When we started working together, there were signs of dysfunction: teams stepping on each other’s toes, duplicated efforts, unclear prioritization.
We helped them define a Product Operating Model that worked for their context. That meant aligning tech and business around shared goals, clarifying decision rights, and supporting teams with the tools and structures to execute autonomously.
Fast-forward to present day and a thorny conversation emerging from inside their HR organization: Different leaders had different ideas about how to manage key parts of the employee experience. It had been a source of quiet tension for years. Something people knew was there but didn’t know how to talk about.
This time was different.
Because of the work we’d done together, the business and tech leaders were able to surface the problem, frame the tradeoffs, and have a constructive conversation. They didn’t just debate preferences. They mapped implications for systems, processes, and investment strategy.
That might not sound like fireworks. But it’s transformational.
Because now, the organization has a system to discuss, decide, and move forward.
What Progress Looks Like
The journey to Operating Model Clarity™ is rarely linear. At times, it can feel like three steps forward, two steps back. There’s ambiguity, discomfort, and no shortage of difficult conversations. But over time, the signals start to shift. The tension eases. The work starts to flow with less resistance. People stop asking, “Am I allowed to do this?” and start asking, “What’s the best way to create value here?”
These signals might feel subtle at first, but they’re powerful indicators that the system is starting to work differently. That the culture is adapting. That your teams aren’t just aligned on paper, but in practice.
Here’s what that progress actually looks like:
Teams focus on delivering measurable outcomes, not just activities.
Tech and business co-own strategy.
Silos are giving way to shared goals.
Decision-making becomes explicit, not political.
Progress is visible across the enterprise, not just in one function.
Continuous delivery of value can be felt and measured across your organization.
It’s not always neat. It’s not always easy. But it’s real progress.
And when you get there, it feels different. The chaos gives way to conversation. The defensiveness gives way to design. And the backlog of problems that felt too complex to tackle suddenly becomes the roadmap for what’s next.
Clarity Is a Journey
Operating Model Clarity™ isn’t a switch you flip. It’s a capability you build.
It’s an intentional, capability-focused, customer-aligned approach explicitly designed to deliver tangible, measurable results.
The sticking points aren’t signs you’re failing. They’re signals that you’re doing the right work—work that will ultimately let your organization move faster, respond better, and unlock more value.
Because when you can see the system clearly, you can finally change it.