Moving a major enterprise from project-to-product requires a new funding model, a redesigned demand process, an OKR architecture that connects teams to board, and an analytics layer that removes manual aggregation. We have done this at airline scale. Demand approval time dropped by 40%.
What does it take to move a major enterprise from project-to-product? Not a slide deck. It takes a new funding model, a redesigned demand process, an OKR architecture that connects teams to board, and an analytics layer that removes manual aggregation entirely.
We have done this at airline scale. Demand approval time dropped by an estimated 40%. Board-level OKR reporting now runs with zero manual aggregation. The organisation did not inherit a document; it inherited a running system.
Our operating model engagements always end the same way: with a governance forum that has already held its first meeting, a demand process that has been tested under real conditions, and a funding model that finance has approved and can operate. Documentation follows delivery — it does not replace it.
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Our flagship operating model engagement redesigned the technology operating model of a major European airline across four workstreams simultaneously — funding model, demand management, OKR architecture, and analytics layer. Demand approval fell from six weeks to five days. Board reporting went to zero manual aggregation. The airline now runs as a product company.
Airlines · Financial Services · Enterprise Technology · UK Government · Insurance
Read our published thinking on why operating model transformations fail at the funding layer — and what actually fixing it looks like.
Read the complete account of the airline operating model redesign — four workstreams, a new funding model, OKR architecture, and a 40% improvement in demand approval time.
Read the case studyA product operating model is the combination of funding structure, demand management process, team design, and governance that determines how a technology organisation prioritises and delivers work. It is distinct from an org chart. You can have a product org chart with a project funding model underneath it — and the result is a product organisation that cannot actually behave like one.
Operating model design determines how work gets funded, prioritised, governed, and measured. Organisational redesign determines reporting lines and headcount. Most transformation programmes conflate the two and fix the org chart without fixing the operating model underneath it — producing the same outcomes as before, with higher coordination costs.
The design phase typically takes 6–8 weeks. Transition and adoption — getting the new processes to run under real conditions — takes 12–16 weeks. The governance forums that prove adoption is real take 3–6 months to establish. We stay through that cycle. Handing over a document at week eight and calling it done is not an operating model engagement.
Three archetypes work in practice: Annual Allocation plus Seed Funding, Outcome-Pooled Funding, and Discovery-Staged Funding. The right one depends on your product practice maturity, the risk appetite of your finance function, and the stability of your strategic direction. The choice matters more than most organisations realise before they try to implement it.
A governance forum that has met and made real decisions. A funding model that finance has approved and can operate without our help. A demand process that has been tested under real conditions. An OKR architecture that auto-populates board reporting without manual aggregation. Not a document — a running system that the organisation can sustain after we leave.
Tell us where your operating model transformation is now — and we will tell you honestly what it would take to make it work.
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