We recently asked the following survey question “Which of these statements best describes your view of your product team’s performance against organizational expectations?” The majority of product team members indicated that they deliver value – but do so inconsistently. Another large segment indicate that they are consistently delivering value by successfully delivering on scope, schedule and cost. Finally, 11% of organizations indicate that they are “hit or miss” in their product team’s execution.
We then took a closer look at the organizations that indicate that they are predominately hit or miss. As it turns out roughly half of the organizations that report hit or miss performance are technology companies. This is strikingly disproportionate. Service companies garnered the next largest concentration of hit or miss responses followed in descending volume by consumer products, government and education. In fact, all these other verticals combined make up approximately the same amount of hit or miss responses as the technology segment.
So what is it about technology companies that increases the probability that product team members will indicate that they are executing less consistently and disproportionately so? The jury is still out but the data reflects that there is more variability in technology company execution than in all the other segments.
From a purely speculative point of view it is possible that factors such as the inability to hire qualified staff, poor team cohesion, the lack of strong leadership, lack of clarity in requirements, weak line of sight to clear market goals and a host of other possible factors contribute to technology companies having a disproportionate amount of hit or miss responses.
To be fair, the majority of tech companies report the ability to deliver value even if they execute inconsistently. But it is striking that so many of the “hit or miss” responses are concentrated in the tech sector.
What do you think drives this level of inequity?
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