Products Over Projects
It doesn't take the contradicting interests in to account. People in IT should really stop to pretend that they are the only smart people that know how to run a business.A cfo can easily understand the benefits of an organizational capability to continuously improve a core business asset. But he also understands the difference between capex and opex and needs to take decisions in order to achieve the strategic goals of the company. This strategy can or can not define software development (for a specific goal) as a core in house capability that gets an investment. This relates also heavily with the defined core business etc. Without understanding the long term strategy of a company, it does not make a lot of sense to come up with generic advice.The ceo and the management board do generally (almost intuitively) understand which activities will generate competitive advantage. If they are not in the silicon valley hype, this can mean that they can make a deliberate choice to invest in other things than software teams. Is it really that unthinkable that other things than software can bring value to a company? Do all companies need to act like Google or Facebook?>>for greater responsiveness and a higher benefits realization ratio, “product-mode” is a more effective way of working than projects.This is a sweeping statement. This could definitely lead to higher benefits and lower responsibility for the consulting company. That is almost for sure. But that doesn't mean that a short living project organization is a bad idea by default. The choice needs a much more substantial argument like the probability of a positive realization result (depending on the complexity and uniqueness of the software)  versus risk if it does not get realized etc. If it can't be bought of the shelf, it can be outsourced or developed entirely in house by long term perm employees...>>it may feel unsound to those who are used to approving big change programs with detailed roadmap...If a project can be predicted by a high enough level of certainty, I would say that there is nothing wrong with a detailed roadmap. Also here, a false dichotomy.