PKZEE Case Study 03 — National Automobile Association

Transforming a $120M+ Portfolio from Project-Based to Product-Based Delivery

A national automobile and insurance association with a $120M+ active technology portfolio was operating a project-based delivery model that had reached the limits of its effectiveness. The organization was growing, its technology ambitions were expanding, and the traditional project management approach — with its annual funding cycles, functional team silos, and output-focused metrics — was creating a structural ceiling on what the organization could deliver.

The structural challenges

Portfolio structured around projects rather than products — creating start-stop delivery cycles, resource fragmentation, and the loss of institutional knowledge at project closure
PMO and Agile transformation teams misaligned in focus and resourcing — working effort not matched to strategic priority
Annual funding model creating artificial urgency at year-end and artificial scarcity at year-start — both destructive to quality of delivery and team stability
No objective criteria for portfolio resource allocation — decisions made on relationship and history rather than business value and strategic priority
No mechanism to validate whether previously committed business value had actually been realized — investments made without accountability for outcomes
Teams using standard project management approaches for work that required product and feature thinking — the wrong methodology applied to the wrong problem

The strategic opportunity

A $120M+ portfolio with the scale and complexity to justify a full enterprise transformation to product-based, Agile delivery — not just a process improvement
Executive leadership open to structural change — creating a window for genuine transformation rather than incremental adjustment
ServiceNow already in the organization's technology ecosystem — providing a platform for portfolio and Agile delivery management that could be activated and populated
A community of practice model had never been attempted — creating an opportunity to build a Lean Agile Centre of Excellence that would sustain the transformation beyond the initial engagement
The organization's membership-service culture created a natural alignment with product thinking — serving members as product users rather than managing projects for internal stakeholders

PKZEE Method™ Entry Mode: Set Up. This was a full Set Up engagement — building enterprise transformation governance from first principles across a $120M+ portfolio. The organization had not attempted a transition of this kind before. Every element of the new operating model — structure, funding, governance, methodology, tooling, and capability — needed to be designed, implemented, and embedded from the ground up.

The PKZEE Method™ in action

How the engagement unfolded, stage by stage

Probe — Assess the Portfolio and the Operating Model

The diagnostic phase assessed the full portfolio — its funding model, team structures, delivery methodology, governance mechanisms, and performance measurement framework. The gap between the organization's delivery ambitions and its operating model was clear and structural: the organization was trying to build products using a project management model, and the friction between those two paradigms was the root cause of nearly every delivery challenge.

Kalibrate — Align Leadership on the Structural Transformation

The shift from project to product operating model was a significant organizational change — not a process improvement. Executive alignment on the destination, the rationale, and the transition path was essential before any structural change could be made. The transformation strategy was developed with and presented to the full leadership team — securing genuine alignment on the vision and shared accountability for the transition.

Zero-In — Architect the New Operating Model

The architectural transformation was the centerpiece of this engagement — redesigning the organization's entire delivery operating model across six dimensions:

Shifted the entire organization from a project-based structure to a product-based structure and operating model — reorienting teams, funding, governance, and metrics around products and features rather than projects and deliverables
Re-organized the PMO and Agile transformation teams for efficient alignment of capability to strategic priority — matching the right people to the right work with clear accountability
Restructured the funding model — replacing annual project-based budget approvals with value stream funding, where products received sustained investment and individual features were funded based on strategic priority within the stream
Established a portfolio resource allocation framework based on a structured set of criteria — including projected business value, strategic alignment, capacity, risk, and dependencies — replacing subjective allocation with transparent, defensible decision-making
Established a value realization system to track whether previously committed business value had been delivered — creating accountability for outcomes, not just outputs
Implemented ServiceNow Portfolio Management and Agile Delivery modules — migrating all projects, teams, data, and workflows into a single integrated platform, replacing fragmented tools with a unified source of truth

Energize — Move Teams to Product and Agile Thinking

The methodology transition from standard project management to Agile product and feature delivery required both capability building and a change in how teams understood their work. Teams were guided through the shift from managing projects to owning products — a fundamental reorientation that changed how they planned, how they measured success, and how they engaged with business stakeholders. Two capability communities were established to sustain the transformation beyond the initial engagement:

A Project Management Community of Practice — creating a structured forum for practitioners to share knowledge, develop skills, and maintain standards across the portfolio
A Lean Agile Centre of Excellence — generating significant organizational interest and cross-functional collaboration, becoming the internal engine for continued Agile maturity development

Elevate — Deliver and Measure the Transformation Outcomes

The transformation was measured against the portfolio's established KPI framework — tracking delivery performance, resource utilization, value realization, and Agile maturity. The results validated the structural changes and demonstrated that the shift to product-based Agile delivery was producing the improvements the organization had been seeking.

The results

Documented outcomes

$120M+ Portfolio governed

95% On-time delivery rate

20% Portfolio redundancy reduction

100% Teams migrated to ServiceNow

Portfolio & delivery outcomes

95% on-time delivery across the $120M+ portfolio following transformation
20% reduction in portfolio redundancy — eliminating duplicate efforts and misaligned investments
Value stream funding model replacing annual project budget cycles with sustained product investment
Objective resource allocation — portfolio decisions based on business value, strategy, and capacity criteria
Value realization system — accountability for outcomes established for the first time
Full ServiceNow migration — all projects, teams, and portfolio data on a single integrated platform

Organizational & capability outcomes

Full product-based operating model — organization restructured from project to product delivery
Agile methodology adoption — teams transitioned from standard project management to Agile product and feature delivery
PMO and Agile team re-alignment — capability matched to strategic priority with clear accountability
Community of Practice established — sustaining knowledge sharing and standards across the portfolio
Lean Agile Centre of Excellence — generating significant cross-functional interest and collaboration
Self-sustaining governance — the organization capable of continuing and extending the transformation independently

The leadership insight

What this engagement taught me — and what I would tell a CEO considering this transition

The shift from project to product is the most underestimated transformation in enterprise technology today. Most organizations treat it as a methodology change — swap the project plan for a backlog, train the teams on Agile, and call it done. It is not a methodology change. It is a business model change. It changes how you fund work, how you structure teams, how you measure success, how you engage with your customers, and how your leaders think about investment and accountability.

The organizations that make this transition well — the ones that go from 60% on-time delivery to 95% — are not the ones with the best Agile coaches or the most modern tooling. They are the ones whose executive teams genuinely understood what they were changing and why. At this organization, that alignment existed. The executives were ready to change the structure, not just the process. That made everything else possible.

If I were advising a CEO today considering this transition, I would say: do not let your PMO lead this transformation. It requires CxO-level sponsorship, cross-functional accountability, and the authority to change how money flows through the organization. Without those three things, you will get Agile ceremonies around a project management culture — which is worse than doing nothing, because it creates the illusion of transformation while the structural barriers remain entirely intact.

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