Project vs Product Oriented Environments
These differences start with how you make money on projects vs. products.
Several times during my career, I joined teams who wanted to transition “from projects to products.” The ride was never smooth, whether in a big company or a small and agile team.
Projects (Services)
A project is a singular effort made to achieve a predefined result. For example, building a bridge. Or a WordPress website for your client. In the tech world, doing a project for a customer usually means signing a contract to sell a service or to deliver custom software.
A company that makes money on projects/services usually has a sales team (or one person in a small company) that signs contracts with the clients. The more contracts they sign, the better. These contracts usually have specific deadlines, specific budgets, and vague scopes. I have seen excellent scope definitions in Statements Of Work (SOW) signed with external clients only a few times in my career.
Everyone involved knows that the project will eventually end.
Leadership
Project teams are often composed, broken up, and re-assembled based on what is optimal for the project. It makes it difficult for people to bond and form…
