Why Companies Need to Design Their Product Operating Models

In a recent LinkedIn post, Melissa Perri discusses how organizations turn strategy and investment into products—and why many companies struggle when that system has evolved by default rather than by design. This article examines Perri’s post and her perspective; it is journalistic coverage, not an article written by Perri.

“Every company already has a product operating model. Most of them never designed it.”

An operating model takes shape whether leaders plan it or not

Perri defines a product operating model through the connections between strategy, funding, team accountability, customer insight and organizational incentives. According to Perri, every company has established answers to questions such as who decides what gets funded and how teams receive direction. The issue, she argues, is that those answers may have accumulated through past decisions instead of being deliberately chosen.

In her account, a finance process introduced years ago can shape investment decisions long after its original context has changed. A previous reorganization may determine team structures, while customer insight remains scattered and promotions reward output that is easy to count. Perri’s point is that these arrangements form a system, even when leaders have not named or designed one.

Why isolated fixes may fall short

Perri connects that inherited system to familiar organizational problems: duplicate work across business units, projects that continue without clear authority to stop them, and teams that stay busy without improving results. As she notes:

“Teams are fully booked and the numbers don’t move.”

In Perri’s view, treating each symptom as a separate problem can leave its underlying causes intact. A new process or reorganization may not change how funding decisions are made, how teams get strategic direction or what leaders reward. Her argument is that those elements need to be considered together because they shape how work is selected and carried out.

Designing the system around value

Perri says her consulting work involves examining how a company currently handles direction, structure, practices, insight and culture, then working with its leadership team to design an operating model. She describes the goal as helping existing teams produce different returns through changes to the system around them, rather than treating individual teams as the sole source of performance issues.

The post also explains why Perri shared the update: she says her company’s website had previously emphasized courses and books, while offering little explanation of its consulting work. The new site, she writes, describes what a product operating model is, how the company assesses one and how it helps leadership teams build theirs.

For readers interested in the consulting side of Perri’s work, the post points them to that site. Its broader message is that the way strategy becomes funded, organized work is already shaping outcomes. Perri’s argument is that leaders can examine those accumulated choices and design the system more intentionally.