Transformation Readiness Checklist

Recognise these symptoms?

A quick conversation can help you prioritise what to fix first.

Book a Call

Category A: “We ship features and nothing happens”

0 / 6

Maps to: Ch.1 Diagnosing the Feature Factory, Ch.4 Alignment and Incentives

We shipped everything on the roadmap last year and none of our metrics moved. Features go live and nobody uses them. We never go back to find out why. Our roadmap is just a list of stakeholder requests dressed up as strategy. We have no way to measure the ROI of what we build. Engineering says we're shipping faster than ever. The business says nothing is getting done. We win deals by building features for individual customers, but nothing we build becomes a scalable capability.

Read: Diagnosing the Feature Factory → Read: Alignment and Incentives →

Category B: “Nobody trusts the product team”

0 / 5

Maps to: Ch.1 Diagnosing the Feature Factory, Ch.2 Earning Authority to Lead, Ch.4 Alignment and Incentives

Product is treated as an order-taking service. We write tickets, not strategy. Engineering and the business don't trust each other. My VP thinks product management is optional. We get excluded from key discussions. Decisions happen without us. I've been told to "be more strategic" but I have no authority to make strategic decisions.

Read: Diagnosing the Feature Factory → Read: Earning Authority to Lead →

Category C: “The politics are killing us”

0 / 5

Maps to: Ch.2 Earning Authority to Lead, Ch.4 Alignment and Incentives

Sales keeps closing deals that require features we shouldn't build. Executives override our prioritisation whenever they feel like it. The loudest stakeholder gets the roadmap, not the customer with the biggest problem. The engineering VP is actively working to make product look incompetent. Everyone agrees we should be “outcome-focused” in meetings. Then nothing changes.

Read: Earning Authority to Lead → Read: Alignment and Incentives →

Category D: “We’ve tried transformation before”

0 / 5

Maps to: Ch.2 Earning Authority to Lead, Ch.3 Team Structure for Scale, Ch.4 Alignment and Incentives

We adopted OKRs but they're just tasks in a different format. We reorganised into squads and now we have the same silos with new names. We hired a Head of Product and they quit within a year. My team is exhausted from change initiatives that never stick. The CEO says they support the transformation but won't back us when it matters.

Read: Earning Authority to Lead → Read: Team Structure for Scale →

Category E: “The technical reality is worse than anyone admits”

0 / 4

Maps to: Ch.3 Tech Debt and the Trust Deficit

Simple changes take months. Nobody outside engineering believes this is real. Outages are getting more frequent and we're always in firefighting mode. We keep adding engineers but velocity isn't improving. The tech stack was built for a product we pivoted away from three years ago.

Read: Tech Debt and the Trust Deficit →

Category F: “AI is changing the rules and we’re not ready”

0 / 4

Maps to: Ch.3 Team Structure for Scale, Ch.5 AI Coding in Established Organisations

Everyone's excited about AI tools but nobody's thought about governance. Our competitors are shipping AI-powered features and we haven't started. The PM role is changing and half my team doesn't see it coming. AI-generated code is entering production without proper review.

Read: Team Structure for Scale → Read: AI Coding in Established Organisations →

What to Do Next

This checklist identifies the symptoms. The Product Leaders Edition handbook provides the implementation guides, frameworks, and templates. Or book a call to discuss your results directly.

Book a Call Download the Handbook

Transformation Readiness Checklist

Category A: “We ship features and nothing happens”

Category B: “Nobody trusts the product team”

Category C: “The politics are killing us”

Category D: “We’ve tried transformation before”

Category E: “The technical reality is worse than anyone admits”

Category F: “AI is changing the rules and we’re not ready”

What to Do Next

Ready to Close the Gaps?