From Busyness to Impact: How can your team make the shift?

A SaaS company specializing in managing digital presence for enterprises in hospitality and automotive sectors faced a productivity paradox. Its five product teams were busy working on backlogs meticulously managed by product managers, but their efforts often fell short of delivering meaningful outcomes.

Product managers focused on keeping teams occupied, ensuring full backlogs, and tracking utilization metrics for each iteration. Teams, in turn, avoided saying “no” to work—even low-value tasks—because their reports needed to reflect constant busyness. Systemic issues and internal inefficiencies were left unresolved, as product managers did not prioritize them. The business struggled with poor adoption of capabilities, yet no one owned the problem, further deepening the divide between effort and impact.

As coaches, we worked closely with the leadership team to identify the root causes. We helped them see that the focus on activity and utilization metrics hindered the company’s ability to deliver real value. Together, we advocated for a shift toward an outcome-oriented approach.

Leadership responded by redefining success metrics for product managers, prioritizing the adoption of capabilities over keeping teams busy. Teams were empowered to evaluate their work critically, decline tasks with unclear or low value, and take ownership of long-overdue internal improvements. With a culture of safety and trust established, teams tackled inefficiencies that had previously been ignored.

The results were transformative. A shift in mindset—from valuing busyness to focusing on meaningful outcomes—sparked a chain reaction. Teams eliminated at least 10% of wasteful work each iteration, reclaimed capacity for valuable initiatives, and improved their agility. Product managers engaged more thoughtfully with their teams, leading to smoother releases and better alignment with business priorities. Most importantly, the renewed focus on outcomes drove measurable improvements in the adoption of capabilities, enhancing customer satisfaction and business success.