Where product teams struggle

Despite visible progress, teams across the survey report significant challenges. The most telling struggles relate not to execution, but to direction and user impact.

The most consistent struggles reported in the survey are not about tools or skills. They are about direction. When teams are unclear about what success looks like, effort increases while impact stagnates.

User satisfaction stands out as a major challenge across all teams, followed by time-to-market, efficiency, quality, and technology adoption. The difficulty with user satisfaction is particularly revealing. It suggests that many teams are building efficiently without building the right things. Delivery-centric teams are especially vulnerable here, as their focus on output makes it harder to validate whether the work actually improves the user experience.

Lack of clear vision, unclear ownership, poor collaboration, and technical debt appear consistently across teams, with delivery-centric teams reporting their impact more strongly. These constraints do not exist in isolation. Unclear ownership and technical debt make prioritization harder, which weakens goal-setting. Over time, teams respond by shipping more instead of deciding better.

Most respondents agree that clear goals matter, yet far fewer report having goals that actively guide decisions. Strategy often exists but is not operationalized. Without feedback loops, goals create a false sense of progress. Teams believe they are aligned but lack evidence that decisions are working. Product-centric teams treat measurement as a learning tool, not a reporting requirement.

Many teams value measurement, but relatively few act on it consistently. Without feedback loops, teams can move fast while drifting away from meaningful outcomes. These struggles are not caused by a lack of effort or competence. They are structural. Delivery-centric operating models make it harder to learn, adapt, and prioritize based on real user needs.