From Planview Blog
Who’s to say that a 160-year-old organization can’t operate like a digital native? Not Sun Life.
For years, Sun Life was project-centric and operated under time, scope, and cost constraints. But in 2020, it became apparent what was missing.
“Our CIO asked, ‘But what is the value we are delivering to our clients?’ Silence.”
The idea that no one could immediately articulate the value they were bringing to their clients was a key indicator that the organization had room to grow in organizing its portfolio around client needs, a common gap for many traditional companies.
Then, a few weeks later, the CIO asked Penny for the entire global portfolio, including the initiatives across the world and the ROI for each. Because that information was not readily available, it would have taken weeks to get it.
Penny knew it was time for a change.
The need to increase customer-centricity and to give them fast access to reliable data initiated the beginning of Sun Life’s transition from focusing on time, scope, and cost to embracing outcomes, value delivery, and client feedback loops as their success measures.
Here are some key steps they took to adopt and implement a multifaceted, product-oriented approach.
Shifting the Team’s Focus, Not Just the Titles
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada is a financial services organization dedicated to helping people achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.
At the Planview Connect 2025 conference — an exciting educational experience full of customers, partners, and industry experts – attendees heard the Sun Life story from Penny Sgromo, AVP, Global Transformation & Value Realization, and Andrew Taylor, Director, VRO.
They reflected on the organization’s experience as a legacy company adopting a new, product-centric way of operating.
To support this shift, Sun Life reorganized and pivoted its officers. They turned PMOs into Value Realization Offices, or VROs. But, aside from the new titles, Sun Life reprioritized their goals to support the new product-centric shift.
These VROs were meant to support the new priorities, such as improving value, increasing cycle time in the organization, and empowering employees to adopt new ways of working that demonstrate business agility.
Overall, it was a mindset shift to determine the true priorities and goals the teams were working towards.
Read Next: 12 Essential Mindset Shifts for Product Operating Model Leaders
Implementing a Change Management Procedure
A formal and consistent system to manage transformation is beneficial for all organizations to ensure that change is followed through. According to McKinsey, “We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support.”
Sun Life beat these statistics because they were able to effectively implement a systematic change management plan that scaled the entire company.
One of the main ways that Sun Life managed the change to becoming product-centric was by creating a change coalition. The coalition members were tasked with spreading the messaging around the transformation.
“We were asking our team members to fundamentally shift their ways of working, and this transformation was not easy,” Penny said.
The coalition served a great benefit for the global company. Instead of the instructions coming from one officer in the company, the information came from a trusted source within the region. This ensured that the communications were localized and that the messaging was sensitive and diplomatic about change.
Possible early adopters of the new initiatives were identified and encouraged to start utilizing the new processes with a shared “fail fast, fail safe” mindset so that issues could be better understood and addressed.
Sun Life encouraged its teams to take ownership and participate in the transformation by strategically including people in the change, whether they were in the coalition or early adopters.
Read Next: Why Proactive Change Management is Best for Transformation
Ensuring That Leadership Supports the Process
The leaders of Sun Life also had a mindset shift. Their focus transitioned from whether or not tasks were completed (project-centric) to whether the work actually had value (product-centric).
The leadership also took proactive measures to ensure that the transition had support. The CIO and CFOs at Sun Life sponsored the VRO concept. Additionally, there were monthly CIO leadership meetings where the CIOs presented feedback they had received to the change team, and the change team communicated the messaging that needed to be pushed.
For a transformation to a product-centric approach to be sustainable, leadership must be willing to support the change and the teams implementing it. In fact, it’s one of the key drivers of a transformation success, according to Alan Manuel, GVP, Product Management at Planview: “As a coach or a leader, it’s going to be most effective if you adopt or at least understand the perspective of the teams you’re trying to change.”
Read Next: Facing Roadblocks in Your Project-to-Product Shift? Start Here.
Recognize that the Shift to Product-Centricity is Continuous
No transformation is ever really over, and that goes the same for the project-to-product shift. Sun Life is still actively working towards operating more like a digital company; yet, even while they’re in the process of transforming, they’re still reaping benefits.
“We’ve created an organization that can evolve at the speed of our clients’ expectations,” Penny said.
Beyond changing titles, Sun Life continues to take the necessary steps to shift to focusing on value delivery for its clients. To learn about more organizations shifting towards a product-centric approach, read here: Project to Product Summit: 7 Can’t-Miss Videos for Tech Leaders
Thinking about making the switch to becoming product-centric, or want to know where you are in the transformation? Take our Project to Product Maturity Assessment.
