Why Most Product Work Fails to Prove Real Business Impact

Strategic & Impactful Product Development

After speaking with more than 500 product leaders, I’ve been amazed by how often we all talk about wanting our work to be strategic and impactful—yet almost nobody truly measures that impact. Product leaders and managers are among the smartest and most driven people in their companies, but something about proving real business value keeps slipping through the cracks. You hear everyone say, “We want to be strategic. We want real results.” The intention is there, but in practice, accountability and ownership often fall into a void.

From these 500 conversations, one consistent refrain stands out: only about 40% of product teams’ efforts are considered “strategic.” Then I ask, “How do you know?” and the typical response is, “We loosely tie our projects to strategic goals.” Yet many teams admit their strategic goals aren’t clearly defined at the company level. There might even be a high-powered strategy team burning cash on consultants, but those ideas never reach the product and engineering teams in a tangible way. Instead, teams jostle through lists of hundreds of items from all corners of the organization, guessing or hoping that they match a big-picture objective.

When “Strategic” Doesn’t Quite Mean What You Think

It’s easy to label something as “aligned with strategy” without proof. Companies tell me they have 40% of their roadmap in that category, yet they often concede that nobody’s actually validating the link to strategic goals. This confusion is reinforced by the fact that many executives or strategy teams don’t communicate effectively with product teams. As the 2025 State of Product Management Annual Report from ProductPlan highlights, the biggest gap product managers face is around the communication and implementation of strategic goals. They might know they should be measuring outcomes, but the “how” is never clearly spelled out.

Adding data from UXCam research shows that product managers spend only about 28% of their time on strategic planning. This shortfall is a recipe for confusion because it means product teams default to shipping features rather than aligning and driving measurable results.

Chasing Milestones and Missing the Magic 8%

Another common claim is that only 20% of product work is measurably impactful. So if 40% of the roadmap is apparently “strategic,” and only 20% of that portion is actually impactful, we’re left with a mere 8%. Ninety-two percent of the work doesn’t clearly prove how it impacts the core business. It’s a calculation that should make us pause: if leaders are spending millions on research and development, boards want to see accountability. Where’s the evidence that any of those 300 tickets tackled last quarter moved the needle on revenue or savings?

This 8% figure sounds small, but in conversations, it might actually be generous. Teams say, “We do 200 tickets, shipping features left and right, yet we’re not sure which ones truly matter.” The UXCam stats also show a troubling mismatch between the perceived value of product teams and the actual measured ROI. If we genuinely care about business impact, we need a better way to connect these dots.

Why the Boardroom Cares (And You Should Too)

Boards and C-suites monitor headcount and budgets at a granular level. They know exactly how much is spent on engineering and design. They’re aware of the giant R&D allocation. However, what they rarely see is a clear line from a completed product initiative back to a bottom-line result. With the shift toward revenue-centric approaches, as highlighted by ProductPlan and Airtable’s Transformative Trends in Product Management for 2025, stakeholders are increasingly asking, “Which items on your roadmap are actually hitting revenue goals or improving margins?”

The frustration is practical: when only 8% of your work aligns with real strategic outcomes, that signals a fundamental breakdown. If teams can’t demonstrate that their efforts translate to business value, it puts their entire product function at risk.

The Real Cost of Busywork vs. The Promise of AI

Most product managers juggle an overwhelming backlog of hundreds of requests. Stakeholders, customers, sales teams, and even the product managers themselves are constantly adding ideas, often with unclear prioritization. The result? We’re drowning in tasks that keep us “busy” but might not be truly valuable.

One bright spot is the emergence of AI tools. According to Airtable’s 2025 report, AI-powered automation can dramatically reduce time on routine tasks, like analyzing user feedback or automating updates after sprint reviews. This frees product teams to spend more bandwidth on actual strategy. In other words, if you’re stuck in a constant churn of tasks, AI may offer the chance to break free and aim for higher-value work.

From Feature-Focused to Business-Growth Mindset

Traditional roadmaps revolve around churning out features: the more you ship, the more it looks like you’re delivering. But shipping doesn’t necessarily mean real results. Recent insights from Airtable’s “From Features to Revenue” research show a growing trend toward focusing on revenue, margin improvement, or customer satisfaction metrics instead of raw feature counts. Moving away from a feature factory means you track true business outcomes (such as net promoter score improvements or reduced churn). That shift requires cross-functional cooperation—especially among sales, marketing, and product—to align around measurable objectives.

Enter the Full-Stack Product Manager

There’s an evolution taking place. Product managers are no longer just backlog owners who draft user stories. They are increasingly expected to handle strategy, competitive positioning, revenue forecasts, and even go-to-market plans. The ProductPlan 2025 State of Product Management Report indicates that these expanded responsibilities, combined with a push for AI adoption, define the “Full-Stack Product Manager.” In practice, that means stepping into a leadership role that merges strategic vision with day-to-day execution. You become the person connecting the dots so your board doesn’t have to guess whether your product delivered tangible value.

Yet the UXCam statistics highlight a sobering reality: product managers often have a short tenure—just one to two years. One reason for this churn could be the lack of real impact. If you’re not empowered to show business results, it can push you into a cycle of firefighting, overshadowing any strategic momentum you might build. Strengthening accountability and strategic skills could help retain good product leaders while lifting that 8% to a more respectable figure.

Silos Are Not an Option Anymore

Engineering, sales, and marketing teams often have their own objectives and measurements of success. Meanwhile, the strategy group might be isolated in a corner, and product managers operate with partial visibility of the big picture. This fragmented approach is a recipe for misalignment. If each department functions in its own silo, there’s no holistic view of how an initiative supports or hinders the overarching strategy.

Improving alignment requires intentional collaboration. One approach is to bring strategy leaders and product teams together for regular planning sessions. Another is to adopt integrated platforms—like AI-enabled workflows offered by Airtable—that allow all stakeholders to see each other’s data, track progress in real time, and make adjustments on the fly. Breaking down silos ensures that the strategy isn’t a document collecting dust while product teams scramble to ship features without meaningful context.

Crowded Backlogs and the Unseen Opportunity

Backlogs of 300 items are common, but how many of those tie to an actual strategic initiative? More often than not, product managers are told, “We need this feature because marketing wants it,” or, “Sales says a client is demanding it,” or, “The CEO personally requested it.” Those reasons aren’t invalid, but they can obscure which projects matter most to the business.

Feedback loops are essential here. According to Airtable’s research, smarter feedback mechanisms—powered by user analytics or AI—help filter out distractions, highlight meaningful user requests, and align them with bottom-line outcomes. The unseen opportunity is to streamline or outright remove tasks that don’t advance the company’s stated objectives. That can die on the backlog, and nobody will miss them.

Rallying the Troops Around a Clear Product POV

A coherent product point of view (POV) is critical for steering your team away from shiny-object syndrome. When you define your POV—what your product stands for, whose problems it solves, why it’s essential—you give your teams a compass. Without it, initiatives drift from one stakeholder’s whim to the next. AI can keep you agile, but it can’t fix an identity crisis.

The concept of a strong product POV also ties closely to strategic discipline. With a well-defined vision, you can weigh each new proposal against your direction. This is how you avoid “8% impact” scenarios. It creates a culture where people question whether an idea aligns with strategic objectives or just satisfies a short-term request.

Actionable Ways to Jump from 8% to 50% (Or More)

Moving from 8% truly strategic work to something better—like 50% or 60%—can happen. You just need deliberate processes. Consider these steps:

At Iteright, we focus on guiding businesses through these transformations. If you want to see how tailored strategies can align with product development, explore our solutions or check out our pricing to see how we work with teams on bridging strategy and execution.

Not Just About Doing Things Right – Doing the Right Things

Finishing projects on time and within budget is good, but it’s incomplete if you’re solving the wrong problems. The distinction between efficiency and effectiveness is vital. Growing accountability in product management means not just shipping faster, but choosing the best initiatives to ship in the first place.

This perspective resonates with the findings from UXCam that more than half of organizations consider their product management skills to be average or in need of improvement. If more product managers were given the space and mandate to focus on big-picture goals, the overall impact could rise well above that meager 8%.

Turning AI Hype into Real Business Value

We’ve heard a lot of hype about AI, yet the most valuable take on it is thoughtfully integrating it into workflows that solve real problems. The ProductPlan data suggests that many organizations initially jumped at AI tools in a scattered way, but they’re now evolving to a more strategic rollout. AI can automate mundane tasks, analyze user behavior for insights, or provide real-time dashboards that tie your day-to-day work to key metrics such as net promoter score, churn, or revenue growth. The point is to deploy AI in a manner that directly contributes to accountability and proof of value, not just because it sounds cool.

So, Who Owns the Responsibility?

There’s a huge responsibility gap. Product managers are on the front lines of deciding what ships, when, and why. Strategy teams formulate lofty goals, but if they’re disjointed from product execution, they’ll never see those goals realized with clarity. Everyone needs to share accountability. Senior leadership must foster an environment where product teams can champion real business results, and product managers must be ready to step up and demand measurable outcomes from each project.

If your organization’s leadership doesn’t push for accountability, then feature factories and haphazard shipping cycles will continue. But if both leadership and product teams agree to track actual outcomes, you’ll see how quickly the culture changes.

Seeing the Path Forward

Bridging the gap between big-picture strategy and day-to-day product execution could be one of the largest opportunities available right now. AI has given us tools to realize that vision. Product managers who shift from shipping tickets to proving measurable, strategic growth can elevate their entire organization—and easily surpass that disheartening 8% mark.

By aligning teams, leveraging outcome-based goals, and using AI to handle the busywork, it becomes completely feasible to jump to 50% or more of your product efforts being legitimately strategic and measurably impactful. From there, additional refinements and collaboration across departments can push that figure higher. This transformation isn’t just about driving more revenue or saving costs; it provides clarity, purpose, and a sense of shared accomplishment that resonates throughout the company.

We’ve all been in the grind, checking boxes and hoping someone else will connect the dots. It’s time to take ownership—right from the beginning—by designing for strategic alignment and measuring actual outcomes. Doing so not only secures the trust of boards and investors but also reinvigorates the product function as a key driver of business success for years to come.