Output to Outcome: An Operating Model for the Age of AI
Jul 2026 · Sold by Simon and Schuster
Ebook
336
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About this ebook
In the Age of AI, the constraint has shifted from producing outputs to delivering outcomes.
Dr. Mik Kersten, author of the bestselling Project to Product, has the data to prove it. When he and his colleagues studied more than 8,000 enterprise value streams, building accounted for just 8% of the time it took to get from an idea to running software. The rest was eaten up by planning, approvals, testing, and waiting, none of which gets faster when AI writes the code.
Output to Outcome gives executives and technology leaders an operating model for this new constraint: Outcome Management. Instead of measuring what teams and AI agents produce, Outcome Management organizes the company around the customer and business outcomes that production is supposed to deliver, and it keeps people accountable for them.
The model starts where the work gets stuck. Kersten shows readers how to use an Outcome Loop to trace a line from strategy and budget, through everything your teams and agents ship, to what customers and employees got out of it, and shows you where that line breaks. The Outcome Tree repeats this loop at every level of the company, so strategy travels down and results travel back up.
The Seven Shifts then show how to get from the organization you have to the one you need, the changes you need to make to move your organization from outputs to outcomes. These changes are practical, not theoretical, like giving every goal one accountable owner, trading a pile of planning meetings for a single rhythm, and learning to tell whether all that AI output is progress or just slop. Case studies from companies including Vanguard, Priceline, and Cognition show the model at work, and every chapter ends with a prompt you can hand to your own AI agents to start implementing the change tomorrow.
Clinging to the old organizational design is like trying to outrun a locomotive by adding more horses. It’s time to make the shift. Output to Outcome shows you the way.
Dr. Mik Kersten, author of the bestselling Project to Product, has the data to prove it. When he and his colleagues studied more than 8,000 enterprise value streams, building accounted for just 8% of the time it took to get from an idea to running software. The rest was eaten up by planning, approvals, testing, and waiting, none of which gets faster when AI writes the code.
Output to Outcome gives executives and technology leaders an operating model for this new constraint: Outcome Management. Instead of measuring what teams and AI agents produce, Outcome Management organizes the company around the customer and business outcomes that production is supposed to deliver, and it keeps people accountable for them.
The model starts where the work gets stuck. Kersten shows readers how to use an Outcome Loop to trace a line from strategy and budget, through everything your teams and agents ship, to what customers and employees got out of it, and shows you where that line breaks. The Outcome Tree repeats this loop at every level of the company, so strategy travels down and results travel back up.
The Seven Shifts then show how to get from the organization you have to the one you need, the changes you need to make to move your organization from outputs to outcomes. These changes are practical, not theoretical, like giving every goal one accountable owner, trading a pile of planning meetings for a single rhythm, and learning to tell whether all that AI output is progress or just slop. Case studies from companies including Vanguard, Priceline, and Cognition show the model at work, and every chapter ends with a prompt you can hand to your own AI agents to start implementing the change tomorrow.
Clinging to the old organizational design is like trying to outrun a locomotive by adding more horses. It’s time to make the shift. Output to Outcome shows you the way.
In the Age of AI, the constraint has shifted from producing outputs to delivering outcomes.
Dr. Mik Kersten, author of the bestselling Project to Product, has the data to prove it. When he and his colleagues studied more than 8,000 enterprise value streams, building accounted for just 8% of the ...
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About the author
Dr. Mik Kersten is an independent technology strategist and researcher best known as the creator of the Flow Framework and author of the bestselling book Project to Product and the new book Output to Outcome. Mik founded Tasktop and led the company as CEO until its acquisition by Planview in 2022. Mik started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC as part of the team that created the first aspect-oriented programming language. He then completed his PhD in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, where he pioneered the integration of software development and collaboration tools. That work became the foundation for Tasktop and helped shape the emerging field of Value Stream Management. Before shifting his focus to flow, outcomes, and organizational modularity, Mik wrote more than one million lines of open-source code that are still in use today. His work now focuses on helping leaders transition from output- driven management to outcome-driven operating models, enabling organizations to harness the power of AI in a human-centric way. For more information, please visit the book‘s website at https://outputtooutcome.org/.
Dr. Mik Kersten is an independent technology strategist and researcher best known as the creator of the Flow Framework and author of the bestselling book Project to Product and the new book Output to Outcome. Mik founded Tasktop and led the company as CEO until its acquisition by Planview in 2022...
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