Episode 50: Former Ford CEO Mark Fields on the Value of a Unified Vision

Episode 50: Former Ford CEO Mark Fields on the Value of a Unified Vision

Author: Dr. Mik Kersten: Author of Project to Product and Founder and CEO of Tasktop December 20, 2022 Duration: 47:30
Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Mark Fields, Senior Advisor to TPG Capital, a member of Planview's board of directors, and former CEO of Ford Motor Company. Mark has presided over three decades of strategic and digital transformations at global businesses and shares how he consistently succeeded with a focus on product. He discusses the value of possessing agility, a unified vision, and a rallying cry as a business to create a product that delivers more value and potentially diverts a company off more common value streams.  In this episode, Mik and Mark also discuss drive-by-wire and how a point of view on what the future is, creates a demand for businesses to create organizational structure that can support strategy. Key discussions include:  Early steps in Mark’s career Turning Mazda around in Japan Functional divides between business, technology, and operations Focusing on product is how you get customers Unifying vision and having a rallying cry in a business Turning products into platforms  Diverting off common platforms to deliver customer missions ECUs in vehicles and the cost AWS and Azure bills for organizations Ford’s Mach-E Digital companies Mark is on the board of and how he is helping them thrive Learnings and agility Subscribe to the Mik + One podcast today so you never miss an episode and don’t forget to leave your review. Follow Mik on Twitter: @mik_kersten #MikPlusOne www.tasktop.com Additional Resources: Connect with Mark Portfolio SAFe Dean Leffingwell on the Mik + One Podcast: Part 1, Part 2 MarTech Dave West - podcast episode Scrum Studio Greenfield project Skunkworks Bimodal IT Agile Release Train Mik + One Podcast Episode 20: Justin Watts For more information about Mark Fields and to view the full list of resources mentioned in this episode, as well as download the transcript, visit: https://projecttoproduct.org/podcast/mark-fields/

Dr. Mik Kersten’s book, Project to Product, sparked a fundamental shift in how large organizations think about software delivery. That conversation continues and deepens in Mik + One: The Official Project to Product Podcast. Here, Kersten moves beyond the stage and the prepared keynote to host candid, unrehearsed dialogues with the people actually steering the world’s most significant technology-driven companies. Each episode is built around a simple, powerful premise: one guest, one conversation with nothing held back. You’ll hear from fellow authors, executives, and engineering leaders as they dissect the real-world application of flow frameworks and product-centric thinking. The discussions get into the granular challenges of shifting from project-oriented deadlines to sustainable product value streams, covering both the strategic wins and the difficult lessons learned. This isn't about abstract theory; it's a direct line to the tactics and philosophies used by industry pioneers. For anyone involved in technology business management-from team leads to the C-suite-this podcast serves as an essential masterclass. Listeners gain access to the nuanced, often unspoken details of scaling digital innovation, all through the lens of Kersten’s expertise and his guests' diverse experiences. The result is a consistently insightful resource for navigating the complex journey of modern digital transformation.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 63

Mik + One: The Official Project to Product Podcast by Dr. Mik Kersten
Podcast Episodes
Episode 51: Carol Houle on Strategic Digital Transformations [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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Joining Mik in this episode of Mik + One is Carol Houle, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Financial Services and Insurance at Atos. With over two decades of experience in building and renovating businesses seekin…
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Episode 41: Bank of New Zealand on Applying the Flow Metrics at Scale [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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To kick off the first episode of 2022, Mik is joined by two guests from Bank of New Zealand: Paul Littlefair, Chief Technology Officer, and BMK Lakshminarayanan, Value Stream Architect. In this episode, Mik, Paul and BMK…