Shifting the paradigm from projects to products – Lessons from UK Home Office

Who is responsible for evolution of the services and digital products created by transformation programmes that have ended? Who owns the costs and decides on future priorities? What are the roles of ‘the business’ and digital teams in an increasingly digitally enabled public service? 

These questions face all government departments as they try to embed the principles set out in the Blueprint for a Modern Digital Government, which emphasises the need for long-term ownership of digital capabilities across the civil service and shared digital platforms and infrastructure aligned to meet common public service needs. 

At the Home Office, as major programmes were drawing to a close, there was a need to explore a new model that would enable: 

• sustainable service delivery, ensuring that digital services continue to meet user needs beyond the lifespan of the programme 
• effective stewardship of digital products and platforms, including clear ownership, funding, and governance 
• a continuous improvement mindset, allowing services to evolve iteratively in response to policy shifts, user feedback, and technological change -moving away from the 'boom and bust' cycle typical of programme-led delivery. 

To address this, the Home Office made a deliberate shift from a project-based to a product-centric approach, adopting industry best practices in product lifecycle management to guide how digital capabilities are managed and evolved. At the heart of this transition was the realignment of multidisciplinary teams across policy, design, delivery, and Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) around the core services the Home Office provides to the public. This also required a reorientation of enabling functions - such as finance, governance, and HR - to support and operate within this new, service-aligned model. 

Baringa supported the Home Office over a six month period and we co-designed and implemented a new model and ways of working. We started with a particularly complex area – caseworking. This is the capability that underpins immigration case management and decision-making across multiple high-volume services, including asylum, visas, and enforcement.  

While theoretical frameworks and best practices existed, these had to be carefully tailored to reflect the complex and interwoven nature of the Home Office.  

Below, we outline four critical success factors that underpinned this transformation: 

1. Shared clarity on the case for change.  

• Early and consistent alignment on why the change was needed was key. While transformation programmes are essential for delivering discrete change, they are not designed to support the ongoing management and evolution of public services. Adopting a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approach - with clear business ownership, multidisciplinary teams (spanning policy, design, operations, and digital delivery), and funding that supports continuous improvement - offered a more sustainable model for service delivery. 
• Home Office leaders engaged stakeholders through one-to-one conversations and collaborative group sessions. These discussions addressed concerns, gathered feedback, and refined the narrative over time. This wasn’t a one-off effort - a dialogue was maintained through steering groups and working forums to sustain alignment and support. 

2. Collaborative leadership.  

• Strong, visible leadership was critical to driving change. Shifting ways of working - especially away from familiar programme structures - required leaders who could not only articulate the new vision but also lead by example in cross-functional collaboration. 
• The transformation was co-led by senior leaders from system design, enterprise architecture, DDaT, operations, finance, and existing change programmes. This broad coalition ensured all parts of the organisation that would be impacted by (or could positively influence) the change was at the table. It also enabled collective decision-making around the design of the new operating model, governance structures, and leadership roles. 

3. Clear business and digital alignment  

• Delivering seamless digital public services requires close alignment between policy, operational delivery, business ownership, and digital capability. 
• The Home Office formalised this alignment by organising teams around core service capabilities - ensuring shared accountability, clearer roles and responsibilities, and aligned incentives. This was more than a structural change; it represented a cultural shift in how outcomes were jointly owned and delivered across disciplines. 

4. Show not tell 

• New operating models often remain theoretical, documented in proposals and slide decks. The Home Office deliberately prioritised early implementation, moving beyond design into action to demonstrate how the model could work in practice. 
• By focusing on the caseworking capability, the team delivered the first tangible example of incremental change outside of a traditional programme structure. The goal was to show - not just tell - how services could be delivered with greater business ownership, streamlined governance, and empowered multidisciplinary teams, even without changing formal reporting lines. 
• This early success provided proof of concept: within three months of go-live, the new model was already delivering measurable benefits. It created momentum, built confidence across the organisation, and established a solid foundation for scaling the new ways of working. 

As we move further into the AI era, service and product lifecycle management is already well-established as a standard operating model across leading industries such as financial services, telecommunications, and retail. In the public sector, where it has been adopted - such as by HM Passport Office - it has demonstrated clear benefits: accelerating digital and AI adoption, enabling faster delivery of strategic outcomes, and supporting the user-led evolution of services and products.  

With HM Treasury increasingly open to funding enduring services over time-limited programmes, there is a timely opportunity for government departments to shift the paradigm. Embracing a product-centric approach - grounded in continuous improvement, strong business ownership, and integrated multidisciplinary delivery - provides a more sustainable path for delivering modern, resilient, and user-focused public services. 

This model is not only future-ready but is already proving to be a powerful enabler for a truly digital-first, AI-enabled government.