The mandate
The transformation challenge was enterprise-wide: translate strategic intent into a coherent future-state way of working and then carry that design into implementation. The operating model had to address how work was organized, how products and value streams were defined, how decisions were made, how engineering capability would modernize, how leaders would govern the change, and how performance would be measured.
The work
Don Ring assumed Cognizant prime-contractor leadership for the Project Runway Agile Way of Working Blueprint and Detailed Design and later continued directly through Bodon Draiger to preserve leadership continuity as the design moved into execution.
- Defined product/value-stream architecture, organizational structures, competency models, governance, decision rights, performance measures, and the enterprise implementation approach.
- Established executive decision forums, OKRs, transformation measures, risk/dependency visibility, and an SVP-chaired steering mechanism across major portfolios.
- Partnered directly with the CIO, Technology Academy, EVPs/SVPs, directors, product, engineering, and delivery leaders.
- Conducted the enterprise DevSecOps assessment for the CIO and translated workflow evidence, engineering constraints, and capability gaps into a modernization strategy.
- Designed and scaled the DevOps Dojo Factory / Technology Academy capability model using live product backlogs and real engineering work to build sustainable capability while advancing delivery.
The design tension
Common enterprise direction without pretending every portfolio is identical.
At this scale, the operating model needed enough common structure to create executive alignment, product/value-stream clarity, governance, measures, and engineering direction while still working across different portfolios, technologies, and geographies. The lesson is not that one framework should be imposed everywhere. It is that the enterprise interfaces—decisions, accountability, flow, measures, and escalation—have to be coherent.
What changed
The value of the work was not a single artifact. The transformation created a connected set of mechanisms: product and value-stream structures, executive governance, decision rights, DevSecOps practices, capability development, OKRs, performance measures, and a pathway to internal ownership. The organization had a clearer way to translate enterprise priorities into decisions and execution.
A transformation blueprint is useful only when it defines the decisions, structures, behaviors, measures, and capability required to operate differently after the design team leaves.
Field lesson
Capability transfer works better when learning is attached to real work.
The Dojo Factory used teams’ actual product backlogs and engineering workflows rather than separating training from delivery. That matters because organizations do not struggle mainly to understand new concepts. They struggle to apply them while deadlines, architecture, controls, dependencies, and production realities are still present.
Why this case matters
Scale magnifies incoherence. A governance ambiguity that is tolerable across five teams becomes expensive across hundreds. Product boundaries, decision rights, capability models, and measures therefore cannot be designed independently. They have to reinforce one another.
The experience also reinforces why capability transfer matters. Training disconnected from live work often produces knowledge without behavior change. Using teams’ actual backlogs and engineering workflows made capability development part of delivery rather than an activity beside it.
Leadership question
If the external transformation team left tomorrow, which parts of the operating model would the organization still know how to run, measure, and improve?