--- title: From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten description: Mik Kersten, author of Project to Product, discusses his new book Output to Outcome, which argues that organizations are stuck in an 'AI productivity... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten | daily.dev og:description: Mik Kersten, author of Project to Product, discusses his new book Output to Outcome, which argues that organizations are stuck in an 'AI productivity... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/VFBbO86sv.png og:image:alt: From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten **[IT Revolution](https://daily.dev/sources/itrevolution)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Mik Kersten, author of Project to Product, discusses his new book Output to Outcome, which argues that organizations are stuck in an 'AI productivity paradox'—investing heavily in AI while still measuring output rather than business outcomes. He introduces Outcome Management as a systems-level leadership practice, along with three foundational models: the Product Operating Model, the Outcome Loop, and the Outcome Tree. Kersten explains why Agile and DevOps investments at the team level haven't delivered expected returns (the bottleneck is the operating model, not the team), describes the role of the 'outcome manager' as a hybrid product/engineering leader with AI fluency, and outlines seven organizational shifts needed to adapt. He also addresses societal concerns around AI scaling knowledge output, human agency, and wealth concentration. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the AI productivity paradox that Mik Kersten describes in Output to Outcome? It refers to organizations pouring heavy investment into AI while still measuring and managing for output rather than outcomes, so the gains fail to translate into measurable business results. The root cause is that operating models built around output constraints cannot harness the productivity multipliers AI and agents create, leaving bottlenecks upstream and downstream of teams that block value delivery at AI-enabled speed. _For teams rethinking how AI investment translates into results, daily.dev surfaces analysis like Kersten's outcome management framework._ ### Why haven't Agile and DevOps investments delivered the productivity gains enterprises expected? Team-level Agile and DevOps improvements made teams faster, but most organizations never transformed the broader operating model around those teams. Project to Product's State of the Industry research found enterprises still weren't reaching digital-native productivity levels because the real constraint was bottlenecks upstream and downstream of teams, not the teams themselves. _Engineering leaders weighing why past Agile or DevOps rollouts stalled can find this kind of analysis through daily.dev._ ### What does Cognition's engineering process look like as an example of an AI-native organization? Cognition runs as many as ten concurrent rewrites of its Devin agent, demos new agents to leadership every Sunday, and discards an order of magnitude more code than it ships. Unlike a typical enterprise that treats every output as precious, Cognition deliberately overproduces outputs to iterate faster toward measurable outcomes, since it isn't constrained by output capacity. _Teams studying how AI-native companies like Cognition operate can track this evolving practice via daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Sneak Peek at Mik Kersten’s New Book: Output to Outcome](https://daily.dev/posts/sneak-peek-at-mik-kersten-s-new-book-output-to-outcome-xiq1ultqx) · IT Revolution · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Leadership Role AI Is Creating \(and Why Most Leaders Aren’t Ready for It\)](https://daily.dev/posts/the-leadership-role-ai-is-creating-and-why-most-leaders-aren-t-ready-for-it--c7oe1qwow) · IT Revolution · 5 upvotes · 1 comments - [Your Strategy Isn’t Failing. Your Feedback Loop Is.](https://daily.dev/posts/your-strategy-isn-t-failing-your-feedback-loop-is--zrr4yp5if) · IT Revolution · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Seven Organizational Shifts That Determine Whether Your AI Investment Pays Off](https://daily.dev/posts/the-seven-organizational-shifts-that-determine-whether-your-ai-investment-pays-off-2vxwiqxvu) · IT Revolution · 4 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#devops](https://daily.dev/tags/devops), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#agile](https://daily.dev/tags/agile), [#product-management](https://daily.dev/tags/product-management) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv"},"datePublished":"2026-07-14T14:54:23.402Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:53:35.576Z","description":"Mik Kersten, author of Project to Product, discusses his new book Output to Outcome, which argues that organizations are stuck in an 'AI productivity...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5090b5e64cd84a6a6614873950793820?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/5090b5e64cd84a6a6614873950793820?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"IT Revolution","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"IT Revolution","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/16f07ad083fa4ce38532892a8447dcf9","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/itrevolution"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"devops,productivity,agile,product-management","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"IT Revolution","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/itrevolution"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"From Output to Outcome: A Conversation with Mik Kersten"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/from-output-to-outcome-a-conversation-with-mik-kersten-vfbbo86sv#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the AI productivity paradox that Mik Kersten describes in Output to Outcome?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"It refers to organizations pouring heavy investment into AI while still measuring and managing for output rather than outcomes, so the gains fail to translate into measurable business results. 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