Thiga x Groupe Mutuel | Moving toward a product operating model.

Sommaire

Context

At the end of 2024, Groupe Mutuel, one of Switzerland’s leading insurance providers, initiated a transformation of its digital operations.
The company wanted to modernize how it built and delivered its digital services, moving away from a project-based structure toward a product and customer-journey operating model.

Facing fragmented ownership between IT and business, slow decision cycles, and limited alignment on digital priorities, the leadership team asked Thiga to help them strengthen their Product practices and improve collaboration across business, design, and technology. They selected their self-service team as a pilot to serve as proof of value for new, product-led ways of working across the organization.

Challenges

Despite a solid IT foundation and a strong ambition for digital, the organization faced recurring obstacles:

Fragmented decision-making between business and IT, with blurred ownership.
Delivery organized by project budgets rather than customer or Product outcomes.
Low visibility on performance: few shared KPIs or success measures.
Siloed teams, duplicated roles and inconsistent ways of working, leading to inefficiencies.

Thiga’s mission was to help Groupe Mutuel test, prove, and scale a new model, one that could empower teams, clarify objectives, and accelerate delivery while keeping a strong customer focus.

Our approach

01
Assessed Product Maturity
Conducted a comprehensive audit of the pilot team across nine Product excellence pillars through interviews with directors, leaders, and team members, establishing a clear maturity baseline.
02
Identified Improvement Streams & Pilot Objectives
Defined five key improvement streams and translated them into concrete objectives for the six-month pilot.
03
Simplified Roles & Decision Rights
Assessed candidates for Product Manager role, clarified team responsibilities and decision-making through a streamlined RACI, reducing overlaps and accelerating alignment between business, tech, and design.
04
Set Common Objectives for All Team Members
Aligned every contributor around shared goals combining Product outcomes, technical delivery, and collaboration behaviors, fostering true cross-functional accountability.
05
Individual Coaching
Provided targeted coaching for the Product Manager, Designer, and Data Analyst to strengthen ownership, prioritization, and value-driven decision-making.
06
Upskilling & Tooling on Discovery and Measurement
Enhanced team capabilities and tooling on user discovery, experimentation, and performance tracking, embedding data-informed practices in daily work.
07
Steering with Leadership Team
Collaborated closely with sponsors and directors through structured steering rituals, ensuring visibility, support, and alignment at every milestone of the pilot.
08
Acculturation
Delivered awareness and learning sessions for executives, business leaders, and the Product Owner community to spread a shared Product mindset across the organization.

Our impact

Clear Product Vision and Objectives : The Pilot team now shares a written, measurable vision and three aligned objectives, adoption, usage, and autonomy, creating a unified direction across business, design, and tech.

Stronger Cross-Functional Collaboration and Engagement : Simplified roles, shared objectives, and targeted coaching improved collaboration and ownership, raising team engagement (4.4/5) and eNPS (+50) while strengthening individual accountability.

Faster Delivery Cycle : Lead time per feature dropped below three months thanks to integrated discovery and delivery sprints, structured roadmap reviews, and transparent prioritization.

Data-Informed Mindset : Key Results, early dashboards, and new measurement rituals enabled the team to steer decisions based on outcomes and tangible business impact.

Leadership Alignment on Product Practices : Regular steering sessions and alignment workshops helped executives and sponsors adopt a shared understanding of Product ways of working and governance principles.

Foundations for Scaling the Model : The pilot established a proven reference for Product excellence, offering a replicable model for upcoming digital teams such as Web and Chatbot.