While working with digital identity in the enterprise, how often do you find yourself being asked: “When are you done?” In this session, we will explore the long-needed shift from treating digital identity initiatives as finite projects to embracing them as ongoing products.

The project-based approach isn’t inherently bad—there will always be a need for clearly scoped initiatives like MFA rollouts. However, a purely project-focused identity effort incentivizes the wrong behaviors: short-term wins over long-term sustainability, fragmented solutions over cohesive systems, and static milestones over continuous improvement. When we frame identity work as something with a 'done' state, we set expectations for completion instead of recognizing the iterative journey that identity management truly requires.

Shifting to a program mindset doesn’t fully solve the problem. Programs often lean toward static processes rather than treating incremental improvement as a core expectation. By reimagining enterprise identity and access management as a product, organizations can align their identity strategy with principles like continuous improvement, user-centric design, and adaptive responses to changing business and security needs.

The good news is that many enterprises already embrace this model, but it often exists in the customer identity space or other business functions. Vendors in the identity ecosystem also operate with a product mindset because they know the problem well. Isn't it time for enterprises to bring the same product management approach to their internal identity efforts?