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Helping technology leaders achieve their goals through publishing, events & research.

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Measure Software Delivery Performance with Four Key Metrics

February 25, 2021 by IT Revolution 1 Comment

This post has been adapted from Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps by Nicole Forsgren, PhD, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim. There are many frameworks and methodologies that aim to improve the way we build software products and services. We wanted to discover what works and what doesn’t in a scientific way, starting with a definition of what “good” means in this context. This post presents the four key metrics to measure software delivery performance. MEASURING SOFTWARE DELIVERY … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Accelerate, Software Delivery Tagged With: accelerate, four key metrics, Gene Kim, jez humble, nicole forsgren, performance, software delivery

The IT Leader’s Place in the Business

February 9, 2021 by Mark Schwartz Leave a Comment

This post was is an excerpt from the book A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility by Mark Schwartz. In the Agile world, senior IT leadership, and the CIO in particular, must look at their jobs in a new way if they want to secure a seat at the table. A few of the critical characteristics of the new IT leadership role include: Driver of Outcomes Manager of Uncertainty Steward of Assets Contributor Influencer and Salesperson Orchestrator of Chaos Enabler Impediment … [Read more...]

Filed Under: A Seat at the Table, DevOps Community Tagged With: a seat at the table, agile, devops, leadership, mark schwartz

Lack of Psychological Safety at Boeing

January 28, 2021 by Jonathan Smart 5 Comments

This post is an excerpt from the book Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility by Jonathan Smart, with Myles Ogilvie, Zsolt Berend, and Simon Rohrer. 787 Dreamliner Factory, North Charleston, South Carolina Cynthia Kitchens was a quality manager at the Boeing North Charleston factory, which makes the 787 Dreamliner. According to an investigation by the New York Times in 2019, Kitchens said that her superiors penalized her in performance reviews and berated her on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: boeing, Jonathan Smart, psychological safety, Sooner Safer Happier

Minimize Team Cognitive Load to Increase Flow

January 21, 2021 by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais Leave a Comment

The team is the fundamental means of delivery at organizations. But organizations also need to ensure that the cognitive load on a team is not too high. A team working with software systems that require too high of a cognitive load cannot effectively own or safely evolve the software. In this post, we will identify ways in which the cognitive load on teams can be detected and limited in order to safely promote fast flow of change. First, let's look at how to measure cognitive load. Measure … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Team Topologies Tagged With: cognitive load, manuel pais, matthew skelton, team motivation, team org structure, team organization, team topologies, teams

Team Cognitive Load

January 19, 2021 by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais Leave a Comment

When we talk about cognitive load, it’s easy to understand that any one person has a limit on how much information they can hold in their brains at any given moment. The same happens for any one team by simply adding up all the team members’ cognitive capacities. What is Cognitive Load Cognitive load was characterized in 1988 by psychologist John Sweller as “the total amount of mental effort being used in the working memory.” Sweller defines three different kinds of cognitive load: Intrinsic … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Team Topologies Tagged With: cognitive load, manuel pais, matthew skelton, organization design, team org structure, team organization, team topologies

Optimize Your Time with The Balanced Calendar

January 14, 2021 by IT Revolution Leave a Comment

What prevents you from getting work done? One of the top answers is too many meetings! Too many interruptions, meetings, and tools overburdens workers and can lead to burn out. In this post, we visit Dominica DeGrandis's advice for creating a balanced calendar to optimize your time. Too Many Meetings A calendar full of meetings leads to little time to complete actual work. We double book, triple book, and even quadruple book our time.  Dominica DeGrandis describes three common types of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: DevOps Community, DevOps Enterprise Summit, Making Work Visible Tagged With: dominica degrandis, making work visible, Time Optimization

Bonus Interview with Jonathan Smart on Sooner Safer Happier

January 6, 2021 by IT Revolution Leave a Comment

Gene: You use the Cynefin model to frame a picture of everything from known knowns to unknown unknowns. What about this model is essential to the necessary mindset shift and business success in the digital age? Jon: I find Cynefin, a sense-making model, to be a great frame of reference for optimizing the approach to the work, to the domain of the work. Cynefin articulates five domains.  Within the Clear domain, there are known-knowns. There is best practice.The relationship between cause and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: better value sooner safer happier, Gene Kim, Jonathan Smart, leadership, Sooner Safer Happier

Leading through Better Value Sooner Safer Happier

January 4, 2021 by IT Revolution 1 Comment

Gene Kim Interviews Jonathan Smart, author of Sooner Safer Happier (Part 1) Gene Kim: Why Better Value Sooner Safer Happier? What about those five words is so revolutionary. Jonathan Smart: The world of work has fundamentally changed. We are living through a tipping point in the latest of a succession of technology-led revolutions, which have a socio-economic impact. We’ve gone from the Age of Oil and Mass Production to the Age of Digital. Like going from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, we … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: better value sooner safer happier, business leadership, Gene Kim, Jonathan Smart, leadership, Sooner Safer Happier

Happier Employees Equal Better Business Outcomes

December 11, 2020 by Jeffrey Fredrick Leave a Comment

Two Simple Questions for Better Business Outcomes Two questions I ask during 1-on-1s might strike people as a bit unusual, but they directly lead to better business outcomes:  Are you happy? Are you able to do work that you’re proud of? Why? A core reason is that I care about the people I work with, and I want good things for them. I want them to be happy! When I learn there are obstacles to their happiness, we generally have a productive conversation about what can be changed. My conceit is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Agile Conversations, Podcast, The Idealcast Tagged With: agile conversations, better business outcomes, employee satisfaction, Gene Kim, jeffrey fredrick, the idealcast

Choosing a Narrator for Sooner Safer Happier

December 1, 2020 by Jonathan Smart Leave a Comment

“Would you narrate the book, Jon?” said Anna, Editorial Director at IT Revolution. “The intonation, the emphasis, is more natural when the author reads their own words,” Anna explained.  I was in a dilemma. I wanted to read it for that reason, the subconscious passion that comes across when reading out loud the words you’ve written and have viscerally lived. Likewise narrating the words of the co-authors, where we have shared journeys and learnings together. We discussed how long it would take, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sooner Safer Happier Tagged With: audiobook, Jonathan Smart, Sooner Safer Happier

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