“We're doing very well. We're barely hanging in there. Some people are loving work from home. Some people are hating work from home. So who's right? Who's wrong? How do we make sense of it? And what's the data tell us, because remember, we aren't just working from home, we're working from home through a pandemic, and at least in the US, a handful of other crises. So while there isn't a perfect examination of life and working from home, we do have some interesting data points. We can look out … [Read more...]
Benefits of a DevOps Mindset
A series of advice blogs from DevOps Enterprise Summit 2020 presenters. Sometimes, it's not easy to help a boss or colleague understand why and how DevOps can solve many or your problems. But these experts from the DevOps Enterprise Summit boil it down to its simplest and most powerful for you. “We are designing an entire system of delivery, from idea to end user, around the truth that every requirement is wrong, we've misunderstood it, and/or it will have changed by the time we can deliver a … [Read more...]
Choosing a Narrator for Sooner Safer Happier
“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...]
Conway’s Law: Critical for Efficient Team Design in Tech
This post on Conway's Law is adapted from Chapter 2 of Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow. Conway's Law Conway’s law is critical to understanding the forces at play when organizing teams amidst the long-lasting, unattended impact they can have on our software systems, as the latter have become larger and more interconnected than ever before. But you might wonder if a law from 1968 about software architecture has stood the test of time. We’ve come a long … [Read more...]
Pattern 1.2: Start with Why; Empower the How
This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. In Antipattern 1.2: Using Old Ways of Thinking to Apply New Ways of Working, we saw how a capital “A,” capital “T” Agile Transformation feels to an employee like involuntary, mandatory change being inflicted upon them, whether they like it or not. The capital “A” denotes how they are going to change and the capital “T” denotes that they have to change. … [Read more...]
BVSSH Principles
In Sooner Safer Happier: Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility by Jonathan Smart, Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer, each chapter's essence is distilled into guiding principles, to guide behavior and the millions of decisions that we make every day. For example, “Invite over Inflict” and “One Size Does Not Fit All.” They apply across contexts. Specific practices emerge by applying the principles to a unique context and by using coaching and experimentation, … [Read more...]
Antipattern 1.2: Using Old Ways of Thinking to Apply New Ways of Working
This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. Focusing on “Agile,” “Lean,” or “DevOps” as the end rather than the means to an end is using old ways of thinking to apply new ways of working. A capital “A,” capital “T” Agile Transformation, from the perspective of employees, infers involuntary, mandatory change being done to them, whether they like it or not. The capital “A” denotes how they are … [Read more...]
Pattern 1.1: Focus on Outcomes
In our last post, we looked at Antipattern 1.1: Doing an Agile Transformation. Now we'll look at the corresponding pattern: Focus on Outcomes. Focus on the outcomes, on Better Value Sooner Safer Happier, as the goal, not on Agile, Lean, or DevOps as the goal in order to achieve true business agility. In his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations, sociologist Everett Rogers described how innovation tended to spread first to a small number of Innovators, then reached Early Adopters, was taken up by … [Read more...]
Antipattern 1.1: Doing an Agile Transformation
This post on the Agile Transformation Antipattern is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. I’ve met with many organizations and leadership teams that want to undertake an “Agile Transformation.” The process usually begins in the same way. We sit with senior leaders and ask them why they want to change. The response is often silence. A couple of people will stare at the ceiling. Someone will stretch their … [Read more...]
What is Better Value Sooner Safer Happier?
This post is adapted from Chapter 1 of Sooner Safer Happier by Jonathan Smart, with Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie, and Simon Rohrer. Do you want to do or are you currently doing an Agile, Lean, or DevOps Transformation? If so, my best advice is: Don’t. Instead, focus on the outcomes you want to achieve. Then you will achieve agility. Focus on: Better Value Sooner Safer Happier. This is the number one lesson I’ve learned after almost thirty years as an agile and lean practitioner … [Read more...]
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