“If you want to get rid of obsolete practices and succeed with the new digital, read this book.”
As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th. Unfortunately, business and technology leaders are woefully ill-equipped to solve the problems posed by digital transformation. At the current rate of disruption, half of S&P 500 companies will be replaced in the next ten years. A new approach is needed.
In Project to Product, Value Stream Network pioneer and technology business leader Dr. Mik Kersten introduces the Flow Framework—a new way of seeing, measuring, and managing software delivery. The Flow Framework will enable your company’s evolution from project-oriented dinosaur to product-centric innovator that thrives in the Age of Software. If you’re driving your organization’s transformation at any level, this is the book for you.
“Every now and then, a body of work comes along with such timely precision that you think hallelujah! Mik’s book Project to Product is the perfect antidote for those businesses struggling with digital transformation, broken Agile implementations, and the onslaught of enterprise disruption."
Dr. Mik Kersten started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC where he created the first aspect-oriented development environment. He then pioneered the integration of development tools with Agile and DevOps as part of his Computer Science PhD at the University of British Columbia. Founding Tasktop out of that research, Mik has written over one million lines of open-source code that is still in use today, and he has brought seven successful open-source and commercial products to market.
Mik’s experiences working with some of the largest digital transformations in the world has led him to identify the critical disconnect between business leaders and technologists. Since that time, Mik has been working on creating new tools and a new framework for connecting software value stream networks and enabling the shift from project to product.
Mik lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada, and travels globally, sharing his vision for transforming how software is built.
“With the introduction of the Flow Framework, Mik has provided a missing element to any large-scale Agile transformation. I recommend that anyone involved in complex product delivery read this book and think about how they can apply this thinking to their value stream.”
"[Project to Product]provides the motivation and the toolset necessary to help create a product portfolio based on a value driven approach. For me it is a must read—and indeed it is also a fun read.”
My career has been dedicated to understanding and improving how large-scale software is built. I spent nearly two decades working on new programming languages and software development tools, and have had a chance to work with some of the best technologists in the world. But I have come to realize that, due to where we are in the Turning Point, technology improvements are no longer the bottleneck. Technology improvements will be relevant but incremental, yielding productivity gains of less than ten percent to organizations via new programming languages, tools, frameworks, and runtimes.
Implementing a digital transformation in any enterprise can be dramatic and daunting, but essential for continued success. In particular, moving from a project-based delivery model to a product-centric model can be a game changer. In this post, leaders can learn how to grasp the complexities and difficulties of implementing organizational change and digital transformation through seven key areas, or domains.
So, you want to move from a project-based to a product-based software delivery model. How do you start? In a large enterprise, there is likely an embedded culture of working in a project model. Roles such as project managers and portfolio managers will be impacted. Business leaders who previously may not have directly concerned themselves with IT’s implementation of Agile will now need to be more involved.
"This book is spot on the journey Volvo Car Group is starting up right now. The insight Mik has in our industry and the way his book describes the Age of Software makes this our new “go to” book for our product journey in our digital landscape!”