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Disappointing Affirmations (Disappointing Affirmations Ser.)
by Dave TarnowskiUSA Today Bestseller Disappointing Affirmations hilariously counters the culture of relentless toxic positivity with a realistic take on a disappointing world where failure is always an option, but that’s okay. From the creator of the wildly popular Instagram account @disappointingaffirmations.Pairing lovely vacation photos taken by the author himself with sayings that are amusingly self-critical, encouraging, disillusioned, or all three at once, Tarnowski points to feelings commonly unacknowledged or hidden and spotlights them with humor, wit, and empathy. You can do it! But you probably won’t. But also: Be kind to yourself, asshole. Transforming and re-envisioning the material for print while adding tons of new work, this is the funny-because-it’s-true, sneaky self-help gift book for anyone who isn’t happy all the time and doesn’t feel seen in the whole "positive mental attitude" culture. Unfollow your dreams! Like a non-disappointing gift with purchase, the book's jacket folds out into a motivational poster, suitable for display anywhere disappointment may strike.IT REALLY IS OKAY TO NOT BE OKAY: People say, "It’s okay to not be okay," but then it feels like they need you to be okay. This subversively funny book is the perfect way to remind ourselves, or anyone who needs it, that it's better to deal with our feelings honestly than fall into the "positive vibes only" self-help trap. COMEDY FOR A NEW ERA: Wellness has been slowly taking a darker turn in popular culture, and comedy is no exception. From Inside by Bo Burnham to the absurdity of TV giant Succession, audiences are drawn to media that embraces discomfort rather than drowning it out. Disappointing Affirmations may not look very comforting, but not all self-care comes in the form of warm hugs and sunrise yoga. FOR HUMOR BOOK FANS: Seeking a gift for the anti-optimist in your life? This one fits the bill for fans of satirical doom classics and self-help antidotes such as All My Friends Are Dead, Am I Overthinking This?, the Worst Case Scenario series, and The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. THERE’S MORE: See also the accompanying stationery and gift items, including Disappointing Affirmations Wall Calendar, Disappointing Affirmations Pencils, Disappointing Affirmations: 30 Postcards, Disappointing Affirmations Sticker Book, and Disappointing Affirmations: The Game. You won’t be disappointed.Perfect for: College grads, people entering the workforce, people who wish they hadn’t entered the workforce Fans of the @disappointingaffirmations Instagram account Anyone who isn't always cheerful and doesn't feel seen Fans of satire and sarcastic humor Anyone feeling burnout, empathy fatigue, positivity fatigue, or fatigue in general
DevOps for the Modern Enterprise: Winning Practices to Transform Legacy IT Organizations
by Mirco HeringMany organizations are facing the uphill battle of modernizing their legacy IT infrastructure. Most have evolved over the years by taking lessons from traditional or legacy manufacturing: creating a production process that puts the emphasis on the process instead of the people performing the tasks, allowing the organization to treat people like resources to try to achieve high-quality outcomes. But those practices and ideas are failing modern IT, where collaboration and creativeness are required to achieve high-performing, high-quality success.Mirco Hering, a thought leader in managing IT within legacy organizations, lays out a roadmap to success for IT managers, showing them how to create the right ecosystem, how to empower people to bring their best to work every day, and how to put the right technology in the driver's seat to propel their organization to success.But just having the right methods and tools will not magically transform an organization; the cultural change that is the hardest is also the most impactful. Using principles from Agile, Lean, and DevOps as well as first-hand examples from the enterprise world, Hering addresses the different challenges that legacy organizations face as they transform into modern IT departments.
Beyond The Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution Of DevOps (Official Transcript of The Audio Series) (The Phoenix Project)
by Gene Kim John WillisThis is a companion transcript of the audio series, Beyond The Phoenix Project, intended to be used for reference and to enable further research of cited material, and not as a standalone work.In the audio series, Gene Kim and John Willis present a nine-part discussion that includes an oral history of the DevOps movement, as well as discussions around pivotal figures and philosophies that DevOps draws upon, from Goldratt to Deming; from Lean to Safety Culture to Learning Organizations.The book is a great way for listeners to take an even deeper dive into topics relevant to DevOps and leading technology organizations.
A Reader's Guide to A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility
by Mark SchwartzA Reader's Guide to A Seat at the Table is intended to add another dimension to the original book. This reader's guide walks through A Seat at the Table chapter by chapter.Each chapter includes additional material on:• The author's take on the chapter.• The author's motivation in writing the chapter, including the personal experiences.• What has changed between the Waterfall/contractor-control world and the Agile world.• The key points of the chapter.• The concrete actions that IT leaders should take away from the chapter.• Questions to help stimulate further debate.• Further reading to explore the topic.• And more.
Leading the Transformation: Applying Agile and DevOps Principles at Scale
by Gary Gruver Tommy MouserSoftware is becoming more and more important across a broad range of industries, yet most technology executives struggle to deliver software improvements their businesses require.Leading-edge companies like Amazon and Google are applying DevOps and Agile principles to deliver large software projects faster than anyone thought possible. But most executives don't understand how to transform their current legacy systems and processes to scale these principles across their organizations.Leading the Transformation is executive guide, providing a clear framework for improving development and delivery. Instead of the traditional Agile and DevOps approaches that focus on improving the effectiveness of teams, this book targets the coordination of work across teams in large organizations—an improvement that executives are uniquely positioned to lead.
The Art of Business Value
by Mark SchwartzDo you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements &“tossed over the wall&” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal!Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software. This book will make you think deeply about not only what it means to deliver value but also the relationship of the IT organization to the rest of the enterprise. It will give you the language to discuss value with the business, methods to cut through bureaucracy, and strategies for incorporating Agile teams and culture into the enterprise. Most of all, this book will startle you into new ways of thinking about the cutting-edge of Agile practice and where it may lead.
War and Peace and IT: Business Leadership, Technology, and Success in the Digital Age
by Mark SchwartzThe Business-IT Wall Must Come DownWith A Seat at the Table, thought leader Mark Schwartz pulled out a chair for CIOs at the C-suite table. Now Mark brings his unique perspective and experience to business leaders looking to lead their company into the digital age by harnessing the expertise and innovation that is already under their roof: IT. In the war for business supremacy, Schwartz shows we must throw out the old management models and stereotypes that pit suits against nerds. Instead, business leaders of today can foster a space of collaboration and shared mission, a space that puts technologists and business people on the same team. For business leaders looking to unlock their enterprise's digital transformation, War and Peace and IT provides clear context and strategies. Schwartz demystifies the role IT plays in the modern enterprise, allowing business leaders to create new strategies for the new digital battleground. It is time to change not only the enterprise's relationship with technology, but its relationship with technologists. To accelerate, enterprises must bring technology to the heart of their work, for just as technology is causing this disruption, it is technology that provides the solution. Unlike Napoleon, it is time for business leaders to come down from the hill atop the Battle of Borodino and enter the fray with the technologists, for that is where the war will be won or lost.
A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility
by Mark SchwartzAgile, Lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game changers, providing a fundamentally different way to think about how IT fits into the enterprise, how IT leaders lead, and how IT can harness technology to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise. But honest and open conversations are not taking place between management and Agile delivery teams.In A Seat at the Table, CIO Mark Schwartz explores the role of IT leadership as it is now and opens the door to reveal IT leadership as it should be—an integral part of the value creation engine. With an easy style, Schwartz reveals that the only way to become an Agile IT leader is to be courageous—to throw off the attitude and assumptions that have kept CIOs from taking their rightful seat at the table. CIOs, step on up, your seat at the table is waiting for you.
Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework
by Mik KerstenAs 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.
Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow
by Dominica DeGrandisIf someone stole your wallet, you'd notice it. So why don't people notice when they are robbed of something much more valuable than their wallet—time?Today's workers are drowning: nonstop requests for time, days filled to the brim with meetings, and endless nights spent heroically fixing the latest problems. This churn and burn is creating a workforce constantly on the edge of burnout. In this timely book, IT time management expert Dominica DeGrandis reveals the real crime of the century—time theft, one of the most costly factors impacting enterprises in their day-to-day operations.Through simple solutions that make work visible, DeGrandis helps people round up the five thieves of time and take back their lives with time-saving solutions. Chock-full of exercises, takeaways, real-world examples, colorful diagrams, and an easy-going writing style, readers will quickly learn effective practices to create high-performing workflows within an organization.The technology world—and indeed the whole business world—is moving at a pace faster than ever before, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Instead of consigning ourselves to the pressure cooker of the modern world, it's time to elevate how we work. It's time to level up our game. It's time to make work visible.
Agile Conversations: Transform Your Conversations, Transform Your Culture
by Douglas Squirrel Jeffrey FredrickA successful digital transformation must start with a conversational transformation.Today, software organizations are transforming the way work gets done through practices like Agile, Lean, and DevOps. But as commonly implemented as these methods are, many transformations still fail, largely because the organization misses a critical step: transforming their culture and the way people communicate.Agile Conversations brings a practical, step-by-step guide to using the human power of conversation to build effective, high-performing teams to achieve truly Agile results. Consultants Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick show readers how to utilize the Five Conversations to help teams build trust, alleviate fear, answer the &“whys,&” define commitments, and hold everyone accountable.These five conversations give teams everything they need to reach peak performance, and they are exactly what&’s missing from too many teams today. Stop focusing on processes and practices that leave your organization stuck with culture-less rituals. Instead, unleash the unique human power of conversation.
A Seat at the Table and The Art of Business Value
by Mark SchwartzA Seat at the Table: Agile, Lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game-changers. They provide a fundamentally different way to think about how IT fits into the enterprise, how IT leaders lead, and how IT can harness technology to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise. But honest and open conversations are not taking place at the interface between management and Agile delivery teams. In A Seat at the Table, CIO Mark Schwartz explores the role of IT leadership as it is now and the role of IT leadership as it should be—an integral part of the value creation engine.Asking two critical questions, how can IT harness Agility to achieve the best value for the enterprise and how can IT redefine its relationship with the enterprise to maximize this value, and in the process, earn that seat at the table, Schwartz shows that the only way to become an Agile IT leader in today&’s world is to be courageous—to throw off many of the attitudes and assumptions that have left CIOs struggling to gain a seat at the table, to proceed in bold strokes, and to lead the enterprise in seizing opportunities to create business value through technology.The Art of Business Value: Do you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements &“tossed over the wall&” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal!Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software.This book will make you think deeply about not only what it means to deliver value but also the relationship of the IT organization to the rest of the enterprise. It will give you the language to discuss value with the business, methods to cut through bureaucracy and strategies for incorporating Agile teams and culture into the enterprise. Most of all, this book will startle you into new ways of thinking about the cutting-edge of Agile practice and where it may lead.
The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
by Gene Kim Jez Humble Patrick Debois John WillisIncrease profitability, elevate work culture, and exceed productivity goals through DevOps practices.More than ever, the effective management of technology is critical for business competitiveness. For decades, technology leaders have struggled to balance agility, reliability, and security. The consequences of failure have never been greater—whether it's the healthcare.gov debacle, cardholder data breaches, or missing the boat with Big Data in the cloud.And yet, high performers using DevOps principles, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Etsy, and Netflix, are routinely and reliably deploying code into production hundreds, or even thousands, of times per day.Following in the footsteps of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook shows leaders how to replicate these incredible outcomes, by showing how to integrate Product Management, Development, QA, IT Operations, and Information Security to elevate your company and win in the marketplace.
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
by Nicole Forsgren, PhD Jez Humble Gene KimWinner of the Shingo Publication AwardAccelerate your organization to win in the marketplace.How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years, we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter―that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance―and what drives it―using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and the science behind that research, making the information accessible for readers to apply in their own organizations.Readers will discover how to measure the performance of their teams, and what capabilities they should invest in to drive higher performance. This book is ideal for management at every level.
The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
by Gene Kim Jez Humble Patrick Debois John Willis Nicole ForsgrenThis award-winning and bestselling business handbook for digital transformation is now fully updated and expanded with the latest research and new case studies!&“[The DevOps Handbook] remains a must-read for any organization seeking to scale up its IT capability and expand DevOps practices across multiple departments or lines of business.&” —Mike Perrow, TechBeaconFor years, The DevOps Handbook has been the definitive guide for taking the successes laid out in the bestselling The Phoenix Project and applying them in any organization. Now, with this fully updated and expanded edition, it's time to take DevOps out of the IT department and apply it across the full business.Technology is now at the core of every company, no matter the business model or product. The theories and practices laid out in The DevOps Handbook are tools to be used by anyone from across the organization to create joy and succeed in the marketplace. The second edition features 15 new case studies, including stories from Adidas, American Airlines, Fannie Mae, Target, and the US Air Force. In addition, renowned researcher and coauthor of Accelerate, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, provides her insights through new and updated material and research. With over 100 pages of new content throughout the book, this expanded edition is a must read for anyone who works with technology.&“[The DevOps Handbook is] a practical roadmap to improving IT in any organization. It's also the most valuable book on software development I've read in the past 10 years.&” —Adam Hawkins, software developer and host of the podcast SmallBatches
Unbundling the Enterprise: APIs, Optionality, and the Science of Happy Accidents
by Stephen Fishman Matt McLarty&“Unbundling the Enterprise…blew me away. It is a combination of some of my favorite books: Dr. Carliss Baldwin's Design Rules and Eric Evans's Domain Driven Design with the strategic insights akin to Good to Great and Reengineering the Corporation.&”—Gene Kim, researcher and bestselling author of The Phoenix Project and Wiring the Winning Organization Unbundling the Enterprise provides a blueprint for organizations to remain relevant and maximize growth in the digital economy by embracing the flexibility and optionality enabled by APIs. Drawing on real-world examples of both innovative &“digital pirates&” and legacy &“digital settlers,&” authors Stephen Fishman and Matt McLarty articulate strategies to unbundle business capabilities into reusable digital assets. These building blocks can then be rapidly combined and recombined to capitalize on new opportunities and innovations as they emerge. For business and technology leaders, Unbundling the Enterprise provides an actionable methodology to engineer &“happy accidents&” and sustainable success in turbulent times. Underpinning their strategy are techniques tailored for digital business, like using APIs to create widespread optionality, designing digital business models focused on value exchange, and optimizing outcomes through tight feedback loops. More than copying the superficial traits of digital pioneers, this book reveals the deeper mindset shift required to continually capitalize on unanticipated opportunities enabled by rapid technology innovation.
Wrong Fit, Right Fit: Why How We Work Matters More Than Ever
by Andre MartinWe are in the midst of a crisis of commitment in the workplace—organizations are searching for engaged employees (&“talent&”) and employees are looking for a place to thrive. Both are struggling. If we fit, we hum, we connect, we create momentum and produce high-value work with grace and ease. But the wrong fit has serious consequences, including frustration, disengagement, and disruption, which undermines every aspect of daily work and the production of value. Finding the right fit is hard. Painfully hard. The good news is, there is a way forward. Through his decades of experience and exhaustive research, including intensive interviews with knowledge workers and leaders, Dr. Martin guides talent and organizations to find the right fit. Through easy exercises, clear insights, and personal stories, this book helps readers discover their perfect fit in the workplace. And for employers, Dr. Martin utilizes policies, communications, training, onboarding, role descriptions, and feedback to help them build a new path to worker engagement. Wrong Fit, Right Fit is for both talent and employers who are looking for strong compatibility for mutual success. Now is the time to boost engagement, inspiration, well-being, and meaning in the work we do. Now is the time to find a greater return in value for ourselves and our organizations. Now is the time to find the right fit.
Industrial DevOps: Build Better Systems Faster
by Dr. Suzette Johnson Robin YemanThe benefits of adopting agile ways of working are well-understood in the digital world. But those in cyber-physical systems (combining software, hardware, and firmware) think it is risky. But with today's speed of change, maybe the risk is in not changing.Industrial DevOps: Build Better Systems Faster shows readers how applying Agile and DevOps ways of working into cyber-physical systems presents the opportunity to reap huge rewards, including increased adaptability, shorter delivery schedules, reduced development cost, increased quality, and higher transparency into delivery.This book shows you how to couple the results of Agile and DevOps implementation in development with Lean and Agile in manufacturing. Through a successful application of 9 key principles, Industrial DevOps provides the foundational success patterns for the development of cyber-physical systems in the digital age. The benefits that have been obtained across industries can be transferred to the cyber-physical domain and they have the potential to provide an even greater impact in the delivery of products.
Remote Team Interactions Workbook: Using Team Topologies Patterns for Remote Working
by Matthew SkeltonIn the new remote-first and hybrid workplace, many organizations are struggling to catch up with new tooling and ways of working. Many are discovering for the first time that the physical office was covering up poorly defined teams and poorly defined areas of focus, threatening their DevOps transformation efforts and the overall health and success of their business. Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, coauthors of the highly successful Team Topologies, provide proven patterns for a successful remote-first approach to teams. Using simple tools for dependency tracking and patterns from Team Topologies, such as the Team API, organizations will find that well-defined team interactions are key to effective IT delivery in the remote-first world.This workbook explores several aspects of team-first remote work, including: •How the new &“remote-first&” world is highlighting existing poor team interactions within organizations.•Why organizations should use the Team API pattern to define and communicate the focus of teams.•How organizations can track and remove team-level dependencies.•How and why organizations should design inter-team communications consciously.•How and why organizations can use the three team interaction modes from Team Topologies (collaboration, x-as-a-service, and facilitating) to help.The ideas and patterns presented here will help your organization become more effective with a team-based, remote-first approach to building and running software systems.
Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Work & Flow
by Dominica DeGrandisToday's workers are drowning: nonstop requests for time, days filled to the brim with meetings, and endless nights spent heroically fixing the latest problems. This churn and burn is creating a workforce constantly on the edge of burnout.In this updated edition, IT time management expert Dominica DeGrandis reveals the real crime of the century―time theft, one of the most costly factors impacting enterprises in their day-to-day operations.Through simple solutions that make work visible, DeGrandis helps people round up the five thieves of time and take back their lives with time-saving solutions. Chock-full of exercises, takeaways, real-world examples, colorful diagrams, and an easy-going writing style, readers will quickly learn effective practices to create high-performing workflows within an organization.And now, with this updated second edition, readers will get more exercises plus a new afterword from the author featuring new learnings from the past five years.The technology world―and indeed the whole business world―is moving at a pace faster than ever before, and it shows no signs of slowing down. Instead of consigning ourselves to the pressure cooker of the modern world, it's time to elevate how we work. It's time to level up our game. It's time to make work visible.
The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data (The Phoenix Project)
by Gene KimThe Phoenix Project wowed over a half-million readers. Now comes the Wall Street Journal Bestselling Wall Street Journal bestselling The Unicorn Project!&“The Unicorn Project is amazing, and I loved it 100 times more than The Phoenix Project…&”—FERNANDO CORNAGO, Senior Director Platform Engineering, Adidas&“Gene Kim does a masterful job of showing how … the efforts of many create lasting business advantages for all.&”—DR. STEVEN SPEAR, author of The High-Velocity Edge, Sr. Lecturer at MIT, and principal of HVE LLC.&“The Unicorn Project is so clever, so good, so crazy enlightening!&”––CORNELIA DAVIS, Vice President Of Technology at Pivotal Software, Inc., Author of Cloud Native PatternsThis highly anticipated follow-up to the bestselling title The Phoenix Project takes another look at Parts Unlimited, this time from the perspective of software development.In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals.One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work, and to enable the business to win in a time of digital disruption. To her surprise, she finds herself drawn ever further into this movement, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Rebellion, which puts her in the crosshairs of some familiar and very dangerous enemies.The Age of Software is here, and another mass extinction event looms—this is a story about rebel developers and business leaders working together, racing against time to innovate, survive, and thrive in a time of unprecedented uncertainty...and opportunity.&“The Unicorn Project provides insanely useful insights on how to improve your technology business.&”—DOMINICA DEGRANDIS, author of Making Work Visible and Director of Digital Transformation at Tasktop———&“My goal in writing The Unicorn Project was to explore and reveal the necessary but invisible structures required to make developers (and all engineers) productive, and reveal the devastating effects of technical debt and complexity. I hope this book can create common ground for technology and business leaders to leave the past behind, and co-create a better future together.&”—Gene Kim, November 2019
Adaptive Ethics for Digital Transformation: A New Approach for Enterprise Leaders (Featuring Frankenstein vs. the Gingerbread Man)
by Mark SchwartzDigital transformation doesn't just raise ethical issues, it—in itself—is an ethical shift.Business leaders today are struggling to manage conflicting imperatives, those of the emerging digital world and those of the bureaucratic world of the past. The act of digital transformation requires a deep change in the moral outlook and ethical assumptions of a business. But how do we get there?Enterprise strategist and author Mark Schwartz shows how we need to learn to think differently about relationships with customers and employees. That the ethics of digital transformation is a matter of cultivating and applying virtues rather than applying rules. Ethics is not just a matter of refraining from doing bad things. It's a matter of building the world we want, and it's the job of company executives.Featuring a chapter on bullshit, a handy chart of excuses for bad behavior, and Schwartz's typically paradoxical blend of deep insight and pasta jokes, this book guides business leaders as they struggle to adapt their bureaucratic framework of ethics to the emerging landscape of the digital world. By the end of the book, business leaders will rethink what it takes to be an ethical organization.
Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification
by Gene Kim Steven J. Spear&“Elegant and simple. It&’s a teacher&’s best companion―a lesson plan for teaching the theory of performance.&” ―Adm. John Richardson (ret.), from his foreword to the book&“This book is a must-read that deeply informs leaders on how to create great systems for outstanding performance and to win.&” ―Jeffrey K. Liker, PhD, author of The Toyota Way, 2nd edition A 2024 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist and Shortlisted for the 2024 Business Book Award.Forget vision, grit, or culture. Wiring the Winning Organization reveals the hidden circuitry that drives organizational excellence.Drawing on decades of meticulous research of high-performing organizations and cross-population surveys of tens of thousands of employees, award-winning authors Gene Kim and Dr. Steven J. Spear introduce a groundbreaking new theory of organizational management. Organizations win by using three mechanisms to slowify, simplify, and amplify, which systematically moves problem-solving from high-risk danger zones to low-risk winning zones.Wiring the Winning Organization shines an investigative light on some of the most famous organizations, including Toyota, Amazon, Apple, and NASA, revealing how leaders create the social wiring that enables exceptional results.This is not feel-good inspiration or armchair philosophy but a data-driven prescriptive playbook for creating excellence grounded in real-world results and proven theory. This is the rare business book that delivers concrete tools―not platitudes―to convert mediocrity into mastery.&“All organizations, large and small, public and private, are overwhelmed by complexity, multiple priorities, conflicting goals, shifting landscapes, and constrained resources. Kim and Spear lay out an amazing vision of the social circuitry for organizations to not only handle this but thrive while doing so.&” ―Phil Venables, Chief Information Security Officer, Google Cloud; former Board Director, Goldman Sachs Bank&“This book clearly teaches you how to rewire your organization to move with focused, sustained urgency and win!&” ―Courtney Kissler, SVP Customer and Retail Technology, Starbucks&“In a world where complexity is the norm, Kim and Spear provide the essential guide for those in need of a compass for the maze of today&’s business environment.&” ―David Silverman, CEO of CrossLead, co-author of Team of Teams
Deming's Journey to Profound Knowledge: How Deming Helped Win a War, Altered the Face of Industry, and Holds the Key to Our Future
by John WillisFrom the birth of modern industry, to winning WWII, to Japan&’s Economic Miracle, W. Edwards Deming helped shape some of the most profound moments in modern history. Deming, an American engineer and statistician, is widely recognized for his contributions to the field of quality management. But his teachings go beyond quality management; they influence not only how we work today, but also how we can continue to succeed into the future. Part business history, part biography, part journey into deep business sense, author John Willis captures the full picture of Deming&’s life and influence. Most importantly, it reveals the experiences that led to Deming&’s greatest discovery: the System of Profound Knowledge, a collection of fundamental truths that show how any system or process can be transformed into something greater. From the real-life Rosie the Riveter to a hacker writing US cybersecurity law, Deming&’s ingenuity and system of thinking changed how we think in the modern world. This book shows how we can take that influence and continue to apply it our own future.
Flow Engineering: From Value Stream Mapping to Effective Action
by Steve Pereira Andrew DavisTired of misalignment, friction, and stalled workflow? Flow Engineering is a practical guide to using value stream mapping techniques to align teams, unlock innovation, and optimize performance. Based on foundations from Value Stream Mapping, cybernetics, and the Toyota Production System, Flow Engineering's lightweight and iterative practices build the value, clarity, and flow required for effective collaboration and collective action. Written by Value Stream Mapping experts Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, Flow Engineering provides a step-by-step guide for running fast-paced mapping workshops that rapidly build shared understanding. Using five key maps to facilitate collaborative &“flow conversations,&” Pereira and Davis show how teams can surface tangled process dependencies, conflicting priorities, and unspoken assumptions that grind progress to a halt. The result? A clear roadmap owned by the people doing the work to accelerate innovation cycles, optimize workflows, and achieve more effective coordination. Applicable across any industry, Flow Engineering's techniques have helped leading organizations improve critical workflows like customer onboarding, product development, and hiring.It's time to stop trying one-size-fits-all frameworks to find value, clarity, and flow to improve culture and performance. Flow Engineering meets your organization where it's at and shows you how to move it where it needs to go.