The Value Flywheel Effect: Power the Future and Accelerate Your Organization to the Modern Cloud

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Mark McCann: Then finally, the observations. We use these observations really to drive, “Well, what are we actually going to do? What is this map telling us? What actions is it compelling us to start thinking about?” The observations we have here around, that increased the attendee-speaker interaction. The virtual platform has created a new value proposition. A speaker to attend the interaction is now easier, so we probably should do something about that and start capitalizing on that. The well architected practice helps problem prevention. Failure isn’t an option on a virtual conference. You need this to be up and resilient and highly available. So the platform needs to be very robust and you don’t want to custom build that for a few extra features. You want to basically leverage and do your homework, but leverage a class capability that already exists out there that has those well architected characteristics that you need to deliver a compelling virtual event. Find the things really moving the Flywheel the most, and focus efforts on those pieces of work. Find ways to eliminate work that doesn’t push on those core pieces (like Atlassian), or fold them into current efforts. Make Progress Visible The “flywheel” loses momentum and slows down each time the objective changes and resources are reassigned, eventually slipping into a Doom Loop, a circumstance in which every action leads to a worsening of the initial situation. The “flywheel effect” and the “doom loop” can occur in the same firm at the same time, especially if a company does not fully comprehend what components enabled the “flywheel” in the first wheel and makes rash alterations. It was used to state that companies don’t become exceptional as a result of a single intervention or initiative, but rather as a result of a series of small wins that accumulate over years of hard work until momentum takes over to power sustained periods of accelerated growth that greatly outstrip the effort being applied at that particular time.

The Value Flywheel Effect: Power - OceanofPDF [PDF] [EPUB] The Value Flywheel Effect: Power - OceanofPDF

Having two phrases or two terms for these things is essential. And that there’s a good definition for them. Let’s dig into them one by one. Underpinning it all is having an environment for success. That’s very important. Psychological safety is a big thing that enables this to happen. It’s very hard to challenge if you’re going to get shouted out every time you raise a question. That’s the reason why environment for success is one of the key elements that underpins the entire Value Flywheel. Equilibrium of expectation Within each phase of the Value Flywheel Effect, it is essential to use mapping to help direct your path and course-correct along the way. Let’s look at the four phases of the Value Flywheel Effect in more detail as they relate to mapping. Phase 1—Purpose and Vision And then the third thing, is you actually need to walk the walk that you’re setting up. I think it’s important to be able to show working software. So that you can say, I’m asking you to be Serverless First. This is how I think you should do it. Here are working production examples showing the way that you’re going to do it, as opposed to here’s just a high level theory. Commo Then the second thing is you need enabling constraints, as Mark loves to call them. And that’s where you set up your guardrails so that it’s safe for people to experiment and go the direction you’ve set. They know there’s a maximum level of damage that they can cause.Good architecture is often hard to define and measure; therefore, efficiency can be a strong measure here. And efficiency can also be represented as sustainability. Cloud providers are starting to measure the amount of carbon burned in a specific workload or system. Quite simply, if a team can reduce their carbon burn, they are providing a benefit to the customer, the company, and the environment. This was the beginning of what came to be known as serverless computing, where companies no longer managed their cloud operations themselves but gave that toil over to the cloud vendors. With this model, an organization could run an application when needed, shut it down when needed, and pay only when it was being used. The more the goal or north star of the organization moves to the left on the map (toward Genesis), the more unique that goal is on the market (and potentially more valuable). But, if the components below the goal are also situated too far to the left (i.e., if the elements needed to achieve the goal are still too expensive, require too much toil, etc.), then the business goal may seem too farfetched— it will not get the support required. Compounding Return on Effort—No “one push” makes it happen.Continuous small inputs add up into an impressive output, eventually.

Flywheel Effect: Positive Feedback Loops - Eric Jorgenson Flywheel Effect: Positive Feedback Loops - Eric Jorgenson

David Anderson: So we’ve covered the value of The Flywheel Effect [inaudible 00:14:19] Wardley Mapping. So let’s just do a brief intro on mapping. We explain most, but the important part of Wardley Mapping is this value access along the bottom. We’ll describe what that is, but first to illustrate it, if you think of computers and companies… In the 1950s, having a computer was novel, and that was stage one genesis. It was very rare to have a computer in a company. By the seventies, companies built their own computers and got ahead. The custom built computers to give them capability, that’s stage two. Custom built. In the nineties, computers were everywhere. They were getting better, more refined, there was a boom. That’s stage three, getting that product phase. And now stage four, they are a commodity. You don’t even really buy them anymore. You rent them as a utility, which we call the cloud. So it’s an interesting question, and it has multiple sub components to how you answer it. Because when you talk about enabling engineers in a big company like Liberty Mutual, you’re talking about large numbers of engineers. So it could be 1000s, across the globe, we’re talking about as opposed to maybe a couple of small teams. Direction alignment, enabling constraints and walking the walkFor example commoditize can affect your long term value. Towards the bottom of the map, the enabler for all of this is Wardley mapping. Or the idea of challenging to make sure there’s movement. And that is the concept of the Value Flywheel. There’s clarity of purpose first. You challenge through your map, you figure out your next best action, which is your leverage, and then you move things over into long term value. Which then creates space for further innovation up at the top of the map. Another advantage of scale comes from psychology.The psychologists use the term social proof.We are all influenced — subconsciously and to some extent consciously — by what we see others do and approve.Therefore, if everybody’s buying something, we think it’s better.We don’t like to be the one guy who’s out of step. Problem prevention culture is critical. But one of the significant challenges is that silent excellence can be recognized or unrewarded. So you must be careful that you have enough people who understand what good looks like, reward it, and realize it appropriately. You don’t want to fall into a superhero ‘save the day’ mindset! If you invested in problem prevention culture, superheroes do not need to come in and save the day! I think we ended up in a good place, but as always I’d love to hear if you think I’m wrong on any of this so I don’t stay quite as ignorant as I am now. What is the Flywheel Effect? Definition…?

the Value Flywheel Adaptation, Wardley Mapping and the Value Flywheel

The Value Flywheel Effect: Power the Future and Accelerate Your Organization to the Modern Cloud by David Anderson – eBook Details

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The “Flywheel Effect” as a business concept was introduced by Jim Collins in his seminal book Good To Great. Jim Collins originally used the Flywheel as a metaphor in Good To Great: According to Jim Collins there are three areas to focus on consistently to get the Flywheel to start to spin: Disciplined people By this time, we had been evolving our methods and practices for ten years, so we decided to encapsulate them in a set of principles we referred to as the “Serverless First Organization Strategy.” The running joke I had with the tech leads was that it was impossible to measure if the principle was true, but blindingly obvious when it was not! We tried to paint a picture of our ideal software development team A high-performing, serverless-first team will:

the Value Flywheel - IT Revolution Using Wardley Mapping with the Value Flywheel - IT Revolution

We have looked at Engineering Excellence. So what about well-architected? We have defined well-architected better than engineering excellence. But I find that a lot of people have yet to hear the term well architected and they think you’ve just made it up! We see lots more talks in the community. People are beginning to understand what we mean. Certainly within the organizations we’re in.There is a need for discipline. You have to assess the best way to go about something: If we take the value chain and turn it into a Wardley Map, we can assess what we need to focus on as well as the potential inertia points. We’ll map our value chain on the map with the stakeholder at the top. Positioning the elements left to right (or along the x-axis) depends on how well developed that element is. Business GoalIt's no secret that technology is moving faster than ever, but current business/IT strategies are not working. To survive the next wave of transformation, the relationship between businesses and technology must evolve. In The Value Flywheel Effect, David Anderson enables leaders to create an adaptive organization built upon embracing strategic thinking, team focus, and reduced time to value to drive business results. Psychological safety is critical here, as it is the foundation for an environment that fosters success. Engineering requires collaboration, challenge, vulnerability, calculated risk-taking, and skill. A highly charged political environment will negatively impact the team’s success. Alternatively, a team-first environment, like in many sports, will lead to better results and engagement all around. DevOps best practices, case studies, organizational change, ways of working, and the latest thinking affecting business and technology leadership.