2 Lesser Known Book Series for Technical Leaders to Unlock Exceptional Engineering Outcomes in 2024

Many book lists around digital transformation turn up the same books time and time again.

This is great for going deeper on the current transformation zeitgeist, but can become an echo chamber. These two series provide alternative approaches that challenge the conventional wisdom. While reading the latest IT Revolution Press book is always a valuable use of time, it’s also valuable to step off the path every so often.

Reading broader enables us to be more effective.

Actionable Agile Metrics by Daniel S Vacanti

As the religious wars within Agile are raging ever brighter, Daniel provides a clear approach that is inherently actionable.

In all the attempts to generalise and scale agile, much of the value has been lost. What we need to do is provide teams with timely metrics that enable them to take action.

By focusing on the flow metrics of work-in-process, cycle time and throughput, Daniel cuts through the illusion of story pointing and estimating. Conversations shift to being about time, which is something the whole business understands. As he points out, a forecast needs both a date and a confidence level, which is significantly more valuable than simply extrapolating velocity. Agile as most commonly practiced cannot answer the most important question of “when will this be done?” A surefire recipe for causing friction in any organisation.

Most agile implementations focus on what is easy to do, rather than what will provide the most value. This is a key reason why many teams do agile, but score poorly against the DORA metrics.

Daniel’s three book series gives you an antidote to the current flavours of agile that sap all the joy out of teams.

Reading Order

First: https://leanpub.com/actionableagilemetrics

Second: https://leanpub.com/whenwillitbedone

Third: https://leanpub.com/actionableagilemetricsii

Tameflow by Steve Tendon

With the industry finally coming to the realisation that agile doesn’t scale across teams, the Tameflow literature shows a different way.

In a multiple project, event/deadline, stakeholder and team scenario, the theory of constraints (TOC) provides an effective path forward. While the dependency management approach in scaled agile frameworks is a self perpetuating cycle of misery, TOC shatters it.

In the hunt for performance, we make too many decisions based on intuition. The Mythical Man Month said that adding more people to a project only makes it later, however, if we following the five focusing steps of TOC we can break that rule by applying force at the constraint. Many organisation focus on keeping people busy as a proxy for productivity, but in reality this cripples performance in the system. Tameflow is a remedy for those of trapped in a Tayloristic view of knowledge work. By focusing on the flow of work, not the people you can achieve exceptional outcomes.

Tameflow empowers us to chase greater outcomes by giving us a scientific approach to unlocking throughput. When coordinating across teams, you need more powerful tools to understand and unblock the flow of work. Even the best engineers cannot outwork a broken system.

Steve’s books contain the current most effective approach to handling the multi-team scenarios that pervade every technology function.

Reading Order

First: https://leanpub.com/standingonbits

Second: https://leanpub.com/tameflow

Third: https://tameflow.com/book/hyper-productive-knowledge-work-performance/

By breaking the spines on these series over the festive period, you’ll come back in January armed with fresh approaches to live a happier, more productive 2024.

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