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A Seat at the Table

Mark Schwartz (Goodreads Author)

4.28 · Rating details · 477 ratings · 43 reviews

Agile, 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, ...more

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Paperback, 376 pages

Published September 12th 2017 by It Revolution Press

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Jan 28, 2018 Julian Dunn rated it liked it

When Mark Schwartz opens his mouth, you're not sure if you're going to get a dose of management theory or a quote from Derrida. This can be entertaining if you're just along for the ride, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-style, but inordinately frustrating if what you want is someone who gets to the point quickly without the philosophical dialectics about the meaning of life.

When Schwartz is on, he's on: this tends to be near the beginning and ends of this book (modulo the introduction, When Mark Schwartz opens his mouth, you're not sure if you're going to get a dose of management theory or a quote from Derrida. This can be entertaining if you're just along for the ride, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-style, but inordinately frustrating if what you want is someone who gets to the point quickly without the philosophical dialectics about the meaning of life.

When Schwartz is on, he's on: this tends to be near the beginning and ends of this book (modulo the introduction, which I found to be unnecessary and not particularly well-written). He correctly identifies that the major disconnect between IT and the business today is that the fundamental model of IT -- as a contractor-control one, designed to keep the geeks under control because otherwise they would waste the company's money and produce nothing of value -- is fundamentally broken in this era of digital-first experiences. CIOs, rather than agitating for a seat at the strategy (or adult, if you will) table with the rest of the C-level executives, should become experts in how to influence the entire enterprise into embracing technology, while maintaining a deep level of knowledge and a talented team to deliver. The "seat" will come in time, Schwartz says.

In general, Schwartz makes a compelling argument, one with which I tend to agree. However, the digressions into Kierkegaardian philosophy as applied to IT management leave the prospective CIO-reader with little to go on except a criticism of systems and approaches past. Much of this a CIO could already have picked up from other Agile books. Yet one of the promises Schwartz made to the reader in the introduction -- about how Agile and enterprise IT are at odds -- remains unfulfilled: where is the criticism of Agile and Lean practices and how should they change to adapt to business realities? Arguing that extreme uncertainty in the technology domain justifies dispensing with very many commitments to scope, deadlines, or committed outcomes is likely to give the CIO's peers at that executive table conniptions. Businesses as a whole deal with a great deal of uncertainty, yet the CMO, CFO, and VP of Sales are not given a free pass when it comes to producing results on a schedule. Surely there has to be a balance, yet Agile does give nerdy engineers an almost-free pass to deliver whatever they want, when they want.

This might not be as much of a problem if the last 30 years of IT didn't consist of it being run as a contractor-control cost center, where some (many?) IT employees have worked their entire careers being incented to produce output and not outcomes. Breaking these folks of this pattern will take time. I would have preferred to see a stronger emphasis in Schwartz's book on use of management-by-objective systems like OKRs, because employees do have to be measured on something, unless you're a research university which most private and public employers are not. I have worked at a company where engineering shipped nearly nothing of value for two years because we were "Agile". When I think of "Agile" being applied to legacy enterprises filled with IT workers who have spent the last 30 years not incentivized to produce value because they were part of a contractor-control model oriented solely around on-time delivery, you can see why I am leery of not having some other strong system to replace it.

Overall, I enjoyed Schwartz's book, though I'm not sure how many CIOs will. Most modern CIOs that are already sold on IT being a fundamental part of the business have probably already looked into how to do this, and are thusly knowledgeable about many of the practices here. Those that are not are likely to be turned off by Schwartz's free-spirited, philosophical wheeling-and-dealing. In short, I worry about the level of impact this book will have on those who truly do need to hear the message, yet I hope I'm wrong. ...more

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Jan 16, 2019 John rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended-for-nerds, reviewed-by-me

This is a fantastic book that attacks the silo-ization of IT (and its leadership) in a business. I am going to have to write a longer review, but for now I'll just say that a remarkable feat is accomplished in chapters 5 ("Requirements") and 9 ("Governance and Oversight") where Schwartz essentially derives the OKR system from "Agile" first principles. He comes up with a system that has much of the thinking of OKRs without all of the baggage.

Elsewhere the book expands on his deep skepticism -- as ...more

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Jul 22, 2020 Bjoern Rochel rated it really liked it

Shelves: eng-mgmt, 2020

I think whether you like or dislike this one heavily depends on your personal context. It's not targeting developers or engineering team leads. I think it doesn't even target people familiar with Agile or Lean. Neither is it all encompassing. It quite heavily references other material.

If you already know a bit about Lean or Agile or have read a lot the material that it references, I suppose you will not get much from this book.

It's written specifically for the typical top level IT management i I think whether you like or dislike this one heavily depends on your personal context. It's not targeting developers or engineering team leads. I think it doesn't even target people familiar with Agile or Lean. Neither is it all encompassing. It quite heavily references other material.

If you already know a bit about Lean or Agile or have read a lot the material that it references, I suppose you will not get much from this book.

It's written specifically for the typical top level IT management in fairly traditional companies. You know, those who have IT departments and software developers, but are trapped in an unhappy, contractor kind of relationship internally. Those companies where IT is not part of the solution finding process, but rather the implementation sink. The kind of relationship where both sides, business and IT, are unhappy. You can feel that throughout the book. And that makes it important again, because even though we have 2020, I think the majority of companies are still somewhere trapped in this model.

What I like about it is that it contains the most comprehensible introduction to the changing role of IT and software development within a company that I've encountered so far. It outlines quite a few good ideas on where tech companies like Netflix went with their workforce and what the implications of that are for the business moving forward. It also follows the line of books like the Phoenix or Unicorn project, but doesn't package it up in a fictional story. I'm pretty certain that I could give it to some top level IT people I know and the content and depth would be perfect for them. Not too deep, not to shallow with a lot of connection points to delve deeper when necessary.

But it's not without its problems. The CIO role and the distinction to the CTO at least for me isn't really clear. I usually replaced that role with top level engineering management and a lot what he wrote about CIOs made more sense to me. It also took me a while to understand that this book mostly addresses companies where software is produced for the internal business colleagues to work with, so companies that are either at the start of in the early phases of their digital transformation. If you're looking at the challenges from a company that already operates on top of a digital product, it becomes a bit harder to read in some parts because you need to translate a bit here and there in your head. Lastly some parts are prone to over generalisation, like the argument for as little standardisation as possible (I've seen that fail already once) or using community centric IT models (also heavily depends on the culture, skill and other factors whether it works, I've also seen that kinda fail)

Nevertheless, it's an important book. For a certain group it outlines where IT is largely going and for that I would definitely recommend reading it, if you're in middle or top level IT management. ...more

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Jul 22, 2020 Emanuele Blanco rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I've been an Agile enthusiast for the majority of my development career, and I have first hand experienced the competitive advantage that being truly agile gives to product engineering teams. As I moved into IT leadership, however, the challenges were different - and the dichotomy of being agile in the development space but waterfall in the leadership space became clearer to me. Mark challenges how the Agile manifesto didn't consider Senior Management - or actually considered it just as an imped ...more

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Nov 30, 2018 Toyin A rated it really liked it

This is one of the few books that address IT leadership without mincing words. Firstly, he sets the ground work by explaining how IT fits into the overall business. Then explains how IT leadership will always have a reactionary role if it continues to see itself as having to prove value instead of actually delivering value.

Mark not only states the problems IT leaders have in providing value, he also gives useful/ practical solutions. He shows how Agile and other modern delivery methods can be be ...more

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May 08, 2020 Tõnu Vahtra rated it liked it

I did have high expectations when picking up this book since it was advertised under IT Revolution (Like Phoenix and Unicorn Project) but as one who has read 100+ books on management and leadership it's not very easy to impress when another IT person starts writing about how leadership should be done. Since working 10+ years in IT organization leadership myself the disconnect between "business" and "IT" sounds very awkward and unnecessary because from my perspective IT is the business and vice v ...more

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Nov 21, 2017 Mac rated it it was amazing

This is a story of courage. It is the up and coming CIO who needs to have the courage to run counter to several decades of IT methods that are no longer valid for the environments which we're working in.

ASatT attacks the underpinnings on many traditional methods which were based on command and control of a disparate part of the organization, the IT department. It argues that it's no longer valid for the IT department to be disconnected from "the business" and that it's no longer valid for the CI ...more

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Mar 06, 2018 Sebastian Gebski rated it really liked it

Hmm, I was really struggling with rating this book. On one hand I couldn't help the impression that author sometimes falls into the trap of "generic Agile talk no 435" - by continuously repeating basic statements taken straight from Agile Manifesto or immortal classics of Agile literature, but OTOH even then I've managed to collect a nice set of notes & comments - which clearly means that the book got me thinking ...

As book is intended for the high executive profiles (CIOs), I was very intereste ...more

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Dec 31, 2019 Ivan rated it it was amazing

A very good book to understand the place not only of CTO ( this is how I understand abbreviation CIO in the book ) but of all people of the IT department. World has changed, as in the past business and IT people were like 2 different worlds, each inventing their own means and tools to tame the other side. Agile, Scrum, Waterfall etc. were created in such manner. But the world changed. IT is always about uncertainty - we can't estimate things properly, especially with long time frames, and a seat ...more

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Oct 15, 2018 Arturo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: devops, agile

Interesting book particularly for those who have had little exposure to the Agile / Lean / DevOps mindsets as it will provide a high level view where no doubt you will have to dig deeper and expand your knowledge by using other more in depth references to the particular topics. This justifies the overall hodgey-podgey sensation that you get on reading the book where sometimes you feel like all the paradigms are thrown in together without the background which I think you need to get in order to u ...more

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Feb 13, 2018 William Anderson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Philosophy for the tech leader. Schwartz delivers insightful, well-sourced points of view that will shift or evolve how you think about the teams you lead, the role you play, and your organization. The book is delivered confidently to its target audience (Sr tech leadership) and makes no apologies for assumptions of knowing jargon/arcitectural patterns and so forth. A must read for any leader in the tech space, Schwartz offers insights into how to lead teams, how to deliver business value, aspir ...more

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Jul 04, 2019 Alan Hill rated it really liked it

Transform your thinking on how IT should be perceived in an organization. Some organizations believe in an incorrect model where IT functions as service provider or consultancy where it is actually as integral to the business as finance or operations. In order for the CIO to get a "seat at the table" a change in thinking needs to occur where IT is invested in business outcomes rather than controlling systems and delivering on requested tasks. One has to blow up the conventional contractor contro ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 Niels Bach rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Explaining Agile/Lean from a management perspective

Finally a book that goes beyond Kanban boards and scrum and dive into the difficult Challenge of changing the mindset to cope with a non-waterfall execution model that Can eliminate waste and cope with risk. Development and IT Security is filled with uncertainty and doubt. This book gives a Nice bid on How to handle that uncertainty and doubt while managing risk and continously deliver value. Definitely a recommendation from here.

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Nov 18, 2017 David Goade rated it it was amazing

A Seat at the Table is Mark’s follow-up to the Art of Business Value. With AoBV, he began posing troubling questions for the Agile community by explaining how we’ve been taking too narrow a view of business value. He also revealed his ulterior motives when he asks as a CIO, “If the team is not allowed to listen to anyone other than the product owner, then what exactly should I be doing to add value to the enterprise?”. That’s Mark: provocative and funny.

Maybe Mark makes trouble because he’s has A Seat at the Table is Mark’s follow-up to the Art of Business Value. With AoBV, he began posing troubling questions for the Agile community by explaining how we’ve been taking too narrow a view of business value. He also revealed his ulterior motives when he asks as a CIO, “If the team is not allowed to listen to anyone other than the product owner, then what exactly should I be doing to add value to the enterprise?”. That’s Mark: provocative and funny.

Maybe Mark makes trouble because he’s has been troubled by his own role as a CIO during the Agile revolution. In “The CIO” chapter of AoBV, he tells a story about being called-out by the CEO for a project which delivered exactly what the business had asked for within budget and on time but was nevertheless, as Mark puts it “a disaster”. His reaction to the CEO at that time was the all-too-common, that’s on the them, not us -- we did our part. Mark’s CEO responded “You’re missing the point. I have trusted you with an investestment in an IT system. Your job is to make sure I get a good return on IT investments. I am not getting a good return.” This was a wake-up call for Mark and he clearly had much more to say on this than he could fit into one chapter of AoBV.

In his latest book, A Seat at the Table, Mark gives us a tour-de-force on how to close the gap between the Agile team and the traditional IT department. This time, he makes trouble for everybody. But stick with him. You’ll be glad you did because Mark will make you laugh and make you better.

In ASaT, Mark continues to to stir-up trouble for the Agile community. He doubles-down on what he calls Agile’s “fist pounding, this must change” echo chamber. He points-out the hypocrisy of how the Agile team expects management to stay out of the way unless there is an impediment, in which case they expect a bit of command-and-control to remove it. He also makes quite possibly the most provocative criticism ever made of Agile: “I am not sure that the Agile approach fully accounts for how the Agile team can deliver value -- and I think it should.”

Now, if you were to read those excerpts out of context (as I’ve presented them here), you might get the idea that Mark is opposed to Agile but nothing could be further from the truth. Wait until you read what he has to say about Waterfall.

Comparisons of Agile to Waterfall are easy to come by but Mark does it in a fresh way. In ASaT, he’s actually put his finger on the fatal flaw of Waterfall. He calls it the “contractor-control model”. This shines new light on something that, as Mark puts it, “is so ingrained in us, we don’t even know we’re doing it”. He further explains how traditional IT is still locked-in to that model and how its insistence upon imposing certainty where it isn’t possible is not only self-defeating but actively destructive.

Mark saves his most potent venom for Chapter 4 on planning, in which he launches a devastating assault on the plan-driven approach. Using reductio ad absurdum, Mark enumerates what he calls the “articles of faith for the PTW-WTP (i.e. “plan-the-work / work-the-plan”) religion”. It is both hilarious and boldly provocative. How provocative? Quoting this passage to management actually landed me in hot water for a couple of days. That is high-praise in my mind. Thank you Mark, sincerely.

A Seat at the Table is not just critical though. As one might expect from a scholar like Mark. It’s researched, constructive and novel. Beginning each chapter with a passage from a philosopher, he sets the stage for moving IT from a service provider to a driver of outcomes; replacing the plan-driven, control paradigm with ‘shaping behavior', a shift from ‘buy’ to ‘build’, a fresh look at Enterprise Architecture (EA) and a concept that I hope Mark is considering as the subject for his next book, impeccability -- although I suspect it’ll be EA.

This book is not just for CIO’s. If you are in IT, consider yourself an Agilist, want to understand more about Lean or DevOps, this book must be on your shelf, in your Kindle and part of your audiobook library. It’s that important of a work. Then, I challenge you to experiment with and advocate for some of the ideas put forth. Doing so will take courage. It may even put you at risk, but at least you’ll be choosing that risk and you’ll never wonder if you could have done more. ...more

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Jul 05, 2018 Rajesh Kamatanam rated it really liked it

I picked up this book to understand rationale behind why IT leaders are taking certain decisions these days and Schwartz certainly did great job elaborating it.Although target audience for this book are senior IT leaders, it can be beneficial for anyone working at any level in IT since this book mostly covers agile principles and how they are implemented across organization.Schwartz made narration of this book interesting by starting every chapter with a famous philosophical quote.

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Mar 19, 2019 David Brooke rated it it was amazing

Shelves: dxc

This is an excellent read. The title doesn't do justice to the content - basically it's about how to embrace DevOps principles at the IT Strategy level as well as at the Software Development level.

My only real disappointment is that it only covers how to approach things when all of the IT staff are permanent employees of the 'business' organisation. It doesn't offer any guidance on working with IT partners or external suppliers. ...more

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Jun 14, 2019 John Cumming rated it it was amazing

Shelves: agile, coaching-leadership, 2019

What an inspirational book, yet pragmatic and practical.

Mark provides insight into why there is a need for a change from the contractor relationship between IT and ‘the business’, what that should look like in an age of uncertainty and potential and how IT leaders can move from using their expertise to lead IT for the business to someone who leads the whole company from the point of view of someone with deep IT expertise.

A highly recommended book, even if it took me some time to complete!

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Jul 01, 2020 JHughes rated it liked it

Shelves: software-engineering

The introduction was superb. Presented a novel way of thinking about IT and how it ties into business strategy. The old paradigm of the contractor-control model is still very real today and I agreed with all his arguments for why IT has to break free from that.

Unfortunately the rest of the book petered out quickly with Schwartz spending a huge amount of time discussing the history and evolution of IT management practices at a very high level. I question who his intended audience is, because it ...more

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Aug 09, 2019 Patrick rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: business, non-fiction, computer

Interesting take on the role of CIO in the modern Agile world of software development. Schwartz talks about some of the traditional corporate views of IT and the traditional responses as IT struggles for respect (and budgets). Schwartz's main point is that the traditional "contractor" model doesn't serve anyone well, and that IT needs to start viewing themselves as generators of business value. In this world, the CIO (and other management) should serve to coordinate amongst teams and remove bloc ...more

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Sep 18, 2019 Kevin Wilkie rated it it was ok

There are a few good ideas within the book - a few smatterings.

But lots of bad ones that really just sound like he came up with them in an Ivory Tower that has never actually been the CIO of a place that deals with IT.

As with life, it takes a few thousand horrible ideas to come up with a few good ones.

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Dec 12, 2019 Nikolay Theosom rated it really liked it

this is actually pretty great. i think he has nailed the mental divide between tech and biz people really well. albeit it gets quite repetitive and doesn't go much beyond the tortured genius mindset. I wish he spent just as much rigour into thinking about how to make the relationship work, as he did on figuring out who to blame. the next book maybe? ...more

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Jan 07, 2020 Simon Hohenadl rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up-on

I listened to the first few chapters, but could not understand what Schwatz was trying to tell me apart from an introduction to agile and lean from the "business" point of view. Also, it was not clear to me what the CIO role is. Schwartz says this book is aimed at people responsilbe of internal IT systems, but keeps talking about general product development. ...more

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Jul 30, 2018 Steven rated it liked it

A superficial account on how to 'transform' IT leadership into the agile era (that started already 20 years ago...).

Nevertheless, this book points to some inconvenient truths for most IT leaders and as such is a great wake-up call to get them thinking! ...more

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Nov 12, 2018 David rated it liked it

The book is a little basic and very slow. The content although true is geared to giant monolithic organisations where this stuff might not be in affect.

That being said some of the points were pretty good but the format wasn't for me. ...more

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Dec 17, 2018 Joel rated it really liked it

There are two kinds of projects: failed it projects and successful business projects. Good guide to agile and how it leadership and cios can fit in the agile work. Don't agree with the author on the build vs buy discussion, but useful book for it and business to work together ...more

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Jun 30, 2020 Steve Watson rated it it was amazing

Yes, software, and by default the CIO, are crucial to today's businesses. Mr. Schwartz does an excellent job of describing how and why the CIO deserves a seat on the board, not just the C-suite. Very thought provoking. I couldn't put it down. ...more

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