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Vision to Value: How to Structure Tech Companies to Deliver Great Products
Why do millions of tech startups fail every year? Despite having a good product, customers, and even help from accelerator and seed programs, many new tech companies simply don't succeed. What's missing? Operational structure.The Vision to Value Framework is an operational model designed to help tech organizations scale growth in a sustainable and profitable way. The book introduces the model, its scope, and its impact on organizations. Vision to Value compiles the experience and strategy of tech entrepreneur and startup co-founder Luis Gomes de Abreu in his journey to scaling Amsterdam-based Nmbrs, and the organization’s 10-year journey of growth. With a focus on building mindset, strategy, and formal structure to support increasing operations, the book works to bridge the gap between startup and a scaled organization. Featuring theoretical as well as practical information, the Vision to Value lays the foundations for designing an organization around agility, scalability, and delivering value to the end-user. Strategy, tips, and ideas function to guide leaders in technical operations towards setting up product development structure, customer support, developing business processes, and organizing teams, while highlighting many of the issues contributing to organizational failure, and some approaches to solving them. Most importantly, Vision to Value focuses on designing structure, organizing teams, and creating an operational model designed to support growth – so that anyone can realize those ideas inside their own organization.
286 pages, Paperback
Published November 29, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 3, 2020
It’s odd to see such an academic approach taken to a dev book. Haven’t seen much of that since
Uni. I do like the approach, the references, the background information, and the way this book
tells a story with information and history. It’s not fast-paced, but it is informative, interesting,
and entertaining to read. Who though I’d be saying that about operations? The large part of this
book is centered around sharing practical information centered on real-life scenarios backed by
“this happened at my company” and “external data”. Both are nice, I like the mix. A smaller
section of the book is dedicated to the “framework”, which divides operations into 5 pillars, I
would call them functions, and 7 outcomes. This structure makes it really easy to picture “what
you have to do” versus “what you want to get out” and it’s something that makes it very clear
that you’re working towards an end goal. It's not about the structure, it’s about the value.
Uni. I do like the approach, the references, the background information, and the way this book
tells a story with information and history. It’s not fast-paced, but it is informative, interesting,
and entertaining to read. Who though I’d be saying that about operations? The large part of this
book is centered around sharing practical information centered on real-life scenarios backed by
“this happened at my company” and “external data”. Both are nice, I like the mix. A smaller
section of the book is dedicated to the “framework”, which divides operations into 5 pillars, I
would call them functions, and 7 outcomes. This structure makes it really easy to picture “what
you have to do” versus “what you want to get out” and it’s something that makes it very clear
that you’re working towards an end goal. It's not about the structure, it’s about the value.
July 3, 2020
A good quarter of this is so entry level that I almost put the book down. No one needs to hear
about what Agile is. I didn’t need the introduction into Toyota founding Lean or any information
about Scrum. I can see why that would be appreciated by a lot of people though. What I really
did like about V2V is the consistent approach of using practical information to outline and solve
problems in a way that asked me to think about how to apply them myself, rather than
attempting the impossible task of creating an out-of-the-box solution. This is really just a lot of
practical information for tech operations. Nothing too fancy, nothing that asks you to be at a
certain level or have a certain amount of capital or invest in this or that, just practical
information you can use from wherever.
about what Agile is. I didn’t need the introduction into Toyota founding Lean or any information
about Scrum. I can see why that would be appreciated by a lot of people though. What I really
did like about V2V is the consistent approach of using practical information to outline and solve
problems in a way that asked me to think about how to apply them myself, rather than
attempting the impossible task of creating an out-of-the-box solution. This is really just a lot of
practical information for tech operations. Nothing too fancy, nothing that asks you to be at a
certain level or have a certain amount of capital or invest in this or that, just practical
information you can use from wherever.
July 3, 2020
COULD BE MORE PRACTICAL
There are a lot of tips and a good bit of practical information here. It’s mixed in with a bunch of high
level information I can’t do much with. There’s also a lot on team management and development I’m
not sure about. Mostly, the real value of this book lies in the dev section where it pretty clearly offers a
practical look at what devops should look like if you want to scale. The main message is definitely
centered around removing impediments to scale, creating a tight ship for documentation and
transparency, and integrating quality control like automation, mixing QA and customer service with dev,
etc. Would highly recommend.
There are a lot of tips and a good bit of practical information here. It’s mixed in with a bunch of high
level information I can’t do much with. There’s also a lot on team management and development I’m
not sure about. Mostly, the real value of this book lies in the dev section where it pretty clearly offers a
practical look at what devops should look like if you want to scale. The main message is definitely
centered around removing impediments to scale, creating a tight ship for documentation and
transparency, and integrating quality control like automation, mixing QA and customer service with dev,
etc. Would highly recommend.
July 3, 2020
Abreu approaches his work from the perspective of creating value for the end-user, typically
through creating an operational machine capable of doing so. In his framework, backwards
engineering from value highlights creating systems such as organized teams, automation,
automated pipeline, cross-functional teams, quality automation, transparency, and monitoring.
There’s a LOT in this book, not all of it will immediately look valuable on the first read through.
I’ve mostly just kept finding more in it that I can apply and can keep using.
through creating an operational machine capable of doing so. In his framework, backwards
engineering from value highlights creating systems such as organized teams, automation,
automated pipeline, cross-functional teams, quality automation, transparency, and monitoring.
There’s a LOT in this book, not all of it will immediately look valuable on the first read through.
I’ve mostly just kept finding more in it that I can apply and can keep using.
July 3, 2020
Picked this up after a recommendation from a friend under the impression it’s a DevOps book. It’s not.
It’s much more of an operations book. As a development team manager, I was really looking for
something else. I can see this being helpful if you’re a scrum lead or something but some parts of it are
also too basic. What is Agile? I guess the audience is supposed to be broad, as it says in the beginning,
but I feel like this will miss the mark for a few people because of how broad it is.
It’s much more of an operations book. As a development team manager, I was really looking for
something else. I can see this being helpful if you’re a scrum lead or something but some parts of it are
also too basic. What is Agile? I guess the audience is supposed to be broad, as it says in the beginning,
but I feel like this will miss the mark for a few people because of how broad it is.
July 3, 2020
Who knew research for a software company would be so complicated. I’m planning to launch a
postal app later this year. If anything, I would say one of the largest barriers is the pure volume
of “everything is written for the expert”. What is DevOps? What is Lean? What is Scrum? Where
do I even start with all this? A step down from Vision to Value would have been good but it’s by
far one of the gentlest starts into this that I’ve found. 5/5 will be reading again.
July 11, 2020
There’s a lot to love about Vision to Value. It starts a little slowly and the experienced reader could
probably skip the first bits of each section. But it delivers significant insight into operations for SaaS
companies, which not many books will do. Most importantly, that insight comes from someone with
experience. I will definitely be experimenting with some of the ideas here and will update my review
probably skip the first bits of each section. But it delivers significant insight into operations for SaaS
companies, which not many books will do. Most importantly, that insight comes from someone with
experience. I will definitely be experimenting with some of the ideas here and will update my review
January 28, 2020
I couldn't put this book down. So easy to read, and yet I was learning throughout. I am fascinated by the theories and and it helped me a lot in my business endeavours. I found myself doing all of the exercises and immediately created a vision board. An added plus the cover is amazing, beautiful and on display in my lounge.
July 3, 2020
Ever watched a show and felt like the person on screen was repeating all your mistakes? That’s
kind of how I felt reading Vision to Value. Incident after incident exactly mimic what I’m looking
at. While there aren’t exactly solutions, there is a lot of information on long-term fixes, taking
steps to improve and building “structure” for the long term.
kind of how I felt reading Vision to Value. Incident after incident exactly mimic what I’m looking
at. While there aren’t exactly solutions, there is a lot of information on long-term fixes, taking
steps to improve and building “structure” for the long term.
July 3, 2020
Not very actionable. Mostly good advice. I would like to see something like a questionnaire at the end of each section or maybe a map of the framework. Still, good for what it is.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews