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Tame The Flow: Hyper-Productive Knowledge-Work Management
This book is about how to manage knowledge-work, and in particular about how to bring a knowledge organization to a state of hyper-productivity. Hyper-productive teams and organizations have always existed, both in the business and military fields. Naturally, they are rare statistical outliers. The main focus of this book is how one can build and manage a hyper-productive knowledge-work organization, by taking as a source of inspiration the experience matured in the field of software engineering.
Software development organizations — like Microsoft, Google, Oracle; but also high profile open source organizations like Apache, Ubuntu, Drupal and others — can be considered as archetypal knowledgebased organizations, because the totality of artifacts produced by a software business is purely immaterial. Software development organizations were the first one to confront the challenges of completely immaterial processes, entirely based on knowledge. They were also the first organizations to experience the socio-technological impact of information technology (especially the development of computer networks) on their internal work processes and organizational structures.
Due to its frantic and exponential pace of innovation, the field of software development also became a testbed for a variety of approaches and methods for managing immaterial knowledge work, typically under the form of software development processes and methodologies. Numerous alternatives evolved over a relatively short period, with a lot of healthy competition in between them; with vehement “holy wars” between proponents of one approach or another; and with many anecdotes about both successes and failures.
Valuable insights can be gained by studying the organizational and managerial approaches successfully adopted by the industry that produced the information revolution — that is, those organizations that engage first hand in software development — and then by extrapolating those organizational and managerial processes to the more general case of knowledgebased organizations.
Nowadays, the majority of organizations have become knowledge-based. Even the most resilient and traditional "brick and mortar" businesses are forced to become knowledgebased organizations. For instance, consider the impact of largescale 3D printing on the construction industry ("Contour Crafting"), where bricks and mortar literally become software. Or nanoscale technologies, where manufacturing at the sub-atomic level becomes software.
The key tenet of this book is that organizational hyper-productivity stems from the two Noble Patterns of "Unity of Purpose" and "Community of Trust." The leaders and the top executives of the organization play a critical role in creating the conditions for these patterns to become effective. Management must play an active role in leading the organization towards these conditions.
In the case of software (and knowledge) organizations, management will have to gain a deep understanding of the nature of software or knowledge work; and that nature is rooted in empiricism. Top executives already have that understanding; though they might not be aware of it, and – unfortunately – do not act consequently. Management must create the conditions for the development of a learning organization. Financial responsibility must be exercised differently, and in way that is compatible with the empirical nature of knowledge work. Key roles must be nurtured, while each team needs to develop their own shared vision of their purpose.
Practical help comes from many sources, and we will look specifically, into like: Kanban, Scrum and the Theory of Constraints. The Theory of Constraints nurtures Unity of Purpose and Community of Trust in many ways. In particular, the Theory of Constraints squarely addresses the need to arrive at common metrics by which all and everybody are driven; and overcomes the structural impediments (rooted in the use of cost accounting and efficiency metrics for management purposes) which are the sources of divergence of purpose and hidden agendas.
Kanban and Scrum are widely used in modern knowledge work businesses. The Theory of Constraint can extend them in powerful ways, bringing more predictability of behavior of the system as a whole, as well as of the individuals. Their combination becomes a powerful breeding ground for the development of Unity of Purpose and Community of Trust. Both Kanban and Scrum can be extended with features of the Theory of Constraint, and help creating a hyper-productive organization. The book will present practical ways by which such combination might be realized.
Software development organizations — like Microsoft, Google, Oracle; but also high profile open source organizations like Apache, Ubuntu, Drupal and others — can be considered as archetypal knowledgebased organizations, because the totality of artifacts produced by a software business is purely immaterial. Software development organizations were the first one to confront the challenges of completely immaterial processes, entirely based on knowledge. They were also the first organizations to experience the socio-technological impact of information technology (especially the development of computer networks) on their internal work processes and organizational structures.
Due to its frantic and exponential pace of innovation, the field of software development also became a testbed for a variety of approaches and methods for managing immaterial knowledge work, typically under the form of software development processes and methodologies. Numerous alternatives evolved over a relatively short period, with a lot of healthy competition in between them; with vehement “holy wars” between proponents of one approach or another; and with many anecdotes about both successes and failures.
Valuable insights can be gained by studying the organizational and managerial approaches successfully adopted by the industry that produced the information revolution — that is, those organizations that engage first hand in software development — and then by extrapolating those organizational and managerial processes to the more general case of knowledgebased organizations.
Nowadays, the majority of organizations have become knowledge-based. Even the most resilient and traditional "brick and mortar" businesses are forced to become knowledgebased organizations. For instance, consider the impact of largescale 3D printing on the construction industry ("Contour Crafting"), where bricks and mortar literally become software. Or nanoscale technologies, where manufacturing at the sub-atomic level becomes software.
The key tenet of this book is that organizational hyper-productivity stems from the two Noble Patterns of "Unity of Purpose" and "Community of Trust." The leaders and the top executives of the organization play a critical role in creating the conditions for these patterns to become effective. Management must play an active role in leading the organization towards these conditions.
In the case of software (and knowledge) organizations, management will have to gain a deep understanding of the nature of software or knowledge work; and that nature is rooted in empiricism. Top executives already have that understanding; though they might not be aware of it, and – unfortunately – do not act consequently. Management must create the conditions for the development of a learning organization. Financial responsibility must be exercised differently, and in way that is compatible with the empirical nature of knowledge work. Key roles must be nurtured, while each team needs to develop their own shared vision of their purpose.
Practical help comes from many sources, and we will look specifically, into like: Kanban, Scrum and the Theory of Constraints. The Theory of Constraints nurtures Unity of Purpose and Community of Trust in many ways. In particular, the Theory of Constraints squarely addresses the need to arrive at common metrics by which all and everybody are driven; and overcomes the structural impediments (rooted in the use of cost accounting and efficiency metrics for management purposes) which are the sources of divergence of purpose and hidden agendas.
Kanban and Scrum are widely used in modern knowledge work businesses. The Theory of Constraint can extend them in powerful ways, bringing more predictability of behavior of the system as a whole, as well as of the individuals. Their combination becomes a powerful breeding ground for the development of Unity of Purpose and Community of Trust. Both Kanban and Scrum can be extended with features of the Theory of Constraint, and help creating a hyper-productive organization. The book will present practical ways by which such combination might be realized.
- GenresManagementLeadership
488 pages, ebook
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 1, 2013
Wow! This book is mind blowing!!! Talks about Kanban, Theory of Constraints, Queue Theory, Agile Development and how to achieve a state of hyper-productivity using a blend of methods called Hyper Kanban. Very well explained and detailed. Must read to software engineering experts.
August 10, 2016
Great book, very well researched and full of good referentes.
The TOC Explanation in the book is awesome, the best I’ve seen so far.
If you are applying agile methods for some time and need to think deeply about agile roots and concepts related to hyper-productivity this may be the right book for you,
The TOC Explanation in the book is awesome, the best I’ve seen so far.
If you are applying agile methods for some time and need to think deeply about agile roots and concepts related to hyper-productivity this may be the right book for you,
September 6, 2016
Very good book. The part I and II explains how to achieve a hyper-productive team in a management perspective. Parts III and IV are focused in the operational.
A lot of very interesting ideas are inside this book. One of them is regarding the throughput accounting against cost accounting. The theory of constraint is very well explained, with examples easy to understand, even for people who never hear about it.
Very interesting as well the distinction between common cause variation and special cause variation. Beyond that, why setting work-in-progress for each stage of the Kanban board can lead to unnecessary interruptions along the flow.
At the end, the author talks about reliable scrum and reliable Kanban, with very useful tips. I liked the fever chart combined with burn down chart. Together, these charts trigger signals for problems even early, but not so early, to disturb the team in case of common cause variation.
A lot of very interesting ideas are inside this book. One of them is regarding the throughput accounting against cost accounting. The theory of constraint is very well explained, with examples easy to understand, even for people who never hear about it.
Very interesting as well the distinction between common cause variation and special cause variation. Beyond that, why setting work-in-progress for each stage of the Kanban board can lead to unnecessary interruptions along the flow.
At the end, the author talks about reliable scrum and reliable Kanban, with very useful tips. I liked the fever chart combined with burn down chart. Together, these charts trigger signals for problems even early, but not so early, to disturb the team in case of common cause variation.
December 7, 2013
I met Steve when I was consulting on CCPM in a major Australian bank in Q2/2013. Their teams were already using Scrum and Kanban for some time, but Senior Management was struggling to do proper portfolio and resource management, and it was also difficult to handle the inter-dependencies between the several projects and teams. My team developed a set of techniques to help them, but after reading "Tame the Flow" I realized we could help them even more by adopting the principles and techniques described in it. I got so excited about it that I offered to translate the book to Brazilian Portuguese, which is also available at LeanPub here.
If you are coming from an Agile background, of even from a TOC/CCPM background, this is a must read (and practice) book!
If you are coming from an Agile background, of even from a TOC/CCPM background, this is a must read (and practice) book!
February 27, 2019
Reviewed on my blog, as usual. https://www.jackvinson.com/blog/2013/...
December 12, 2015
Great insights. Some of the things said might be a little bit too far from reach and the book give us a pretty good idea how to start.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews