All in book review

HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflcit

Jack Vinson
book review, business, theory of constraints

The HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict by Amy Gallo is a quick read, directly on topic. As I read the book, it became clear that my idea of “conflict” has been colored by my close work with Theory of Constraints and the way TOC thinking processes talk about conflict and conflict resolution. The conflicts in this guide are the interpersonal conflicts we run into all the time in business, be they created by disagreements on the what (task) or how (process) of work, or who is ultimately responsible (status) - which often devolve into relationship conflicts. The TOC perspective on conflict is more about understanding the system which creates the conflict, rather than resolving the personal challenges that result from the conflict. Both aspects are important to successful business.

Leadership Is Language

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement

A colleague has been reading and commenting about Leadership Is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say--and What You Don't by L. David Marquet, and it seemed like a good pick to read and discuss.

The essential idea is right there in the subtitle - what you say matters. The book fleshes out that idea with some nice anecdotes and elements of the thinking behind the concepts. There are some good concepts in here for regular interactions with other people - whether you are a formal “leader” or otherwise working with people to get things done. (In other words, almost everyone.) That said, I am not totally convinced in some of the way Marquet brings the various elements together.

Thinking in Systems: A Primer from Meadows

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement

I finally took the time to read Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems: A Primer. It is obviously a primer on terms and concepts - not on the how to’s. There are great thoughts throughout the book on how to incorporate systems thinking and the value behind it. Even at the outset, Meadows says something to the effect that it is only useful to do this analysis if it will help solve real problems.

High Five - Blanchard

Jack Vinson
book review, community, culture, business

Ken Blanchard’s High Five is a blast from the past. It was published in 2001, on the heels of several popular management books like Raving Fans and The One Minute Manager and Gung Ho! They are all based around “common sense” ideas that might not be terribly common practice. High Five is about creating teams that perform at top levels, and there are plenty of folksy aphorisms peppered throughout the book.

The Unicorn Project

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement

My review of Gene Kim’s upcoming book, The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data (due at the end of November). It’s an interesting read, describing a path to an amazing turnaround of a doomed technology inside a traditional business. The Five Ideals are a nice encapsulation of many of the ways people talk about continuous improvement with a notable addition of Psychological Safety.

From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver

Jack Vinson
culture, continuous improvement, book review, project management, product management

Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby’s new book From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams is a fairly quick read, loaded with guidance and recommendations for teams that aren’t co-located apply the Agile Software Development principles. They even carve out specific instances of the principles as applied to distributed agile teams.

Insight - Seeing What Others Don't

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement, knowledge management, innovation

Gary Klein’s 2013 book “Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights” is a good read, as I’ve found with his his other books. He likes to explore a topic from stories and search for corroborating links to draw together new conclusions. And as this book is about insight, the overall story of this book describes his journey of discovery as he delved into the topic. I particularly liked his discussion of the challenges that organizations face in gaining and using insights.

Statistics: Two points do not make a trend

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement

Mark Graban has written a great book on statistics, Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. He focuses on Process Behavior Charts that help highlight the natural variability of a process and can really show when there has been a change in the underlying system. He does a nice job (for me) of simplifying the concepts and the underlying reasoning. He’s even put the math at the back of the book, in favor of providing clear reasoning and project flow.

Project to Product - projects aren't evil

Jack Vinson
product management, project management, book review

I recently read a pair of books that talk about project management shifting into product management - both of which seem to blame the woes of organizations on project management. One is Mik Kersten’s Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework, and the other is more of a work-in-process book (and free) #noprojects: A Culture of Continuous Value by Evan Leybourn and Shane Hastie.

Overall, these books present some interesting ideas on how to think of delivering value - whether it is in a project environment or not. And they present a few frustrations for me in that I don’t think the core problem is due to “projects.” I think it is deeper embedded into organizations that are so fractured that the flow of value has been lost. Lets get that righted, and project management AND product management work much better.

Addicted to Hopium - Throughput

Jack Vinson
theory of constraints, continuous improvement, book review

My review of Kevin Kohl’s Addicted to Hopium - Throughput: Using the DVA Business Process to Break the Guesswork Habit. The book is a fictionalization of the long history that Kohls has had in bringing Theory of Constraints and related approached to GM and other organizations. Kohls gives us the story of MegaCo and engineer Andrew Wright and their journey from barely being able to keep their heads above water to applying a strategic approach to improvement, thanks to the impetus of a guru in the form of a possible customer.

The Startup Way

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement

In essence, this book is about taking the Lean Startup concepts and applying them much more broadly - inside companies, non-profits, governments, and or even a lemonade stand. Most of the ideas and proposals in the book make a lot of sense, and it is useful for me to have them collected in this fashion.

Beyond the Phoenix Project

Jack Vinson
book review, continuous improvement, theory of constraints

Gene Kim and John Willis recorded a set of conversations called Beyond the Phoenix Project to talk about the DevOps movement since the publication of The Phoenix Project.  (It’s available as an audio and a transcription.) I very much appreciate that the thinking behind DevOps has been geared around learning and applying concepts and ideas from all of these areas. I'm sure there are cargo-cultists who simply try to mimic what they see other people doing, but the people who are developing and growing in DevOps are clearly those who are looking at the giants that have come before them, climbing up on their shoulders, doing something new that is relevant to their current view of the world, and then sharing that back with the community to test and refine and develop further. I got a strong sense of excitement and desire to learn from this.

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