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Mapping Your Org Capability | Chapter 11 Breakdown of The Value Flywheel Effect

In this episode, Dave Anderson, Mark McCann, and Michael O’Reilly dive into Chapter 11 of The Value Flywheel Effect — "Map Your Organisational Capability".

We unpack how to use mapping techniques, such as Wardley Mapping, to assess and visualise your organisation’s capabilities across areas like security, cloud-native development, and emerging tech like GenAI. The discussion covers:

🔹 Why individual expertise ≠ organisational capability
🔹 Mapping techniques using industry standards and evolutionary stages
🔹 How to use mapping for strategic clarity and identifying capability gaps
🔹 Lessons from applying security and cloud-native capability maps in real organisations
🔹 Using mapping as a lightweight but powerful tool for technology leadership and investment planning

This episode is full of practical insights for tech leaders seeking clarity, situational awareness, and better strategic decisions.

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🎙️ Serverless Craic: Exploring Socio-Technical Systems for Change

Welcome back to Serverless Craic! In this episode, the team dives into Chapter 10: Challenge – A Socio-Technical System for Change from the book, The Value Flywheel Effect. This thought-provoking conversation unpacks how organisations can effectively bridge the gap between people and technology to foster meaningful, sustainable change.

🔍 Topics Covered:

What makes socio-technical change so difficult
The importance of flow, team design, and time to value
Lessons from Team Topologies and Drive by Daniel Pink
Frameworks like Cynefin and Wardley Mapping
Democratising AI and enabling change through feedback loops
Why architecture alone won't save you

🤔 Whether you're a tech leader, architect, or engineer, this episode offers valuable insights on how to navigate complexity, decentralise expertise, and embed purpose and autonomy at every level of your organisation.

📚 Referenced:

Team Topologies
Drive by Daniel Pink:
Cynefin Framework (Dave Snowden)
Wardley Mapping
Fred Emery’s Design Principles

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🎙️ Environment for Success & Psychological Safety
Welcome back to another episode of Serverless Craic! After a short hiatus (thanks, ServerlessDays Belfast!), Dave Anderson and Mark McCann return to dive deep into one of the most critical – and timely – topics in modern software delivery: creating the right Environment for Success.

In this episode, we unpack Chapter 9 from The Value Flywheel Effect and explore the fundamentals that enable high-performing teams, including:

🔹 Psychological safety and why it’s the foundation of great engineering cultures
🔹 The danger of hero anti-patterns and the myth of the “rock star” developer
🔹 Challenging assumptions safely – using artefacts, not egos
🔹 Simon Wardley’s doctrine and Dr. Ron Westrum’s organisational culture model
🔹 How aligned autonomy and clarity of purpose help teams focus on what matters
🔹 Why generative, learning organisations adapt best to AI-driven change

Whether you’re a tech leader, architect, or engineer, this conversation is a masterclass in building sustainable, modern digital organisations.

🧭 Referenced resources:

The Value Flywheel Effect by us!
The Fearless Organisation by Amy Edmondson
Accelerate by Nicole Forsgren
Simon Wardley’s Doctrine
Dr. Ron Westrum’s organisational models

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In this episode of Serverless Craic, Map the Market and A Cloud Guru Case Study, we dive into Chapters 7 and 8 of the book The Value Flywheel Effect. The discussion focuses on "Mapping the Market" and a fascinating case study on clarity of purpose, featuring the story of A Cloud Guru.

Discover how mapping the value chain helps companies identify their place in the market, understand competitors, and predict strategic moves. Learn about the transformative impact of a laser-focused North Star and how serverless-first approaches powered scalability and success. The episode includes insightful anecdotes, practical mapping techniques, and lessons from real-world examples like Tesla and A Cloud Guru.

🎯 Key Topics Covered:
- Mapping the market and competition.
- Understanding and leveraging the value chain.
- Insights from A Cloud Guru’s journey to a $2 billion acquisition.
- Practical tips for mapping your strategy effectively.

💬 Join the conversation! Share your thoughts and subscribe for more discussions on engineering, strategy, and innovation.

Thanks for tuning in, and see you in the next episode, where we’ll explore "Challenging the Environment" in the Value Flywheel framework! 🚀

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Welcome to the latest episode of Serverless Craic! 🎙️ Today, we're diving back into our series on The Value Flywheel Effect, focusing on Chapter 6: "Obsess Over Time to Value."

Join us as we explore the significance of delivering value quickly and efficiently in tech organisations. We discuss the concept of "Time to Value" over "Time to Market," reflecting on how innovation labs and agile structures can help companies pivot, react, and respond to both threats and opportunities.

In this episode, we touch on key topics like:
- The importance of creating a feedback loop to see real user value
- The challenges of organisational inertia and how it can inhibit innovation
- Real-life examples of experimentation and pivoting, including building "trap doors" to validate product assumptions
- The role of situational awareness in overcoming barriers to change

We also delve into how high-performing teams can increase an organisation’s "rate of turn," making it more adaptable in a rapidly evolving market. Whether you're dealing with big projects or experimenting with new technologies, empowering teams to focus on value, rather than just speed, can transform your business outcomes.

If you enjoyed this discussion, don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share.

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This episode centres on Chapter Five of the book "The Value Flywheel Effect," focusing on the North Star framework.
We explain how this framework helps teams align their work with a clear, meaningful metric (North Star) and its related leading and lagging metrics.

North Star Framework Overview
We explain the North Star framework, emphasising its use in helping teams coalesce behind a mission or purpose with a visual, collaborative tool. And the importance of leading metrics and lagging metrics, explaining how the North Star framework helps teams reverse engineer leading metrics from lagging ones.

Application of North Star Framework
We look at the usefulness of the North Star framework at both the small startup level and the enterprise level, where it helps link lead measures back to overall business impact.
The North Star framework is powerful for team and individual morale by making work meaningful and aligning it with organisational objectives.
We reference Dan Pink's "mastery, autonomy, sense of purpose" to emphasise the importance of knowing what you are doing and why.
The North Star framework is complementary to mapping for strategy, helping to narrow down on value and focus conversations.

Challenges and Benefits of North Star Framework
It is valuable to ask teams about their metrics and how their work influences them, leading to valuable conversations about measurement and alignment.
We look at the importance of measurement, referencing Grace Hopper's quote about the power of accurate measurement.
Having data and clear alignment to organisational strategy helps teams advocate for change more effectively.
The North Star framework can sometimes reveal that teams are not aligned or that the overall strategy is flawed, likening it to the emperor's new clothes.

Connecting North Star to Business Value
A structured North Star often reveals disconnects in the work being done and its impact on business value, serving as a corrective measure.
We compare the North Star framework to impact mapping, both helping to create a compelling narrative and understand the story of what the team is working on.
It is challenging to craft the North Star for behind-the-scenes teams, but the framework helps align value delivery with business goals.
We discuss Amazon's working backwards process and its similarities with the North Star framework, emphasising the importance of understanding the customer's need and working backwards from there.

Critical Thinking and Leadership
These frameworks are enablers of critical thinking, challenging teams and organizations to question their assumptions and goals.
North Star metrics and key input metrics make it easier to write a compelling press release that aligns with the company's strategy.
Clarity of purpose is the foundation of everything, requiring leadership and courage to implement.

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In this insightful discussion, we explore mapping techniques from Chapter 3 of our book The Value Flywheel Effect and their applications in organisations. Key topics include:

• Anatomy of a Worldly Map: Breaking down the components of a map, including visible, aware, and invisible items in the value chain.
• Mapping Teams and Tech Stacks: How mapping helps in identifying team roles and modernising technology stacks.
• Starting with Maps and Collaboration: Tips for overcoming the blank canvas fear and leveraging tools like GitHub's "Awesome Worldly Maps" and VS Code extensions for map annotations.
• Open Space Collaboration: The value of engaging everyone in discussions and validating inputs.
• Mapping the Stack, Organisation, and Market: Using mapping for situational awareness, aligning teams with core domains, and understanding market dynamics to respond effectively to opportunities and threats.

This conversation provides practical insights into using mapping for better organizational awareness and strategic decision-making.

- Learn more about The ServerlessEdge - see link below
- Explore GitHub's Awesome Worldly Maps for useful mapping tools.

Don't miss this deep dive into mapping strategies to enhance your organisation’s situational awareness and tech evolution!

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Wardley mapping is a strategic tool to visualise the evolution of products or services.
The two axes of a Wardley Map are visibility and evolutionary stage.
Products and technologies evolve through four stages:

1. Genesis,
2. Custom build,
3. Product or rental, and
4. Commodity or utility.

Understanding context and phase of adoption is crucial in the business world, especially with AI and LLMs.
Identifying and moving commodities versus custom-built solutions is important, and optimizing organizational structure for autonomy involves concepts like movement, time planning, and sub-maps. We explain the anatomy of a Wardley map, starting with the anchor (customer) and emphasising the importance of understanding the map's axis and how space and position have meaning.
Evolution of technology from Genesis to Commodity, with stages of Custom Build and Product.
Product evolution from Genesis to Custom, Commodity, and ubiquity, tailored to specific contexts.
We explain the evolution of products through usage and competition and product evolution is context-dependent.

Leveraging AI and LLMs in business contexts.
We highlight the varying perceptions of LLM and Gen AI across different contexts and note that DBT is marketed as a product or consumer depending on the context. We discuss the importance of understanding user needs and dependencies in designing a successful product.

Mapping components to move from custom-built to commodity products.
We look at the importance of mapping components to move a business forward and identify inertia as a challenge in moving components, and discuss ways to overcome it.
The conversation highlights the importance of leveraging commodities and building a database in 2024. We discuss the evolution of AI, from its early stages to its current utility, and the importance of having the right team types, including explorers, settlers, and time planners. We emphasise the need for all three team types, as each one plays a crucial role in the AI development process, and spikes in team performance can be identified and addressed accordingly.

Mapping for autonomous organisations, including optimisation, movement, and sub-maps.
We look at the importance of optimising for movement in engineering teams, with different strategies for 'pioneers', 'settlers', and 'villagers'. And the need for organisation-wide alignment and the use of mixed methods within Wardley Mapping, with a focus on stacking boxes when necessary.
We look at the importance of mapping in software development, highlighting different types of maps and their uses.
And we provide tips for creating effective maps, including using sub-maps for detailed areas and avoiding too many components on the map.

Wardley Mapping Resources: Ben Mosior and https://learnwardleymapping.com/

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