On this episode of The Idealcast with Gene Kim, Dr. Steve Spear talks about the primary characteristics of dynamic learning organizations, through the lens of its structure and the resulting dynamics, and how it enables those organizations to win and dominate in the marketplace.  From his 1999 Harvard Business Review article “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” to his bestselling book The High-Velocity Edge to his monomaniacal advocate for the scientific method employed by everybody about everything all the time, Spear’s influence on the successful pursuit of excellence and perfection is undeniable.  Discussing everything from the importance of curiosity and experimentation, fast feedback, mission orientation, leadership, healthcare organizations, military strategy and organization, and of course Toyota, Spear and Kim explain why organizations behave the way they do and demonstrate why dynamic learning organizations are so successful. ABOUT THE GUESTS Dr. Steve Spear (DBA MS MS) is principal for HVE LLC, the award-winning author of The High Velocity Edge, and patent holder for the See to Solve Real Time Alert System.  A Senior Lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School and a Senior Fellow at the Institute, Spear’s work focuses on accelerating learning dynamics within organizations so they know better faster what to do and how to do it. This has been informed and tested in practice in multiple “verticals” including heavy industry, high tech design, biopharm R&D, healthcare delivery and other social services, Army rapid equipping, and Navy readiness.   High velocity learning concepts became the basis of the Alcoa Business System—which led to 100s of millions in recurring savings, the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiatives “Perfecting Patient Care System”—credited with sharp reductions in complications like MRSA and CLABs, Pratt & Whitney’s “Engineering Standard Work”—which when piloted led to winning the engine contract for the Joint Strike Fighter, the operating system for Detroit Edison, and the Navy’s high velocity learning line of effort—an initiative led by the Chief of Naval Operations. A pilot with a pharma company cut the time for the ‘hit to lead’ phase in early stage drug discovery from twelve months to six. Spear has published in Annals of Internal Medicine, Academic Medicine, Health Services Research, Harvard Business Review, Academic Administrator, and the US Naval Institute’s Proceedings He invented the patented See to Solve Real Time Alert System and is principal investigator for new research on making critical decisions when faced with hostile data.  He’s supervised more than 40 theses and dissertations. He holds degrees from Harvard, MIT, and Princeton and worked at the University of Tokyo, the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment and Prudential Bache. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stevespear Email: steve@hvellc.com Website: thehighvelocityedge.com You’ll Learn About: Explore how Steve’s mental model of dominate architectures, structure and dynamics can explain why organizations behave the way they do The conditions for organizational-wide learning that allows the achievement of amazing goals and to dominate in the marketplace How fast feedback creates opportunities to self correct and improve in real time The characteristics of a dynamic learning organization Episode Timeline: [00:08] Intro [00:21] Meet Dr. Steve Spear [04:47] Introducing the late-Dr. Clay Christensen [05:50] Working at a Tier 1 Toyota supplier’s plant floor [09:56] Steve’s dissertation and Dr. Clay Christensen [15:00] Dr. Clay Christensen’s involvement with Steve’s work [19:19] Creating a feedback generating experiment beyond Toyota [30:07] Why dominant architectures are important [33:22] The steering column example [36:28] What happens when the problems change? [41:45] The role structure and dynamics play with dominant structures [45:00] Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World  [51:41] The parallels in the commercial world [53:02] Change of dynamics in team of teams examples [1:02:07] The importance of bad news [1:14:44] Learning the dynamics within the US Naval reactor core [1:23:59] Reflecting on the discussion with Steve [1:26:11] How The Rickover Program achieved its goals [1:27:53] Conditions that suppress signals [1:36:57] Relating this to the COVID-19 pandemic [1:41:11] Finding Dr. Steve Spear [1:43:04] Outro Resources: The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition by Dr. Steve Spear Design Rules, Vol. 1: The Power of Modularity by Dr. Carliss Y. Baldwin and Dr. Kim B. Clark Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal with Tantum Collins, David Silverman and Chris Fussell The Rickover Effect: How One Man Made A Difference by Theodore Rockwell Strategies for Learning from Failure by Dr. Amy C. Edmondson Dr. Diane Vaughan China Created a Fail-Safe System to Track Contagions. It Failed. by Steven Lee Myers See to Solve by Dr. Steve Spear “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System,” -  Harvard Business Review "Facing Ambiguous Threats," by Dr. Michael Roberto, Dr. Richard M.J. Bohmer and Dr. Amy C. Edmondson

Elisabeth Hendrickson, an experienced QA engineer, explores the relationship between testing and quality in this podcast. She shares her journey of realizing that the better she got at her job, the worse it made things for the organization. Hendrickson highlights the importance of feedback cycles and creating visibility around them. She also discusses polluted feedback, the illusion of speed over progress, and the significance of feedback loops in creating a learning organization.

In Episode 3, Gene Kim is joined by Elisabeth Hendrickson, who inspired many ideas in The DevOps Handbook and, more recently, The Unicorn Project. She has shaped the way Gene sees the world of DevOps. From Developer to Tester ratios, to the importance of architecture, and the need for leaders to decompose systems well. Together they explore her years as VP R&D for Pivotal Software, Inc., software development, and the link between organizations and architecture. In a wide-ranging discussion, they cover Elisabeth’s mental model of balance, structure, and flow, to her view of how organizations really work. Listen as Gene and Elisabeth explore her WordCount Simulation, to her personal experience with MIT’s Beer Game, and much more.   ABOUT THE GUESTS Elisabeth Hendrickson is a leader in software engineering. She most recently served as VP R&D for Pivotal Software, Inc. A lifelong learner, she has spent time in every facet of software development, from project management to design for companies ranging from small start-ups to multinational software vendors. She has helped organizations build software in a more efficient way and pioneered a new way to think about achieving quality outcomes and how that hinges on fast and effective feedback loops. Her book, Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing, was released in 2013 and is explores technical excellence and mastery, and creating effective feedback loops for everyone. She spoke at the DevOps Enterprise Summit in 2014, 2015, and 2018, and received the Gordon Pask Award from the Agile Alliance in 2010. Visit Elisabeth’s website Twitter LinkedIn   YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT How to build software in a more efficient way Elisabeth’s mental model of balance, structure and flow How Conway’s law applies to Elisabeth’s model Elisabeth’s WordCount Simulation    Episode Timeline: [00:09] Intro [00:15] Meet Elisabeth Hendrickson [04:14] “Better Testing - Worst Quality?” [04:54] “Managing the Proportion of Testers to (Other) Developers” [08:25] How to get great testing behaviors [13:29] How structure enables developers to work on features [16:08] Applying principle to non-functional requirements [18:43] Conway’s law and Inverse Conway Maneuver [27:43] Elisabeth’s model on balance, structure and flow [31:01] MIT’s Beer Game [36:41] The WordCount Simulation [44:54] Becoming a good partner [50:03] Drawing lines as a leader [55:39] The Five Ideals [57:33] Stuck in a cost center [1:05:44] It’s all about feedback [1:10:50] The Phoenix Project’s Sarah’s background [1:19:09] Who is your first team? [1:28:07] Finding Elisabeth Hendrickson [1:28:29] Outro   RESOURCES Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott The four quadrants of Radical Candor Ruinous Empathy Manipulative Insincerity Obnoxious Aggression Radical Candor Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save and Ruin by James O’Shea Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing by Elisabeth Hendrickson Better Testing, Worse Quality? by Elisabeth Hendrickson  Managing Proportions of Testing to (Other) Developers by Dr. Cern Kaner, Elisabeth Hendrickson, and Jennifer Smith-Brok When NASA Lost a Spacecraft Due to a Metric Math Mistake by Ajay Harish Lockheed: New Carrier Hook for F-35 by Dave Majumdar Conway's law Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System by Steven Spear and H. Kent Bowen The WordCount Simulation by Elisabeth Hendrickson "The Beer Game" by Prof. John D. Sterman

As mentioned in Episode 1 of The Idealcast, this is Dr. Mik Kersten’s talk from DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas 2018 with exclusive commentary from Gene. , In his presentation, Mik dives into the Flow Framework featured in his work, Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework.  Get Mik’s insights on building a foundation for innovation in the software field. Follow along as he breaks down the lessons learned as a leader in tech working with brands like Microsoft and BMW. Find out what they got right and what he says anyone looking to innovate in tech should start doing immediately. This is a perfect followup to Episode 1.  Episode Timeline: [00:03] Intro  [00:52] Meet Mik Kersten  [02:35] The Flow Framework  [03:24] Working at Xerox PARC  [05:29] Epiphany #1: Software architecture and the value stream [06:15] Epiphany #2: How Nokia lost the market it created [08:57] Epiphany #3: Software innovation and tools for transformation [12:33] Carlota Perez and tech revolutions [14:39] BMW, Lean principles  [18:30] Optimizing business value flow in IT [22:24] How Microsoft excelled where Nokia couldn't [25:10] Flow efficiency and moving towards a connected value network [27:42] How they're applying flow framework at Tasktop [29:49] Business advice for developers [31:22] Finding Dr. Mik Kersten  [32:02] Outro    ABOUT THE GUESTS Dr. Mik Kersten started his career as a Research Scientist at Xerox PARC where he created the first aspect-oriented development environment. He then pioneered the integration of development tools with Agile and DevOps as part of his Computer Science PhD at the University of British Columbia. Founding Tasktop out of that research, Mik has written over one million lines of open-source code that is still in use today, and he has brought seven successful open-source and commercial products to market.   Mik’s experiences working with some of the largest digital transformations in the world has led him to identify the critical disconnect between business leaders and technologists. Since that time, Mik has been working on creating new tools and a new framework for connecting software value stream networks and enabling the shift from project to product.   Mik is the author of the book Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework. Mik lives with his family in Vancouver, Canada, and travels globally, sharing his vision for transforming how software is built.     Visit Mik’s Website   YOU’LL LEARN ABOUT Ways to optimize business value flow for IT How fragmented value streams kill productivity. The role proxy metrics and silos play in derailing software transformations. Why project management and cost centered is the wrong model for transforming a business. RESOURCES Slides to Mik Kersten’s Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data by Gene Kim Zone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption by Geoffrey A. Moore Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework by Mik Kersten The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital by Carlota Perez “Project To Product: Beyond the Turning Point,” presentation by Mik Kersten at DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas, 2019 “How Value Stream Networks Will Transform IT and Business,” presentation by Mik Kersten at DevOps Enterprise Summit London, 2018 “How Value Stream Networks Will Transform IT and Business,” presentation by Mik Kersten at DevOps Enterprise Summit Las Vegas, 2018 Bill Gates: Trustworthy Computing, Wired

Experts Peter Moore and Dr. Mik Kersten discuss the Five Ideals for digital success. Topics include balancing core competencies, transforming IT for strategic partnership, embracing technology, innovation in business, and collaboration for success amidst adversity.