Optimizing for Fast Flow: Key factors for organizations seeking effective software delivery and team wellbeing
Optimizing for Fast Flow by Conflux is a mini-book comprising five insightful articles written by experts in the fields of software and organization design.
It will help readers to gain a broader understanding of the mindset, approaches, and practices - both technical and social - that are needed when aiming to optimize for fast flow.
What is included in Optimizing for Fast Flow?
The mini-book includes these expert articles:
Richard James sets out the need for continuous improvement with reference to lessons learned from Nationwide Building Society. The article gives a fascinating overview of the journey to continuous improvement and the ups and downs along the way. In particular, what enabled, inhibited, or didn’t affect flow.
Jessica Kerr on achieving true observability, the best use of telemetry, and the importance of sociotechnical mirroring for fast flow and value creation. She also sets out the truly effective way to measure ‘code quality’.
Audun Fauchald Strand and Truls Jørgensen on how to achieve alignment (of missions, teams, architecture, and terminology) whilst also maintaining autonomy. And what is the real role, function, and place of IT within a business.
Emily Webber on the value that can be realized in organizations through Communities of Practice.
Sophie Weston on psychological safety, its relationship to fast flow, and the business benefits of creating a psychologically safe workplace.
How will these approaches help your organization?
The mini-book answers key questions such as how to structure organizations and teams, how to get the most from all of your team members, and how to identify and remove inhibitors of flow. And there is a detailed section on the relative merits of different models of change. Should there be a central change department, for example? On a related note, Richard James discusses whether change should be top-down or grassroots-led and the surprising conclusion.
Like any recommended change, people need to be motivated to move on from current ways of working and organizing. The mini-book contains helpful advice on how to convey the need for change and the effectiveness of the solution and a detailed analysis of the benefits of such an approach.
Ultimately, for best results, these new ways of working need to be normalized. The way teams interact and the way they understand their role and purpose will change.
It’s always useful to revisit fundamental principles and the mini-book includes valuable definitions of code quality, psychological safety, and other terms that can be as useful to seasoned practitioners as anyone else. It’s not short on technical guidance either - such as how best to use telemetry and tools for creating technology alignment.
There are cautionary tales on the pitfalls of optimizing for only one thing and of having unrealistic time-tracking expectations (although knowing how long the major tasks take is a good thing).
Fast flow is not about working harder
The essence of fast flow is to leverage the optimal social and technical practices to do high quality work in smart ways that reduce or better manage dependencies. Focussing on how teams interact and work together will help to remove bottlenecks that are bad for productivity and bad for human motivation and wellbeing. That way, you can move fast but without adding any additional pressure on teams. Indeed, done effectively, pressure on teams should be reduced as fast flow is internalized.
Ultimately, greater value for stakeholders is the outcome. That is, more successful software products that meet the needs of users and other stakeholders. These products will be released frequently and they will keep pace with changing needs and environments.
As is a theme of Conflux writing, a humanistic, team-first approach runs all the way through this mini-book.
What are the key takeaways?
Actionable insights include:
Directly applicable methods to create a humanistic environment of empowered, autonomous team members with a shared purpose.
Matching the social practices to technical practices is a game-changer for teams and organizations.
There are two seemingly opposite approaches to managing change in technology focussed businesses. Both can achieve the desired results.
Finally, it is worth noting that the job of achieving fast flow is never finished. Not only because team members come and go, but also because it’s a constant interplay of teams with other teams and technology within multiple changing contexts. Even if your organization has applied all of these principles, the mini-book includes ‘pro tips’ such as how to ensure the maturity of Communities of Practice rather than just their existence. And, there is our old friend ‘continuous improvement’. As all of the contributors set out in different ways, successful organizations are learning organizations. They are made up of individuals who are constantly learning and sharing.