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Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential
here is your practical roadmap to development excellence.
Your development team works hard and achieves some successes. But customer outcomes are weak, deliveries take too long, pivoting is difficult and costly, and the team is frustrated. The business is never satisfied, and you can never relax.
You’ve tried to improve results using Agile frameworks, Big Tech processes, team empowerment, and modern tools and techniques. Yet real improvement has been limited, slow, or unsustainable.This book is for you. In it, you’ll
A complete picture of what it takes to make meaningful, efficient, and sustainable improvement10 sequential, incremental, and holistic strategies to optimize value deliveryHow to implement these strategies in your organization, whether it’s product-oriented or project-oriented, traditional or agile or hybrid, single-team or scaledAn easy, process-agnostic, and nontechnical assessment that will show you which strategies to use now
To help you apply everything in your context, the book also
Dozens of real-life examples and a complete case studyPlain-language advice on people-first leadership, mindset, and systems thinkingGroup discussion questions for leadersDownloadable summaries and self-assessment questionnaires
Not in this idealism, dogma, prescriptions, magic bullets.
Get this practical guide now and start delivering better results.
“This is an invaluable resource for senior leaders who seek to foster a positive culture and build strong and effective product development teams.” —Alon Sabi, Head of Engineering
“Its insights make it a game-changer.” —Dinah Davis, VP of R&D
“This book exemplifies and explains in detail how to enable an entire human system inside a bigger complex context.” —Malene Krohn, Head of Product Development Excellence
“It’s a refreshing departure from prescriptive approaches.” —Steve Rogalsky, VP of Product
“It will transform the way you approach your role.” —TK Balaji, CIO
Your development team works hard and achieves some successes. But customer outcomes are weak, deliveries take too long, pivoting is difficult and costly, and the team is frustrated. The business is never satisfied, and you can never relax.
You’ve tried to improve results using Agile frameworks, Big Tech processes, team empowerment, and modern tools and techniques. Yet real improvement has been limited, slow, or unsustainable.This book is for you. In it, you’ll
A complete picture of what it takes to make meaningful, efficient, and sustainable improvement10 sequential, incremental, and holistic strategies to optimize value deliveryHow to implement these strategies in your organization, whether it’s product-oriented or project-oriented, traditional or agile or hybrid, single-team or scaledAn easy, process-agnostic, and nontechnical assessment that will show you which strategies to use now
To help you apply everything in your context, the book also
Dozens of real-life examples and a complete case studyPlain-language advice on people-first leadership, mindset, and systems thinkingGroup discussion questions for leadersDownloadable summaries and self-assessment questionnaires
Not in this idealism, dogma, prescriptions, magic bullets.
Get this practical guide now and start delivering better results.
“This is an invaluable resource for senior leaders who seek to foster a positive culture and build strong and effective product development teams.” —Alon Sabi, Head of Engineering
“Its insights make it a game-changer.” —Dinah Davis, VP of R&D
“This book exemplifies and explains in detail how to enable an entire human system inside a bigger complex context.” —Malene Krohn, Head of Product Development Excellence
“It’s a refreshing departure from prescriptive approaches.” —Steve Rogalsky, VP of Product
“It will transform the way you approach your role.” —TK Balaji, CIO
- GenresTechnology
289 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 21, 2024
5 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
Gil Broza
6 books20 followersGil Broza specializes in helping tech leaders deliver far better results by upgrading their organizations’ Agile ways of working. He also supports their non-software colleagues in creating real business agility in their teams. Gil has helped over 100 organizations achieve real, sustainable improvements by working with their unique value delivery contexts and focusing on mindset, culture, and leadership. Companies also invite Gil for specialized support, such as strategic mapping of their improvement journey, facilitation of organizational mindset workshops, and keynotes for internal conferences. He is the author of four highly acclaimed books: Deliver Better Results, The Agile Mind-Set, The Human Side of Agile, and Agile for Non-Software Teams. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 21, 2024
Systems thinking is an interesting thing. It seems rare that people understand what it is, and even fewer understand how to embrace systems thinking to improve the complex adaptive systems that makeup organizations. In this book, Gil does an excellent job of providing a model that enables the evaluation of the health of an organization's systems and provides actionable strategies that improve that health. He does a fantastic job of describing the environmental forces at play in organizations and how to work with them to reinforce the behaviors that enable that organization to improve.
Whether you are leading an organization, within an organization, or just interested in organizational dynamics, I recommend digging into this book. It will provide fantastic insights and actionable steps that can make real changes.
Whether you are leading an organization, within an organization, or just interested in organizational dynamics, I recommend digging into this book. It will provide fantastic insights and actionable steps that can make real changes.
January 29, 2024
Change is hard, and as much as we want simple, formulaic answers, each situation is different. Many process improvement books offers answers, but the approaches are often narrow or make assumptions about your organization. Deliver Better Results by Gil Broza will help you to understand where you are, how to identify where you want to be, and provide a step by step guide for navigating the path to your destination.
Broza describes some principles for improving a software development organization and a framework for identifying areas to improve, and the steps to take. Each part of the journey offers options; while there are common themes in teams that need to improve, no two teams are exactly alike.
Context is a recurring theme in this book. Often people looking to improve their delivery outcomes are looking for an answer: a set of process changes that will work. Broza makes clear that the right approach depends on where you are in your improvement journey, and that you will need to inspect and adapt along the way.
As an example of a context motivated approach vs a cookbook one: consider decision making: it seems axiomatic that a bias towards centralized decision making is a bottleneck; the people closest to the problem are often best suited to make decisions. But a consensus driven approach can become a bottleneck when all those involved don’t have all the information or the decision is low risk (so you can change it) or time sensitive (the probability+cost of waiting is higher than the probability + cost of a wrong decision), and in those cases having a person or small group own the decision. The “it depends” approach can be off-putting to some looking for a quick fix, but Broza guides you through the rationale, helping you to maintain a sustainable path to improvement.
Among other recurring theme that is both very important and often ignored: Systems thinking and the value of people. Broza emphasizes the importance of considering the whole system involved in delivery. This seems obvious, but we are often tempted simplify a problem by making an educated guess about where the problem is and fixing the local change. While that can occasionally work, you often end up with minimal change, or sometimes a worse problem. For example, while it might be tempting to start with restructuring a team that appears to be underperforming, the real impediments might be in the planning or organization culture, so consider introducing changes to those.
Broza also make it clear that the people on the team matter. Technology changes can be valuable, but their main value is how they help people perform.
This isn’t a “fix it all at once” guide. Such approaches rarely work in software systems, much less human ones, and since each step changes the system, it would be impossible to address all the issues with one set of changes. This incremental approach also works with the human tendency to accept smaller units of change better than larger ones.
You might find your self thinking that some of the ideas are obvious. In some ways, they are: the book focuses on people, and since teams are made of people, taking care of team dynamics is important. This “obvious” thinking is often ignored. Many change guides focus almost exclusively on tools or process, but by putting them at the center you avoid the real issues. Gil Broza puts people front and center. Which sadly is all too rare.
Deliver Better Results is full of practical, valuable, advice that is too often ignored. If you want to understand and improve team deliver, Deliver Better Results will be worth your time.
Broza describes some principles for improving a software development organization and a framework for identifying areas to improve, and the steps to take. Each part of the journey offers options; while there are common themes in teams that need to improve, no two teams are exactly alike.
Context is a recurring theme in this book. Often people looking to improve their delivery outcomes are looking for an answer: a set of process changes that will work. Broza makes clear that the right approach depends on where you are in your improvement journey, and that you will need to inspect and adapt along the way.
As an example of a context motivated approach vs a cookbook one: consider decision making: it seems axiomatic that a bias towards centralized decision making is a bottleneck; the people closest to the problem are often best suited to make decisions. But a consensus driven approach can become a bottleneck when all those involved don’t have all the information or the decision is low risk (so you can change it) or time sensitive (the probability+cost of waiting is higher than the probability + cost of a wrong decision), and in those cases having a person or small group own the decision. The “it depends” approach can be off-putting to some looking for a quick fix, but Broza guides you through the rationale, helping you to maintain a sustainable path to improvement.
Among other recurring theme that is both very important and often ignored: Systems thinking and the value of people. Broza emphasizes the importance of considering the whole system involved in delivery. This seems obvious, but we are often tempted simplify a problem by making an educated guess about where the problem is and fixing the local change. While that can occasionally work, you often end up with minimal change, or sometimes a worse problem. For example, while it might be tempting to start with restructuring a team that appears to be underperforming, the real impediments might be in the planning or organization culture, so consider introducing changes to those.
Broza also make it clear that the people on the team matter. Technology changes can be valuable, but their main value is how they help people perform.
This isn’t a “fix it all at once” guide. Such approaches rarely work in software systems, much less human ones, and since each step changes the system, it would be impossible to address all the issues with one set of changes. This incremental approach also works with the human tendency to accept smaller units of change better than larger ones.
You might find your self thinking that some of the ideas are obvious. In some ways, they are: the book focuses on people, and since teams are made of people, taking care of team dynamics is important. This “obvious” thinking is often ignored. Many change guides focus almost exclusively on tools or process, but by putting them at the center you avoid the real issues. Gil Broza puts people front and center. Which sadly is all too rare.
Deliver Better Results is full of practical, valuable, advice that is too often ignored. If you want to understand and improve team deliver, Deliver Better Results will be worth your time.
January 22, 2024
This book offers a comprehensive framework for measuring and improving an organization's effectiveness while allowing problems to be solved in a context-specific way. I've always appreciated Gil's ability to provide specific and practical guidance without being prescriptive and this book is no exception.
All the techniques in the book strike a great balance between value and simplicity. As an example, measuring the fitness of your systems is done on a scale of "far", "midway", or "near" optimal. At first, that seemed almost comically vague but the exercise is designed to give enough insight to move forward without being bogged down in detail.
Although it will require a significant commitment for an organization to progress to "Level 5", any leader will find valuable tools in this book to assess their current system health and make improvements. I read this book cover to cover but I'm sure I'll go back to it (and the additional resources) for advice in specific areas depending on the teams I work with.
All the techniques in the book strike a great balance between value and simplicity. As an example, measuring the fitness of your systems is done on a scale of "far", "midway", or "near" optimal. At first, that seemed almost comically vague but the exercise is designed to give enough insight to move forward without being bogged down in detail.
Although it will require a significant commitment for an organization to progress to "Level 5", any leader will find valuable tools in this book to assess their current system health and make improvements. I read this book cover to cover but I'm sure I'll go back to it (and the additional resources) for advice in specific areas depending on the teams I work with.
January 19, 2024
This book is a terrific amalgam of Systems Thinking, Agile Mindset, and Understanding People. Gil Broza has long been known for his contributions to Agile Thought and Human-Centered Agile leadership. This book takes these concepts one step further by adding a systems thinking layer on the journey to delivering value. The book has many great examples from software development, but the lessons here could be applied to many other areas of knowledge work where delivering better results is critical. I intend to start using concepts from this book in my own job in the next several weeks. The strategies laid out in the book are practical and the manner that they build on each other is clear and sensible. The extra resources and further reading are very useful.
Highly recommended if you are on a journey to delivering value and empowering high performing teams!!
Highly recommended if you are on a journey to delivering value and empowering high performing teams!!
January 25, 2024
Gil Broza’s new book, “Deliver Better Results”, provides a method for organizations to assess their current maturity level in the way their teams are working and delivering value. Gil provides a maturity level categorization allowing organizations to assess their current level, and he provides practical steps to move to the next level. Gil is a thought leader in this space and provides useful advice and practical methods for any organization at any stage of maturity to level-up their value delivery.
May 22, 2024
A book that equips you to drive business and customer value sooner
Why do product teams struggle to use their full potential?
Often, they get distracted by frameworks and processes. Gil Broza has just released his new book, which aims to help teams deliver better results.
I had the pleasure of reading the book before publishing it, and I can share my take on it.
If you long for a hands-on book to bring new perspectives, this book can help you. Gil makes it simple to read and actionable.
Why do product teams struggle to use their full potential?
Often, they get distracted by frameworks and processes. Gil Broza has just released his new book, which aims to help teams deliver better results.
I had the pleasure of reading the book before publishing it, and I can share my take on it.
If you long for a hands-on book to bring new perspectives, this book can help you. Gil makes it simple to read and actionable.
January 22, 2024
An excellent and practical read. You’ll want a couple copies to share with colleagues.
March 11, 2024
Great read, easy, relevant and comprehensive overall. Doesn't reinvent anything but a nice collector practices and framing on helping organizations improve, not just teams.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews