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Edge: Value-Driven Digital Transformation
Today's enterprises are achieving incremental outcomes in a world of exponential opportunities. Why are their digital transformations falling short? Poor execution: enterprise capabilities are proving inadequate in areas ranging from portfolio management to software delivery. Now, ThoughtWorks' pioneering digital transformation experts introduce EDGE: a powerful new operating model that closes the gap between digital strategy and execution, so you can truly achieve continuous innovation. Fast, iterative, adaptive, lightweight, and value driven, EDGE addresses three crucial issues:
How people work together when major, fast-paced responses are necessary How organizations allocate and monitor investment funds for initiatives based on their vision and goals How organizations learn to adapt fast enough to thrive Agile leader Jim Highsmith and his colleagues explain how EDGE embraces an adaptive mindset in the face of market uncertainty, a Lean Value Tree that encourages value linkage from vision to detailed initiatives, incremental rather than big upfront funding, and a focus on collaborative decision-making rather than artifacts and burdensome processes. Next, they illuminate EDGE's emphasis on managing change and transforming organizations by adjusting investment to reflect new strategies and reduce risk. You'll gain practical insight for leveraging EDGE in your organization, drawing on the unmatched experience of its creators and their pioneering clients.
How people work together when major, fast-paced responses are necessary How organizations allocate and monitor investment funds for initiatives based on their vision and goals How organizations learn to adapt fast enough to thrive Agile leader Jim Highsmith and his colleagues explain how EDGE embraces an adaptive mindset in the face of market uncertainty, a Lean Value Tree that encourages value linkage from vision to detailed initiatives, incremental rather than big upfront funding, and a focus on collaborative decision-making rather than artifacts and burdensome processes. Next, they illuminate EDGE's emphasis on managing change and transforming organizations by adjusting investment to reflect new strategies and reduce risk. You'll gain practical insight for leveraging EDGE in your organization, drawing on the unmatched experience of its creators and their pioneering clients.
256 pages, Paperback
Published September 26, 2019
143 people are currently reading
406 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 27, 2019
DISCLAIMER: I am friends with some of the authors.
EDGE is a book by three experienced Agile and Product consultants. It provides an operating model for your IT department aimed at surviving digital disruption. The model is focused around hypothesis-driven portfolio management and autonomous, customer-focused teams.
The first half of the book focuses on the importance of technology, portfolio prioritization, value measurement and product thinking. For me, the second half of the book was the most valuable, as it focuses on strategy, governance and leadership. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize how the mindsets and practices reinforce each other, and while this sort of shift is difficult, adopting only pieces is unlikely to result in the expected performance gains.
This book is recommended for managers and executives in IT departments who are wrestling with some of the practical realities of adapting existing IT department policies and practices to modern development and a constantly shifting digital competitive landscape.
EDGE is a book by three experienced Agile and Product consultants. It provides an operating model for your IT department aimed at surviving digital disruption. The model is focused around hypothesis-driven portfolio management and autonomous, customer-focused teams.
The first half of the book focuses on the importance of technology, portfolio prioritization, value measurement and product thinking. For me, the second half of the book was the most valuable, as it focuses on strategy, governance and leadership. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize how the mindsets and practices reinforce each other, and while this sort of shift is difficult, adopting only pieces is unlikely to result in the expected performance gains.
This book is recommended for managers and executives in IT departments who are wrestling with some of the practical realities of adapting existing IT department policies and practices to modern development and a constantly shifting digital competitive landscape.
July 10, 2021
Contains a lot of interesting ideas on how to implement adaptive strategy that is well connected across all layers in an organization. I especially appreciate it’s emphasis on evidence based management.
The overall approach feels sometimes a bit too framework-like and prescriptive for my taste, but I can see how Lean Value Trees and value based service portfolios with periodic reviews and adjustments can be super useful for a digital organization.
One thing I still haven’t wrapped my head around is whether this book complements or conflicts with the Team Topology ideas (which I really like)
Overall worth the read
The overall approach feels sometimes a bit too framework-like and prescriptive for my taste, but I can see how Lean Value Trees and value based service portfolios with periodic reviews and adjustments can be super useful for a digital organization.
One thing I still haven’t wrapped my head around is whether this book complements or conflicts with the Team Topology ideas (which I really like)
Overall worth the read
September 1, 2022
EDGE was recommended to me by a colleague - handing me over a copy saying "You will like this". Finally he was right. EDGE is in fact a very good read. A very good read for anyone pushing digital transformation at scale to arrive at a really data-driven organization.
Standard agile frameworks, like SAFe, are very much focused on the process and organization aspect. This brings them a lot of criticism these days as it's tempting for large organizations to claim "digital transformation accomplished" just by changing some role descriptions and org-charts according to the rules of one of these frameworks. Written by ThoughtWorks consultants Jim Highsmith, Linda Luu and David Robinson, who have vast experience in software consultancy (Jim Highsmith being one of the co-authors of the Agile Manifesto), EDGE takes a different approach. It focuses some of the most essential elements of large-scale enterprise digital transformation, namely: Customer value, autonomous teams, product thinking, tech@core, portfolio management, collaborative decision-making and adaptive leadership. It's quite in-depth and sometimes a bit difficult to navigate around (due to the introduction of it's own terms and abbreviations), but people concerned with digital transformation in their day-to-day business life will definitely find some very remarkable thoughts and hands-on concepts that are touching the core.
Some of the aspects that I like most:
...Fitness function of business operations: I really like the wording "fitness function" here. Because this term is used on a scientific background in optimization theory. And it embodies so much about digital transformation. Any optimization requires as the very basis a statement of the target that should be achieved. Especially in multi-objective (i.e. pareto) optimization this is not a single measurable value, but a function - the fitness function, only resulting in a single value depending on a given weighing of priorities. The same applies to digital transformation: Customer value and adaptability are contradicting targets. How well an enterprise deals with change is a matter of assigning the right priorities - the right fitness function - also for software engineering. As the authors write (page 16): "Customer value is key to the present. Adaptability is key to the future. When ROI and efficiency dominated the fitness function, adaptability suffered. In the technology realm, for example, IT software assets accumulated technical dept that severely impacted future development. Time and time again, when priority decisions were made, the emphasis was on schedule and cost, not value and adaptability. Over time, software assets degraded to the point that many organizations' abilities to become digital enterprises were severely compromised."
...Exploration mindset as the basis of digital transformation (page 18): "Whether you are setting high-level goals or building capabilities or delivering a small increment of a product, the fundamental approach you need can be summarized in two simple words: Envision-explore. These two words contrast with traditional approaches that can be characterized by two other words: Plan-Do. You can't play your way into the future - you need to explore. Planning raises the specter of determinism: Just plan well enough and then just do what you planned. In times of uncertainty and with an accelerated pace of change, our traditional reliance on planning won't work. It's not that we don't plan - we do. In fact, much of this book is about planning. We just don't believe our plans will survive reality. We don't waste time doing detailed plans that change constantly. We spend more time trying to envision the future, whether of our organization or of our detailed initiatives. You can't plan away uncertainty; instead you have to learn it away. You have to try five things in parallel, in short experiments, to find the one that seems to work and is worth carrying forward. This Envision-Explore mindset needs to permeate your organization if it is to be successful at digital transformation. As you move into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where uncertainty reigns and the need for speed and innovation is the dominating force, portfolio and program management must be much more responsive than they have been in the past. Moreover, they must be incorporated into a broader operating model. The path to a digital enterprise lies in being innovative, fast, value centered, and adaptive - not in returning to the structure and process of earlier times.
...Tech@Core: "Tech@Core" is the authors' synonym for the currently evolving era of business operations, where technology is in the heart and backbone of business understanding, business model and business operations. As they write (page 24): "The fourth era, labeled Tech@Core, moves toward greater integration of business and IT arenas. Among the factors that differentiate Tech@Core from the preceding phases are the following:
- Leaders understand the critical nature of tech to their business and are increasingly tech savvy (many are younger and never worked in the pre-Internet world).
- Leaders depend on technology to create innovative customer journeys
- Customer value replaces cost as the primary performance measure (fitness function).
- Speed and adaptability replace cost and efficiency as technology drivers.
- Tech knowledge and experience are continuously evolving.
- Leaders promote fast, frequent experimentation and learning, while maintaining the discipline to select and evaluate the right experiments.
- Reducing cycle time maximizes the value from learning."
...Adaptive Leadership: Adaptive Leadership is a term coined by Jim Highsmith. It boils down to the point that in times of ambiguity, risk and uncertainty - present at the "EDGE" between complex and chaotic, where most innovation is happening - leaders need to live up with exactly the same "Envision-Explore" mindset that they embrace for the work in their teams. (page 205): "Ambiguity risk, and uncertainty are an integral part of innovative projects today. As such, they offer leaders paradoxical situations - situations that require backing away from the direct paradox and figuring out inclusive solutions. Adaptive leaders need to become "riders os paradox". [...] Agile leaders need the courage to view issues from different perspectives, to gather data without undue prejudice, to formulate both/and rather than either/or solutions."
Standard agile frameworks, like SAFe, are very much focused on the process and organization aspect. This brings them a lot of criticism these days as it's tempting for large organizations to claim "digital transformation accomplished" just by changing some role descriptions and org-charts according to the rules of one of these frameworks. Written by ThoughtWorks consultants Jim Highsmith, Linda Luu and David Robinson, who have vast experience in software consultancy (Jim Highsmith being one of the co-authors of the Agile Manifesto), EDGE takes a different approach. It focuses some of the most essential elements of large-scale enterprise digital transformation, namely: Customer value, autonomous teams, product thinking, tech@core, portfolio management, collaborative decision-making and adaptive leadership. It's quite in-depth and sometimes a bit difficult to navigate around (due to the introduction of it's own terms and abbreviations), but people concerned with digital transformation in their day-to-day business life will definitely find some very remarkable thoughts and hands-on concepts that are touching the core.
Some of the aspects that I like most:
...Fitness function of business operations: I really like the wording "fitness function" here. Because this term is used on a scientific background in optimization theory. And it embodies so much about digital transformation. Any optimization requires as the very basis a statement of the target that should be achieved. Especially in multi-objective (i.e. pareto) optimization this is not a single measurable value, but a function - the fitness function, only resulting in a single value depending on a given weighing of priorities. The same applies to digital transformation: Customer value and adaptability are contradicting targets. How well an enterprise deals with change is a matter of assigning the right priorities - the right fitness function - also for software engineering. As the authors write (page 16): "Customer value is key to the present. Adaptability is key to the future. When ROI and efficiency dominated the fitness function, adaptability suffered. In the technology realm, for example, IT software assets accumulated technical dept that severely impacted future development. Time and time again, when priority decisions were made, the emphasis was on schedule and cost, not value and adaptability. Over time, software assets degraded to the point that many organizations' abilities to become digital enterprises were severely compromised."
...Exploration mindset as the basis of digital transformation (page 18): "Whether you are setting high-level goals or building capabilities or delivering a small increment of a product, the fundamental approach you need can be summarized in two simple words: Envision-explore. These two words contrast with traditional approaches that can be characterized by two other words: Plan-Do. You can't play your way into the future - you need to explore. Planning raises the specter of determinism: Just plan well enough and then just do what you planned. In times of uncertainty and with an accelerated pace of change, our traditional reliance on planning won't work. It's not that we don't plan - we do. In fact, much of this book is about planning. We just don't believe our plans will survive reality. We don't waste time doing detailed plans that change constantly. We spend more time trying to envision the future, whether of our organization or of our detailed initiatives. You can't plan away uncertainty; instead you have to learn it away. You have to try five things in parallel, in short experiments, to find the one that seems to work and is worth carrying forward. This Envision-Explore mindset needs to permeate your organization if it is to be successful at digital transformation. As you move into the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where uncertainty reigns and the need for speed and innovation is the dominating force, portfolio and program management must be much more responsive than they have been in the past. Moreover, they must be incorporated into a broader operating model. The path to a digital enterprise lies in being innovative, fast, value centered, and adaptive - not in returning to the structure and process of earlier times.
...Tech@Core: "Tech@Core" is the authors' synonym for the currently evolving era of business operations, where technology is in the heart and backbone of business understanding, business model and business operations. As they write (page 24): "The fourth era, labeled Tech@Core, moves toward greater integration of business and IT arenas. Among the factors that differentiate Tech@Core from the preceding phases are the following:
- Leaders understand the critical nature of tech to their business and are increasingly tech savvy (many are younger and never worked in the pre-Internet world).
- Leaders depend on technology to create innovative customer journeys
- Customer value replaces cost as the primary performance measure (fitness function).
- Speed and adaptability replace cost and efficiency as technology drivers.
- Tech knowledge and experience are continuously evolving.
- Leaders promote fast, frequent experimentation and learning, while maintaining the discipline to select and evaluate the right experiments.
- Reducing cycle time maximizes the value from learning."
...Adaptive Leadership: Adaptive Leadership is a term coined by Jim Highsmith. It boils down to the point that in times of ambiguity, risk and uncertainty - present at the "EDGE" between complex and chaotic, where most innovation is happening - leaders need to live up with exactly the same "Envision-Explore" mindset that they embrace for the work in their teams. (page 205): "Ambiguity risk, and uncertainty are an integral part of innovative projects today. As such, they offer leaders paradoxical situations - situations that require backing away from the direct paradox and figuring out inclusive solutions. Adaptive leaders need to become "riders os paradox". [...] Agile leaders need the courage to view issues from different perspectives, to gather data without undue prejudice, to formulate both/and rather than either/or solutions."
July 15, 2022
Deceitful.
The book mixes best practices from other sources: Measure what matters, Inspired, Lean, Team Topologies… In order to create a new framework, it renames all the concepts to inspire you as “courageous leader” (“you don’t plan, you explore!”) and centers *everything* around technology (business and its ROI are the old way, only technology provides value.)
Everything will seem very easy to implement. But then you realize that the methodology is superficial and the only way out is to hire Thougworks.
Be critical and you’ll get some good ideas though
The book mixes best practices from other sources: Measure what matters, Inspired, Lean, Team Topologies… In order to create a new framework, it renames all the concepts to inspire you as “courageous leader” (“you don’t plan, you explore!”) and centers *everything* around technology (business and its ROI are the old way, only technology provides value.)
Everything will seem very easy to implement. But then you realize that the methodology is superficial and the only way out is to hire Thougworks.
Be critical and you’ll get some good ideas though
February 21, 2022
Good model for portfolio management at scale
Edge is an interesting step back from early agile evangelists on how to implement the benefits at scale scale in traditional corporates. The LVT model inspired by Toyota’s Hoshin Kanri is very inspiring.
The parts about bold and adaptive leadership are more anecdotal and do not give actionable insight on how to foster such leadership in an organisation.
Edge is an interesting step back from early agile evangelists on how to implement the benefits at scale scale in traditional corporates. The LVT model inspired by Toyota’s Hoshin Kanri is very inspiring.
The parts about bold and adaptive leadership are more anecdotal and do not give actionable insight on how to foster such leadership in an organisation.
June 26, 2020
Concrete and valuable, written by the best
This is a great complement to Lean Enterprise if you are seeking to transform an organization. This book is particularly concrete around lean portfolio management, something I hadn't found at this level before. We are having our CEO and exec committee read it.
This is a great complement to Lean Enterprise if you are seeking to transform an organization. This book is particularly concrete around lean portfolio management, something I hadn't found at this level before. We are having our CEO and exec committee read it.
August 31, 2021
Fantastic read in bringing together Tech@Core with Agility and delivering incremental value with advice and help on how to make that happen including governance.
Each companies context is different, but I can't state enough about how people should read this to get some decent advice and help in adopting and adapting to the fast paced ever changing world of software and service delivery.
Each companies context is different, but I can't state enough about how people should read this to get some decent advice and help in adopting and adapting to the fast paced ever changing world of software and service delivery.
October 21, 2024
More suited for those in management and consulting roles.
What stuck with me the most was the idea to set up guardrails and let teams operate freely, allowing innovation to happen at a faster pace within structured boundaries.
While the book didn't quite resonate with me, it does offer practical advice for those looking to navigate digital transformation in their organizations.
What stuck with me the most was the idea to set up guardrails and let teams operate freely, allowing innovation to happen at a faster pace within structured boundaries.
While the book didn't quite resonate with me, it does offer practical advice for those looking to navigate digital transformation in their organizations.
July 7, 2020
Muy buen libro sobre gestión de portafolio Lean para reducir la brecha entre estrategia y Agile delivery.
July 30, 2020
Book full of repetitions. Most content taken from blogs.
The framework presented does not introduce anything new.
The framework presented does not introduce anything new.
April 28, 2021
Clear, actionable blueprint for implementing an agile operating model.
December 30, 2021
Solid book with recommendations for agile at scale.
December 18, 2023
Good principles, understandable strategy suggestions on how to implement the organizational changes and the reasons behind
February 28, 2020
Very practical and good book for Lean Portfolio
This is a very good book, becouse its practical focus in how the make Lean Portfolio Management. I enjoyed the explication of Lean Tree Value and the several practical examples that it contains. Thank you for share us...
This is a very good book, becouse its practical focus in how the make Lean Portfolio Management. I enjoyed the explication of Lean Tree Value and the several practical examples that it contains. Thank you for share us...
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews