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A Seat at the Table and The Art of Business Value
A Seat at the Agile, Lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game-changers. They provide a fundamentally different way to think about how IT fits into the enterprise, how IT leaders lead, and how IT can harness technology to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise. But honest and open conversations are not taking place at the interface between management and Agile delivery teams. In A Seat at the Table, CIO Mark Schwartz explores the role of IT leadership as it is now and the role of IT leadership as it should be—an integral part of the value creation engine.Asking two critical questions, how can IT harness Agility to achieve the best value for the enterprise and how can IT redefine its relationship with the enterprise to maximize this value, and in the process, earn that seat at the table, Schwartz shows that the only way to become an Agile IT leader in today’s world is to be courageous—to throw off many of the attitudes and assumptions that have left CIOs struggling to gain a seat at the table, to proceed in bold strokes, and to lead the enterprise in seizing opportunities to create business value through technology.The Art of Business Do you really understand what business value is? Information technology can and should deliver business value. But the Agile literature has paid scant attention to what business value means—and how to know whether or not you are delivering it. This problem becomes ever more critical as you push value delivery toward autonomous teams and away from requirements “tossed over the wall” by business stakeholders. An empowered team needs to understand its goal!Playful and thought-provoking, The Art of Business Value explores what business value means, why it matters, and how it should affect your software development and delivery practices. More than any other IT delivery approach, DevOps (and Agile thinking in general) makes business value a central concern. This book examines the role of business value in software and makes a compelling case for why a clear understanding of business value will change the way you deliver software.This book will make you think deeply about not only what it means to deliver value but also the relationship of the IT organization to the rest of the enterprise. It will give you the language to discuss value with the business, methods to cut through bureaucracy and strategies for incorporating Agile teams and culture into the enterprise. Most of all, this book will startle you into new ways of thinking about the cutting-edge of Agile practice and where it may lead.
513 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
January 29, 2018
When Mark Schwartz opens his mouth, you're not sure if you're going to get a dose of management theory or a quote from Derrida. This can be entertaining if you're just along for the ride, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance-style, but inordinately frustrating if what you want is someone who gets to the point quickly without the philosophical dialectics about the meaning of life.
When Schwartz is on, he's on: this tends to be near the beginning and ends of this book (modulo the introduction, which I found to be unnecessary and not particularly well-written). He correctly identifies that the major disconnect between IT and the business today is that the fundamental model of IT -- as a contractor-control one, designed to keep the geeks under control because otherwise they would waste the company's money and produce nothing of value -- is fundamentally broken in this era of digital-first experiences. CIOs, rather than agitating for a seat at the strategy (or adult, if you will) table with the rest of the C-level executives, should become experts in how to influence the entire enterprise into embracing technology, while maintaining a deep level of knowledge and a talented team to deliver. The "seat" will come in time, Schwartz says.
In general, Schwartz makes a compelling argument, one with which I tend to agree. However, the digressions into Kierkegaardian philosophy as applied to IT management leave the prospective CIO-reader with little to go on except a criticism of systems and approaches past. Much of this a CIO could already have picked up from other Agile books. Yet one of the promises Schwartz made to the reader in the introduction -- about how Agile and enterprise IT are at odds -- remains unfulfilled: where is the criticism of Agile and Lean practices and how should they change to adapt to business realities? Arguing that extreme uncertainty in the technology domain justifies dispensing with very many commitments to scope, deadlines, or committed outcomes is likely to give the CIO's peers at that executive table conniptions. Businesses as a whole deal with a great deal of uncertainty, yet the CMO, CFO, and VP of Sales are not given a free pass when it comes to producing results on a schedule. Surely there has to be a balance, yet Agile does give nerdy engineers an almost-free pass to deliver whatever they want, when they want.
This might not be as much of a problem if the last 30 years of IT didn't consist of it being run as a contractor-control cost center, where some (many?) IT employees have worked their entire careers being incented to produce output and not outcomes. Breaking these folks of this pattern will take time. I would have preferred to see a stronger emphasis in Schwartz's book on use of management-by-objective systems like OKRs, because employees do have to be measured on something, unless you're a research university which most private and public employers are not. I have worked at a company where engineering shipped nearly nothing of value for two years because we were "Agile". When I think of "Agile" being applied to legacy enterprises filled with IT workers who have spent the last 30 years not incentivized to produce value because they were part of a contractor-control model oriented solely around on-time delivery, you can see why I am leery of not having some other strong system to replace it.
Overall, I enjoyed Schwartz's book, though I'm not sure how many CIOs will. Most modern CIOs that are already sold on IT being a fundamental part of the business have probably already looked into how to do this, and are thusly knowledgeable about many of the practices here. Those that are not are likely to be turned off by Schwartz's free-spirited, philosophical wheeling-and-dealing. In short, I worry about the level of impact this book will have on those who truly do need to hear the message, yet I hope I'm wrong.
When Schwartz is on, he's on: this tends to be near the beginning and ends of this book (modulo the introduction, which I found to be unnecessary and not particularly well-written). He correctly identifies that the major disconnect between IT and the business today is that the fundamental model of IT -- as a contractor-control one, designed to keep the geeks under control because otherwise they would waste the company's money and produce nothing of value -- is fundamentally broken in this era of digital-first experiences. CIOs, rather than agitating for a seat at the strategy (or adult, if you will) table with the rest of the C-level executives, should become experts in how to influence the entire enterprise into embracing technology, while maintaining a deep level of knowledge and a talented team to deliver. The "seat" will come in time, Schwartz says.
In general, Schwartz makes a compelling argument, one with which I tend to agree. However, the digressions into Kierkegaardian philosophy as applied to IT management leave the prospective CIO-reader with little to go on except a criticism of systems and approaches past. Much of this a CIO could already have picked up from other Agile books. Yet one of the promises Schwartz made to the reader in the introduction -- about how Agile and enterprise IT are at odds -- remains unfulfilled: where is the criticism of Agile and Lean practices and how should they change to adapt to business realities? Arguing that extreme uncertainty in the technology domain justifies dispensing with very many commitments to scope, deadlines, or committed outcomes is likely to give the CIO's peers at that executive table conniptions. Businesses as a whole deal with a great deal of uncertainty, yet the CMO, CFO, and VP of Sales are not given a free pass when it comes to producing results on a schedule. Surely there has to be a balance, yet Agile does give nerdy engineers an almost-free pass to deliver whatever they want, when they want.
This might not be as much of a problem if the last 30 years of IT didn't consist of it being run as a contractor-control cost center, where some (many?) IT employees have worked their entire careers being incented to produce output and not outcomes. Breaking these folks of this pattern will take time. I would have preferred to see a stronger emphasis in Schwartz's book on use of management-by-objective systems like OKRs, because employees do have to be measured on something, unless you're a research university which most private and public employers are not. I have worked at a company where engineering shipped nearly nothing of value for two years because we were "Agile". When I think of "Agile" being applied to legacy enterprises filled with IT workers who have spent the last 30 years not incentivized to produce value because they were part of a contractor-control model oriented solely around on-time delivery, you can see why I am leery of not having some other strong system to replace it.
Overall, I enjoyed Schwartz's book, though I'm not sure how many CIOs will. Most modern CIOs that are already sold on IT being a fundamental part of the business have probably already looked into how to do this, and are thusly knowledgeable about many of the practices here. Those that are not are likely to be turned off by Schwartz's free-spirited, philosophical wheeling-and-dealing. In short, I worry about the level of impact this book will have on those who truly do need to hear the message, yet I hope I'm wrong.
January 16, 2019
This is a fantastic book that attacks the silo-ization of IT (and its leadership) in a business. I am going to have to write a longer review, but for now I'll just say that a remarkable feat is accomplished in chapters 5 ("Requirements") and 9 ("Governance and Oversight") where Schwartz essentially derives the OKR system from "Agile" first principles. He comes up with a system that has much of the thinking of OKRs without all of the baggage.
Elsewhere the book expands on his deep skepticism -- as expressed in his earlier book The Art Of Business Value (a much more difficult "read") -- about whether it makes sense to have the "business" represent value to IT teams, rather than collapse the very distinction between the business side and the IT side.
This should be required reading for CIOs, CTOs, wannabees for those roles, and, I would say, CEOs.
Elsewhere the book expands on his deep skepticism -- as expressed in his earlier book The Art Of Business Value (a much more difficult "read") -- about whether it makes sense to have the "business" represent value to IT teams, rather than collapse the very distinction between the business side and the IT side.
This should be required reading for CIOs, CTOs, wannabees for those roles, and, I would say, CEOs.
July 23, 2020
I think whether you like or dislike this one heavily depends on your personal context. It's not targeting developers or engineering team leads. I think it doesn't even target people familiar with Agile or Lean. Neither is it all encompassing. It quite heavily references other material.
If you already know a bit about Lean or Agile or have read a lot the material that it references, I suppose you will not get much from this book.
It's written specifically for the typical top level IT management in fairly traditional companies. You know, those who have IT departments and software developers, but are trapped in an unhappy, contractor kind of relationship internally. Those companies where IT is not part of the solution finding process, but rather the implementation sink. The kind of relationship where both sides, business and IT, are unhappy. You can feel that throughout the book. And that makes it important again, because even though we have 2020, I think the majority of companies are still somewhere trapped in this model.
What I like about it is that it contains the most comprehensible introduction to the changing role of IT and software development within a company that I've encountered so far. It outlines quite a few good ideas on where tech companies like Netflix went with their workforce and what the implications of that are for the business moving forward. It also follows the line of books like the Phoenix or Unicorn project, but doesn't package it up in a fictional story. I'm pretty certain that I could give it to some top level IT people I know and the content and depth would be perfect for them. Not too deep, not to shallow with a lot of connection points to delve deeper when necessary.
But it's not without its problems. The CIO role and the distinction to the CTO at least for me isn't really clear. I usually replaced that role with top level engineering management and a lot what he wrote about CIOs made more sense to me. It also took me a while to understand that this book mostly addresses companies where software is produced for the internal business colleagues to work with, so companies that are either at the start of in the early phases of their digital transformation. If you're looking at the challenges from a company that already operates on top of a digital product, it becomes a bit harder to read in some parts because you need to translate a bit here and there in your head. Lastly some parts are prone to over generalisation, like the argument for as little standardisation as possible (I've seen that fail already once) or using community centric IT models (also heavily depends on the culture, skill and other factors whether it works, I've also seen that kinda fail)
Nevertheless, it's an important book. For a certain group it outlines where IT is largely going and for that I would definitely recommend reading it, if you're in middle or top level IT management.
If you already know a bit about Lean or Agile or have read a lot the material that it references, I suppose you will not get much from this book.
It's written specifically for the typical top level IT management in fairly traditional companies. You know, those who have IT departments and software developers, but are trapped in an unhappy, contractor kind of relationship internally. Those companies where IT is not part of the solution finding process, but rather the implementation sink. The kind of relationship where both sides, business and IT, are unhappy. You can feel that throughout the book. And that makes it important again, because even though we have 2020, I think the majority of companies are still somewhere trapped in this model.
What I like about it is that it contains the most comprehensible introduction to the changing role of IT and software development within a company that I've encountered so far. It outlines quite a few good ideas on where tech companies like Netflix went with their workforce and what the implications of that are for the business moving forward. It also follows the line of books like the Phoenix or Unicorn project, but doesn't package it up in a fictional story. I'm pretty certain that I could give it to some top level IT people I know and the content and depth would be perfect for them. Not too deep, not to shallow with a lot of connection points to delve deeper when necessary.
But it's not without its problems. The CIO role and the distinction to the CTO at least for me isn't really clear. I usually replaced that role with top level engineering management and a lot what he wrote about CIOs made more sense to me. It also took me a while to understand that this book mostly addresses companies where software is produced for the internal business colleagues to work with, so companies that are either at the start of in the early phases of their digital transformation. If you're looking at the challenges from a company that already operates on top of a digital product, it becomes a bit harder to read in some parts because you need to translate a bit here and there in your head. Lastly some parts are prone to over generalisation, like the argument for as little standardisation as possible (I've seen that fail already once) or using community centric IT models (also heavily depends on the culture, skill and other factors whether it works, I've also seen that kinda fail)
Nevertheless, it's an important book. For a certain group it outlines where IT is largely going and for that I would definitely recommend reading it, if you're in middle or top level IT management.
February 2, 2021
Risk is managed not through cautious planning but through bold experiments.
The content: spot on. Agile/Lean philosophy spun for a person working as a senior leader (hey, that's me!). It helped me connect things I already knew about Agile/Lean with how I should be applying them in my current role. The book was recommended to me by a co-worker. Perfect recommendation.
The writing style: frustrating. In my eyes, the book would be improved by dropping a lot of philosophizing, slashing 50-100 pages, and being more focused.
Recommended for any senior engineering leader. But if you're anything like me, gather your patience.
The content: spot on. Agile/Lean philosophy spun for a person working as a senior leader (hey, that's me!). It helped me connect things I already knew about Agile/Lean with how I should be applying them in my current role. The book was recommended to me by a co-worker. Perfect recommendation.
The writing style: frustrating. In my eyes, the book would be improved by dropping a lot of philosophizing, slashing 50-100 pages, and being more focused.
Recommended for any senior engineering leader. But if you're anything like me, gather your patience.
July 24, 2020
I've been an Agile enthusiast for the majority of my development career, and I have first hand experienced the competitive advantage that being truly agile gives to product engineering teams. As I moved into IT leadership, however, the challenges were different - and the dichotomy of being agile in the development space but waterfall in the leadership space became clearer to me. Mark challenges how the Agile manifesto didn't consider Senior Management - or actually considered it just as an impediment and something to manage and offers his thoughts on how senior managers (CIO in particular, but I think the book applies to everybody having responsibility over a big portion of IT in an organisation) can learn from Agile/Lean principles and apply those learning into their organisations - from an executive angle.
If you're an Agile/Lean practitioner most of the advice won't surprise you as you already are familiar with the reasoning. However, if you're new into senior leadership or you want a primer on how Agile/Lean can and will have an influence on senior IT leadership, this book is one of the first tools to put in your toolbelt.
If you're an Agile/Lean practitioner most of the advice won't surprise you as you already are familiar with the reasoning. However, if you're new into senior leadership or you want a primer on how Agile/Lean can and will have an influence on senior IT leadership, this book is one of the first tools to put in your toolbelt.
December 27, 2018
This is one of the few books that address IT leadership without mincing words. Firstly, he sets the ground work by explaining how IT fits into the overall business. Then explains how IT leadership will always have a reactionary role if it continues to see itself as having to prove value instead of actually delivering value.
Mark not only states the problems IT leaders have in providing value, he also gives useful/ practical solutions. He shows how Agile and other modern delivery methods can be better leveraged to provide relevant solutions to the business.
If you're a CIO or occupy a role in IT leadership, this book is definitely for you. It is well written without the usual jargon and gives a lot to think about.
Mark not only states the problems IT leaders have in providing value, he also gives useful/ practical solutions. He shows how Agile and other modern delivery methods can be better leveraged to provide relevant solutions to the business.
If you're a CIO or occupy a role in IT leadership, this book is definitely for you. It is well written without the usual jargon and gives a lot to think about.
April 17, 2021
In general that the book seems to be addressed for the people involved in managing internal IT organisation within the company (i.e. CIOs). In fact, I think the content applies also to every other technology-related setup, even if the technology organisation is already "at the table" - when the company is actually selling technology products, or building offerings build with technology (i.e. SaaS) etc.
That is Really great book, where the author asks a lot of in-depth rhetorical questions, that sometimes seem to sound like truisms at first glance, but after pondering one thinks "yeah, exactly! we've been wrong about this for so long" ;)
Overall I highly recommend the read.
That is Really great book, where the author asks a lot of in-depth rhetorical questions, that sometimes seem to sound like truisms at first glance, but after pondering one thinks "yeah, exactly! we've been wrong about this for so long" ;)
Overall I highly recommend the read.
December 1, 2025
An amalgamation of the rantings of a lean-agile purist made worse by their lack of ability to put words together into clear and concise sentences.
The title was promising. The content was a letdown. The message this sends into the world is a tragedy.
The title was promising. The content was a letdown. The message this sends into the world is a tragedy.
May 8, 2020
I did have high expectations when picking up this book since it was advertised under IT Revolution (Like Phoenix and Unicorn Project) but as one who has read 100+ books on management and leadership it's not very easy to impress when another IT person starts writing about how leadership should be done. Since working 10+ years in IT organization leadership myself the disconnect between "business" and "IT" sounds very awkward and unnecessary because from my perspective IT is the business and vice versa. In summary the Agile, Lean and other principles are covered in more detail in other books and the leadership part is not that inspiring - at least I can cross this book off my reading list now.
January 28, 2023
This is a book that helped shape my behavior working with software developers instantly. I would definitely recommend to anyone at all involved in working with IT to develop tools for their organization, even if not in a leadership capacity.
December 10, 2017
This is a story of courage. It is the up and coming CIO who needs to have the courage to run counter to several decades of IT methods that are no longer valid for the environments which we're working in.
ASatT attacks the underpinnings on many traditional methods which were based on command and control of a disparate part of the organization, the IT department. It argues that it's no longer valid for the IT department to be disconnected from "the business" and that it's no longer valid for the CIO to show that it is in control over the organization. It provides a fundamental tenant that with the increased connection of technology to every day activities, increase of Agile methodologies of software production, the IT department needs adjust for a more decentralized, embedded, and agile (little "a" in general) approach to activities. The uncertainties of business require that we strive to be able to adapt and being ok with working without all of the answers as long as we can adjust for new learnings.
It is a book for anyone in IT leadership (or other departments attempting to understand current IT leadership). It provides several pieces of food for thought on why to change the methodologies, and some new methods on how to approach IT management.
For me this connected many ideas inside of the DevOps Handbook to the leadership actions which are necessary to support them. This is a high level complement to the DevOps Handbook (https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handboo...) and provides a bit more of the why's and can be an introduction into several of the methods and threads in the DevOps Handbook.
ASatT attacks the underpinnings on many traditional methods which were based on command and control of a disparate part of the organization, the IT department. It argues that it's no longer valid for the IT department to be disconnected from "the business" and that it's no longer valid for the CIO to show that it is in control over the organization. It provides a fundamental tenant that with the increased connection of technology to every day activities, increase of Agile methodologies of software production, the IT department needs adjust for a more decentralized, embedded, and agile (little "a" in general) approach to activities. The uncertainties of business require that we strive to be able to adapt and being ok with working without all of the answers as long as we can adjust for new learnings.
It is a book for anyone in IT leadership (or other departments attempting to understand current IT leadership). It provides several pieces of food for thought on why to change the methodologies, and some new methods on how to approach IT management.
For me this connected many ideas inside of the DevOps Handbook to the leadership actions which are necessary to support them. This is a high level complement to the DevOps Handbook (https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handboo...) and provides a bit more of the why's and can be an introduction into several of the methods and threads in the DevOps Handbook.
March 6, 2021
If you are IT senior manager trapped in an unhappy subcontracting relationship with your company, this is your manifesto that will be bring you both advice, consolation and even a bona fide motivational speech.
If you look at the issue from any other point of view, it might get more difficult. Being middle manager and in policy/ regulator role and at the same time invested in agile and lean practices for some years, this was sometimes too general on the crucial stuff and too detailed and reiterating on stuff I already met: because what gets quoted are mostly the basic books and manifestoes of the movement.
What is even more puzzling is the philosophy name dropping. It felt personally GREAT, but brings up some uncomfortable questions: for example, author is very keen on describing the "bussines exceptionalism" as wrong, accents that putting ties on IT is non sense and warns against stereotypes. But then suddenly he turns on his heels and starts his own brand of IT exceptionalism, describing IT senior management not only in terms of needed skills (which is something that obviously is not often held by the other positions) but also in terms of *personnal virtues*. Also, the description of IT as the one area where things change rapidly has gotten really old and - well, I would not say it held true in 2017. I would even dare to say that all kinds of people really dwell on their great abilities of improvisation, unlike those _others_.
And one has to wonder: is this IT exceptionalism a clever play by the author or is he maybe also falling in a trap?
Major takeaways for me:
- middle management is crucial as enabler (personal take away - but should still keep a hand in the crux of the work)
- silos are baaad
- horizontal structures are good as long as they produce, even if they often look chaotic. If they do not produce, trying to make it up with establishing a semblance of order does not have to be the best solution
- (outsourcing is probably bad, but I am not 100 % convinced by the book on this one, the case it build is a bit shaky)
If you look at the issue from any other point of view, it might get more difficult. Being middle manager and in policy/ regulator role and at the same time invested in agile and lean practices for some years, this was sometimes too general on the crucial stuff and too detailed and reiterating on stuff I already met: because what gets quoted are mostly the basic books and manifestoes of the movement.
What is even more puzzling is the philosophy name dropping. It felt personally GREAT, but brings up some uncomfortable questions: for example, author is very keen on describing the "bussines exceptionalism" as wrong, accents that putting ties on IT is non sense and warns against stereotypes. But then suddenly he turns on his heels and starts his own brand of IT exceptionalism, describing IT senior management not only in terms of needed skills (which is something that obviously is not often held by the other positions) but also in terms of *personnal virtues*. Also, the description of IT as the one area where things change rapidly has gotten really old and - well, I would not say it held true in 2017. I would even dare to say that all kinds of people really dwell on their great abilities of improvisation, unlike those _others_.
And one has to wonder: is this IT exceptionalism a clever play by the author or is he maybe also falling in a trap?
Major takeaways for me:
- middle management is crucial as enabler (personal take away - but should still keep a hand in the crux of the work)
- silos are baaad
- horizontal structures are good as long as they produce, even if they often look chaotic. If they do not produce, trying to make it up with establishing a semblance of order does not have to be the best solution
- (outsourcing is probably bad, but I am not 100 % convinced by the book on this one, the case it build is a bit shaky)
March 6, 2018
Hmm, I was really struggling with rating this book. On one hand I couldn't help the impression that author sometimes falls into the trap of "generic Agile talk no 435" - by continuously repeating basic statements taken straight from Agile Manifesto or immortal classics of Agile literature, but OTOH even then I've managed to collect a nice set of notes & comments - which clearly means that the book got me thinking ...
As book is intended for the high executive profiles (CIOs), I was very interested in author's idea - how will he approach that kind of audience, how will the message be differentiated. And in fact it starts quite nice, the idea of "seat at the table" is well served, framing of business VS IT problem from CIOs perspective is also very nice, but IMHO book a bit loses its identity the further you get into it.
It doesn't mean it's a bad book - it isn't. But it didn't rock my word as much as I expected.
As book is intended for the high executive profiles (CIOs), I was very interested in author's idea - how will he approach that kind of audience, how will the message be differentiated. And in fact it starts quite nice, the idea of "seat at the table" is well served, framing of business VS IT problem from CIOs perspective is also very nice, but IMHO book a bit loses its identity the further you get into it.
It doesn't mean it's a bad book - it isn't. But it didn't rock my word as much as I expected.
December 31, 2019
A very good book to understand the place not only of CTO ( this is how I understand abbreviation CIO in the book ) but of all people of the IT department. World has changed, as in the past business and IT people were like 2 different worlds, each inventing their own means and tools to tame the other side. Agile, Scrum, Waterfall etc. were created in such manner. But the world changed. IT is always about uncertainty - we can't estimate things properly, especially with long time frames, and a seat at big boys table (C-level executives) is about conforming/delivery on time, about control. But in the current world - 1 year time is ages. Even if IT will provide needed functionality, it will be probably outdated.
The book sheds light on the experience of the author, who played role of CIO. It shows what value can CIO bring and provides a new way of looking on the IT and it's role in new world.
The book sheds light on the experience of the author, who played role of CIO. It shows what value can CIO bring and provides a new way of looking on the IT and it's role in new world.
October 15, 2018
Interesting book particularly for those who have had little exposure to the Agile / Lean / DevOps mindsets as it will provide a high level view where no doubt you will have to dig deeper and expand your knowledge by using other more in depth references to the particular topics. This justifies the overall hodgey-podgey sensation that you get on reading the book where sometimes you feel like all the paradigms are thrown in together without the background which I think you need to get in order to understand why those paradigms make sense and why they work.
I think the book is valuable read for basically anyone who wants to understand the philosophy of using IT as a competitive advantage in any enterprise and what you can do to manage properly this strategic asset. The author also provides very good references to enhance your understanding.
I think the book is valuable read for basically anyone who wants to understand the philosophy of using IT as a competitive advantage in any enterprise and what you can do to manage properly this strategic asset. The author also provides very good references to enhance your understanding.
February 13, 2018
Philosophy for the tech leader. Schwartz delivers insightful, well-sourced points of view that will shift or evolve how you think about the teams you lead, the role you play, and your organization. The book is delivered confidently to its target audience (Sr tech leadership) and makes no apologies for assumptions of knowing jargon/arcitectural patterns and so forth. A must read for any leader in the tech space, Schwartz offers insights into how to lead teams, how to deliver business value, aspirational and shifting roles/company goals, engineering practices, build-vs-buy considerations, agile transformations, and more.
July 5, 2019
Transform your thinking on how IT should be perceived in an organization. Some organizations believe in an incorrect model where IT functions as service provider or consultancy where it is actually as integral to the business as finance or operations. In order for the CIO to get a "seat at the table" a change in thinking needs to occur where IT is invested in business outcomes rather than controlling systems and delivering on requested tasks. One has to blow up the conventional contractor control model that dominates business thinking when it comes to IT and its relationship to the business. This book makes that case and many others that support this argument.
August 6, 2021
Un libro muy interesante dobre la perspectiva de un CIO en el panorama corporativo.
Un poco me abrio los ojos el ver como el CIO no es considerado una pieza importante en el tablero, o en este caso en la mesa.
Ademas me fascino el modo en el que aborda las diferencias que las metodologias e ideologias agiles, continuas y demas, estan afectando el panorama corporativo. Sin mencional las dificultades presentes y pasadas de el tema de los presupuestos, alcances y muchas cosas que por lo visto nacieron del mundo de contratos y proveedores.
Una joya que me parece no tiene suficiente difusion y que cualquier persona relacionada con el mundo corporativo y el mundo de TI, debe leer.
Un poco me abrio los ojos el ver como el CIO no es considerado una pieza importante en el tablero, o en este caso en la mesa.
Ademas me fascino el modo en el que aborda las diferencias que las metodologias e ideologias agiles, continuas y demas, estan afectando el panorama corporativo. Sin mencional las dificultades presentes y pasadas de el tema de los presupuestos, alcances y muchas cosas que por lo visto nacieron del mundo de contratos y proveedores.
Una joya que me parece no tiene suficiente difusion y que cualquier persona relacionada con el mundo corporativo y el mundo de TI, debe leer.
July 25, 2018
Explaining Agile/Lean from a management perspective
Finally a book that goes beyond Kanban boards and scrum and dive into the difficult Challenge of changing the mindset to cope with a non-waterfall execution model that Can eliminate waste and cope with risk. Development and IT Security is filled with uncertainty and doubt. This book gives a Nice bid on How to handle that uncertainty and doubt while managing risk and continously deliver value. Definitely a recommendation from here.
Finally a book that goes beyond Kanban boards and scrum and dive into the difficult Challenge of changing the mindset to cope with a non-waterfall execution model that Can eliminate waste and cope with risk. Development and IT Security is filled with uncertainty and doubt. This book gives a Nice bid on How to handle that uncertainty and doubt while managing risk and continously deliver value. Definitely a recommendation from here.
December 27, 2017
A Seat at the Table is Mark’s follow-up to the Art of Business Value. With AoBV, he began posing troubling questions for the Agile community by explaining how we’ve been taking too narrow a view of business value. He also revealed his ulterior motives when he asks as a CIO, “If the team is not allowed to listen to anyone other than the product owner, then what exactly should I be doing to add value to the enterprise?”. That’s Mark: provocative and funny.
Maybe Mark makes trouble because he’s has been troubled by his own role as a CIO during the Agile revolution. In “The CIO” chapter of AoBV, he tells a story about being called-out by the CEO for a project which delivered exactly what the business had asked for within budget and on time but was nevertheless, as Mark puts it “a disaster”. His reaction to the CEO at that time was the all-too-common, that’s on the them, not us -- we did our part. Mark’s CEO responded “You’re missing the point. I have trusted you with an investestment in an IT system. Your job is to make sure I get a good return on IT investments. I am not getting a good return.” This was a wake-up call for Mark and he clearly had much more to say on this than he could fit into one chapter of AoBV.
In his latest book, A Seat at the Table, Mark gives us a tour-de-force on how to close the gap between the Agile team and the traditional IT department. This time, he makes trouble for everybody. But stick with him. You’ll be glad you did because Mark will make you laugh and make you better.
In ASaT, Mark continues to to stir-up trouble for the Agile community. He doubles-down on what he calls Agile’s “fist pounding, this must change” echo chamber. He points-out the hypocrisy of how the Agile team expects management to stay out of the way unless there is an impediment, in which case they expect a bit of command-and-control to remove it. He also makes quite possibly the most provocative criticism ever made of Agile: “I am not sure that the Agile approach fully accounts for how the Agile team can deliver value -- and I think it should.”
Now, if you were to read those excerpts out of context (as I’ve presented them here), you might get the idea that Mark is opposed to Agile but nothing could be further from the truth. Wait until you read what he has to say about Waterfall.
Comparisons of Agile to Waterfall are easy to come by but Mark does it in a fresh way. In ASaT, he’s actually put his finger on the fatal flaw of Waterfall. He calls it the “contractor-control model”. This shines new light on something that, as Mark puts it, “is so ingrained in us, we don’t even know we’re doing it”. He further explains how traditional IT is still locked-in to that model and how its insistence upon imposing certainty where it isn’t possible is not only self-defeating but actively destructive.
Mark saves his most potent venom for Chapter 4 on planning, in which he launches a devastating assault on the plan-driven approach. Using reductio ad absurdum, Mark enumerates what he calls the “articles of faith for the PTW-WTP (i.e. “plan-the-work / work-the-plan”) religion”. It is both hilarious and boldly provocative. How provocative? Quoting this passage to management actually landed me in hot water for a couple of days. That is high-praise in my mind. Thank you Mark, sincerely.
A Seat at the Table is not just critical though. As one might expect from a scholar like Mark. It’s researched, constructive and novel. Beginning each chapter with a passage from a philosopher, he sets the stage for moving IT from a service provider to a driver of outcomes; replacing the plan-driven, control paradigm with ‘shaping behavior', a shift from ‘buy’ to ‘build’, a fresh look at Enterprise Architecture (EA) and a concept that I hope Mark is considering as the subject for his next book, impeccability -- although I suspect it’ll be EA.
This book is not just for CIO’s. If you are in IT, consider yourself an Agilist, want to understand more about Lean or DevOps, this book must be on your shelf, in your Kindle and part of your audiobook library. It’s that important of a work. Then, I challenge you to experiment with and advocate for some of the ideas put forth. Doing so will take courage. It may even put you at risk, but at least you’ll be choosing that risk and you’ll never wonder if you could have done more.
Maybe Mark makes trouble because he’s has been troubled by his own role as a CIO during the Agile revolution. In “The CIO” chapter of AoBV, he tells a story about being called-out by the CEO for a project which delivered exactly what the business had asked for within budget and on time but was nevertheless, as Mark puts it “a disaster”. His reaction to the CEO at that time was the all-too-common, that’s on the them, not us -- we did our part. Mark’s CEO responded “You’re missing the point. I have trusted you with an investestment in an IT system. Your job is to make sure I get a good return on IT investments. I am not getting a good return.” This was a wake-up call for Mark and he clearly had much more to say on this than he could fit into one chapter of AoBV.
In his latest book, A Seat at the Table, Mark gives us a tour-de-force on how to close the gap between the Agile team and the traditional IT department. This time, he makes trouble for everybody. But stick with him. You’ll be glad you did because Mark will make you laugh and make you better.
In ASaT, Mark continues to to stir-up trouble for the Agile community. He doubles-down on what he calls Agile’s “fist pounding, this must change” echo chamber. He points-out the hypocrisy of how the Agile team expects management to stay out of the way unless there is an impediment, in which case they expect a bit of command-and-control to remove it. He also makes quite possibly the most provocative criticism ever made of Agile: “I am not sure that the Agile approach fully accounts for how the Agile team can deliver value -- and I think it should.”
Now, if you were to read those excerpts out of context (as I’ve presented them here), you might get the idea that Mark is opposed to Agile but nothing could be further from the truth. Wait until you read what he has to say about Waterfall.
Comparisons of Agile to Waterfall are easy to come by but Mark does it in a fresh way. In ASaT, he’s actually put his finger on the fatal flaw of Waterfall. He calls it the “contractor-control model”. This shines new light on something that, as Mark puts it, “is so ingrained in us, we don’t even know we’re doing it”. He further explains how traditional IT is still locked-in to that model and how its insistence upon imposing certainty where it isn’t possible is not only self-defeating but actively destructive.
Mark saves his most potent venom for Chapter 4 on planning, in which he launches a devastating assault on the plan-driven approach. Using reductio ad absurdum, Mark enumerates what he calls the “articles of faith for the PTW-WTP (i.e. “plan-the-work / work-the-plan”) religion”. It is both hilarious and boldly provocative. How provocative? Quoting this passage to management actually landed me in hot water for a couple of days. That is high-praise in my mind. Thank you Mark, sincerely.
A Seat at the Table is not just critical though. As one might expect from a scholar like Mark. It’s researched, constructive and novel. Beginning each chapter with a passage from a philosopher, he sets the stage for moving IT from a service provider to a driver of outcomes; replacing the plan-driven, control paradigm with ‘shaping behavior', a shift from ‘buy’ to ‘build’, a fresh look at Enterprise Architecture (EA) and a concept that I hope Mark is considering as the subject for his next book, impeccability -- although I suspect it’ll be EA.
This book is not just for CIO’s. If you are in IT, consider yourself an Agilist, want to understand more about Lean or DevOps, this book must be on your shelf, in your Kindle and part of your audiobook library. It’s that important of a work. Then, I challenge you to experiment with and advocate for some of the ideas put forth. Doing so will take courage. It may even put you at risk, but at least you’ll be choosing that risk and you’ll never wonder if you could have done more.
July 6, 2018
I picked up this book to understand rationale behind why IT leaders are taking certain decisions these days and Schwartz certainly did great job elaborating it.Although target audience for this book are senior IT leaders, it can be beneficial for anyone working at any level in IT since this book mostly covers agile principles and how they are implemented across organization.Schwartz made narration of this book interesting by starting every chapter with a famous philosophical quote.
March 19, 2019
This is an excellent read. The title doesn't do justice to the content - basically it's about how to embrace DevOps principles at the IT Strategy level as well as at the Software Development level.
My only real disappointment is that it only covers how to approach things when all of the IT staff are permanent employees of the 'business' organisation. It doesn't offer any guidance on working with IT partners or external suppliers.
My only real disappointment is that it only covers how to approach things when all of the IT staff are permanent employees of the 'business' organisation. It doesn't offer any guidance on working with IT partners or external suppliers.
June 14, 2019
What an inspirational book, yet pragmatic and practical.
Mark provides insight into why there is a need for a change from the contractor relationship between IT and ‘the business’, what that should look like in an age of uncertainty and potential and how IT leaders can move from using their expertise to lead IT for the business to someone who leads the whole company from the point of view of someone with deep IT expertise.
A highly recommended book, even if it took me some time to complete!
Mark provides insight into why there is a need for a change from the contractor relationship between IT and ‘the business’, what that should look like in an age of uncertainty and potential and how IT leaders can move from using their expertise to lead IT for the business to someone who leads the whole company from the point of view of someone with deep IT expertise.
A highly recommended book, even if it took me some time to complete!
July 6, 2020
The introduction was superb. Presented a novel way of thinking about IT and how it ties into business strategy. The old paradigm of the contractor-control model is still very real today and I agreed with all his arguments for why IT has to break free from that.
Unfortunately the rest of the book petered out quickly with Schwartz spending a huge amount of time discussing the history and evolution of IT management practices at a very high level. I question who his intended audience is, because it felt like the majority of the book was aimed at an executive who is just cutting his teeth in a tech company for the very first time.
Schwartz had some good ideas and recommended practices (when he finally got to them in each chapter), but his ideas would have been better served by a 10 page article than an entire book.
Unfortunately the rest of the book petered out quickly with Schwartz spending a huge amount of time discussing the history and evolution of IT management practices at a very high level. I question who his intended audience is, because it felt like the majority of the book was aimed at an executive who is just cutting his teeth in a tech company for the very first time.
Schwartz had some good ideas and recommended practices (when he finally got to them in each chapter), but his ideas would have been better served by a 10 page article than an entire book.
July 2, 2023
To me, this book had a low information density. The core message of the book is that IT gets a seat at the C-level table of a company only by not caring about the seat and doing servant leadership. As a CIO or CTO, you shouldn't play the game of proving to other leaders that IT provides value; you should rather enable value creation within IT by letting the experts decide.
Now you know the main message.
I recommend reading a summary of the book.
Now you know the main message.
I recommend reading a summary of the book.
July 12, 2023
If you are working on or leading a large transformation project and know nothing about agile product development, best book ever. But this is likely very small niche of people. For the rest, there are some interesting ideas like looking at the enterprise system architecture as an asset that you evolve incrementally to enable business value creation. But most of the book will be just things you agree with not something new.
August 12, 2019
Interesting take on the role of CIO in the modern Agile world of software development. Schwartz talks about some of the traditional corporate views of IT and the traditional responses as IT struggles for respect (and budgets). Schwartz's main point is that the traditional "contractor" model doesn't serve anyone well, and that IT needs to start viewing themselves as generators of business value. In this world, the CIO (and other management) should serve to coordinate amongst teams and remove blockers so that the delivery teams can get on with what they do: turn code into business value.
September 18, 2019
There are a few good ideas within the book - a few smatterings.
But lots of bad ones that really just sound like he came up with them in an Ivory Tower that has never actually been the CIO of a place that deals with IT.
As with life, it takes a few thousand horrible ideas to come up with a few good ones.
But lots of bad ones that really just sound like he came up with them in an Ivory Tower that has never actually been the CIO of a place that deals with IT.
As with life, it takes a few thousand horrible ideas to come up with a few good ones.
December 13, 2019
this is actually pretty great. i think he has nailed the mental divide between tech and biz people really well. albeit it gets quite repetitive and doesn't go much beyond the tortured genius mindset. I wish he spent just as much rigour into thinking about how to make the relationship work, as he did on figuring out who to blame. the next book maybe?
January 7, 2020
I listened to the first few chapters, but could not understand what Schwatz was trying to tell me apart from an introduction to agile and lean from the "business" point of view. Also, it was not clear to me what the CIO role is. Schwartz says this book is aimed at people responsilbe of internal IT systems, but keeps talking about general product development.
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