I lucked out on getting a $0.99/month subscription to Kindle Unlimited (but only for a limited time–ironically). And earlier today, I found a new title that was just published quite recently. Coincidentally, it felt relevant because of some recent strategy/planning discussions that I’m hearing about. So I went ahead and read it.
The book is “Fast Times: How digital winners set direction, learn and adapt” by Arora, Dahlstrom, Hjartar, Wunderlich. It’s a short, easy read — finished it within half a day.
Some takeaways:
- Speed is an outcome of deliberate actions and behaviors.
- Emphasis on learn-and-adapt — ABL: Always be learning.
- Bold aspirations must be matched by corresponding commitment. Tentative measures will not deliver.
- Chapter 5 shows a few numbers illustrating how fast looks like (e.g., normal product launch is in 6 months, fast is in 2 weeks).
- We’re inundated with how important it is to be safe to fail, BUT it’s not an excuse to say it’s OK to fail all the time. Chapter 6 supports that with its mention of “Failing is not always acceptable” with an enumeration of when it’s plain wrong.
- “You’ve got to make sure that if you make mistakes, you learn from [them].”
- Chapter 7 revisits the all familiar Tribe-Squad-Chapter-Guild model.
- Chapter 13 just brings to mind how security needs to be integrated in development.
- Chapter 14 shares the Digital Transformation Office’s (DTO) many roles — in injecting coherence to how squads are structured, in implanting importance of learning, in having visibility on what’s working (and not), in capturing, codifying, disseminating best practices, etc.
- All that learning –especially from failing– isn’t worth much if no one can find it.
testkeis 