The Value Flywheel Effect

Power the Future and Accelerate Your Organization to the Modern Cloud

Description

It's no secret that technology is moving faster than ever, but current business/IT strategies are not working. To survive the next wave of transformation, the relationship between businesses and technology must evolve. In The Value Flywheel Effect, David Anderson enables leaders to create an adaptive organization built upon embracing strategic thinking, team focus, and reduced time to value to drive business results.

The Value Flywheel Effect is a technique already being used by next-generation leaders and companies to succeed in the modern competitive landscape. Combining the power derived from the Value Flywheel and the situational clarity provided by Wardley Mapping, organizations are able to sense and respond to change, easily navigating the rough waves ahead, including migrating to the cloud and serverless.

Every company that uses technology must act differently from the companies of yesterday. In The Value Flywheel Effect, David Anderson shows organizations how to understand and utilize the socio-technical intersection between business, technology, and people, giving your organization the edge, it needs to navigate future challenges and build maximum situational awareness.

About the author(s)

David Anderson has been at the leading edge of the technology industry for twenty-five years. Starting as a Software Engineer in leading telecom companies (including Three, Nokia, and Ericsson), David moved to Liberty Mutual in 2007 and continued to drive technology change and raise engineering standards. As Director of Technology, David had exposure to a wide range of technologies and techniques covering Architecture, Software Development, Leadership, AI/Analytics, and Cyber-Security. David was involved in the early phases of Public Cloud adoption at Liberty Mutual in 2013 and continued to drive the change. Creating the Serverless-First strategy in 2016, he was able to achieve significant, multi-million-dollar business results, create a new, industry-leading engineering standard within Liberty Mutual and to lead a generation of architects to become cloud leaders in their own right. David is also a member of the Wardley Mapping community and has been involved in many efforts, discussions, and sessions/research groups to further this strategic approach.

In 2021, David parted from Liberty Mutual to explore the serverless first journey across the industry and joined BazaarVoice as Technical Fellow. The Serverless Edge was formed to collate some of this thinking, and he continues to work with clients and partners to prove out the thinking in this book.

Mark McCann is a Cloud Architect and leader focused on enabling organizations and their teams to rapidly deliver business value through well-architected, sustainable, serverless-first solutions. Mark joined Liberty Mutual as a graduate in 2000, enjoying a 21-year career rising to Senior Architect. Mark was heavily involved with Liberty Mutual's journey to the cloud, with a strong focus on adoption of serverless first, the well-architected framework, engineering excellence, and enabling teams to improve their time to value. Mark leverages Wardley Mapping to bring situational awareness to people, teams, and organizations, and to help them evolve and deliver sustainable, long-term value. Mark lives in Belfast, Ireland, writes for the The Serverless Edge, and can be found on Twitter @MarkMcCann and LinkedIn @markedwardmccann.

Michael O'Reilly is a Software-Architect who specializes in arming organizations with the ability to develop ideas into world-class products by leveraging the capabilities of the modern cloud. Since 2005, Michael has devoted his career to enterprise application and service development. He was part of the team that led Liberty Mutual's foray into the world of e-commerce, building out their main online insurance product set. Being a progressive thinker, Michael became an active leader in Liberty Mutual's transition to the cloud. He has become specialized in leading teams and the C-suite into modern cloud product development through sustainable approaches and practices guided by serverless first and the well-architected framework. Michael continues to help organizations embrace the modern cloud as a Software Architect with Globalization Partners and as a contributor with The Serverless Edge.

Reviews

“...a big part of my job has been to try to explain and apply the ideas developed at Netflix and Amazon to other organizations and applications, big and small. This book is the best distillation of how to do that, that I've encountered.”

Adrian Cockcroft, former VP of Amazon Sustainability Architecture

“The Value Flywheel Effect is a timely and hugely valuable book providing a set of principles and ways of working to navigate and exploit the fast-changing technology and business landscape. Without sensemaking capabilities, organizations are increasingly struggling to act effectively in the modern disruptive technology context, so much so that the ideas in The Value Flywheel Effect amount to a kind of ‘survival handbook' for the next decade or two. The Value Flywheel Effect is essential reading for any leader or practitioner who wants to help their organization to survive and thrive.”

Matthew Skelton, CEO of Conflux and co-author of Team Topologies

“I'm delighted to see that David, Mark, and Michael have taken the time and considerable trouble to explain how they architected and delivered serverless innovation at Liberty Mutual. Why? because change is the only constant, and the pace of technology innovation is accelerating this change. As J.F. Kennedy said ‘those that look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future'. This book is required reading if you want to leverage serverless technology.”

Dr. Jacqui Taylor, CEO and Co-Founder FlyingBinary

“The future for company creation and innovation relies on speed, scalability, and sustainability. To nurture thriving products, organizations, and cultures, you need to understand the landscape you're competing in, along with the path to choose to succeed. Packed with real-world examples, case studies, and practical tools applied to complex domains, The Flywheel Effect is required reading to plot your future and the business you want to be.”

Barry O'Reilly, Co-Founder Nobody Studios, author of Unlearn and Lean Enterprise

More by David Anderson

More Computers & Information Technology

More Industries

More Business & Economics

More Structural Adjustment

More Decision-Making & Problem Solving