The Value Flywheel Effect: Power the Future and Accelerate Your Organization to the Modern Cloud

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There doesn’t seem to be a generally agreed-upon definition of the Flywheel Effect. It was used because it was a metaphor to help readers visualize momentum. Visualization This is because Network Effects (past a certain tipping point, especially when combined with virality), can be auto-catalytic. The Chicago Bulls, a basketball team in the National Basketball Association league in the United States of America, is an example of an organization that experienced both the “Flywheel Effect” and the “Doom Loop.” While most people think of Michael Jordan’s breakout season in 1991 as the “event” that led to the team winning six championships in eight years (1991 to 1998), it was actually the many decisions made by General Manager Jerry Krause between 1985 and 1991 that accumulated to build a team around Michael Jordan and resulted in the “overnight” success of 1991. One of the biggest misunderstandings in the world of software is the value of code. But code is a liability, as we’ll say repeatedly in this book. The more code we write, the more complexity and risk we generate for ourselves. In the modern cloud, it’s important to offload as many capabilities to the provider as possible. Less code allows teams to move faster. Taking advantage of serverless is the clearest next best action for many modern organizations.

Flywheel Effect Business and Technology Evolution with The Flywheel Effect

Note: Republishing this post I shared on the Medium paid subscription a few years ago. This was originally written in August 2017. Mark McCann: Then that need for knowledge has really evolved to being joining in as a community. We’ve always had a small portion of returning conference attendees that would think of an event as a community and more of a community event where they could meet up with like-minded people, and challenge each other, and discuss ideas. But now, that can be expanded greatly. The community can be much more diverse and inclusive and that’s a big selling point for online virtual conferences. We’ve lowered the barrier significantly to entry for people who couldn’t fly around the world to be part of some of these events. Again, that’s something that needs to be explored. Actioned on is that need for knowledge, that need for being part of a community becomes greater. Now suppose someone came along and asked, “What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?” The waves of change never stop. The only way to survive them is to create an adaptive, sensemaking organization that's ready to pivot to the rough seas ahead. Wardley Mapping and the Value Flywheel help you achieve this. If the ask moves through these four phases smoothly, we have ensured that our flywheel will output value and is ready to turn again. The momentum generated in the organization by building this way is invaluable.Compounding Return on Effort—No “one push” makes it happen.Continuous small inputs add up into an impressive output, eventually. DevOps best practices, case studies, organizational change, ways of working, and the latest thinking affecting business and technology leadership.

What is the Value Flywheel? - IT Revolution

The company famously touts that it has grown without sales reps, precisely because its mid-market and enterprise teams farm exclusively within the pool created by the company’s marketing engine. David Anderson: Yeah, definitely. The thing is we want to help the organization get this flywheel turning, going in the right direction. It’s really about improving your time to the value, ultimately delivering sustainable results. But maybe, there’s probably the flip side. Right? What we have seen a lot over our careers is things like dev versus op silos, tech versus product silos, unclear purpose per technical decisions, and short-term thinking. This all builds business, technical and organizational depth. It clogs up your flywheel. It’s a silly analogy, granted. But I’m using it to highlight a very important finding from our research. We kept thinking that we’d find “the one big thing,” the miracle moment that defined breakthrough. We even pushed for it in our interviews. But the good-to-great executives simply could not pinpoint a single key event or moment in time that exemplified the transition. 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.And Tom Tunguz has written a great short postabout how they’re doing it. He calls it The Flywheel Saas Company. According to Jim Collins there are three areas to focus on consistently to get the Flywheel to start to spin: Disciplined people David Anderson: And remember, challenge is a good thing. It’s not bad. Challenge always helps you get to a better place. Stage three is next best action. Mark, what’s your thoughts on this one?