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

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Finally, long-term value is our check and balance against technical debt, which slows the flywheel down. First, your organization needs to have a clear business goal and single-threaded leadership committed to delivering (the first phase of the Value Flywheel).

The Value Flywheel Effect by David Anderson, Mark McCann

As a result, they are pulling in multiple directions at the same time because they lack a north star – a clearly articulated “Theory of Their Business,” and are thus readily swayed toward new goals. A problem-prevention mindset is often forgotten when we go to market quickly, and we rarely come back to clean up the mess. Again, that’s good that we can look at that from a platform perspective and have real requirements, not just kind of wishlist requirements. If we take the value chain and turn it into a Wardley Map, we can assess what we need to focus on as well as the potential inertia points. A frictionless developer experience is an excellent place to start, and we recommend a serverless-first approach.However, this cycle becomes a virtuous cycle only if the result of a cycle becomes a positive one and if it doesn’t then it can lead to a vicious cycle. We believe that the serverless-first approach will help you and your company ride this wave and succeed.

The Value Flywheel Effect - The Serverless Edge Introduction to The Value Flywheel Effect - The Serverless Edge

Mark McCann: So I think the next best action really shortcuts a lot of the waffly, strategic frameworks that we’ve had in the past. Organizations must make it easy for the engineers to make changes quickly and in a safe, secure manner to deliver value for the business and keep the flywheel moving.An alternative model should be to create a culture of preventing problems: reward the teams that use well-architected and strong engineering practices to prevent issues from ever occurring and lead to more reliable systems in the long term. If business results are not presented in real-time or if they need to be generated manually, you are not a data-driven company. A clear and definitive purpose is often hard to achieve (like starting a mechanical flywheel), but it’s a critical starting point. That’s the reason why environment for success is one of the key elements that underpins the entire Value Flywheel. Teams can use any of the three maps discussed in the next chapter (stack, org, or market) to troubleshoot issues, communicate, or discuss options.