The Leader's Guide to Radical Management Hardcover – September 27, 2010

While I struggled with the challenge of managing dynamic projects, it wasn’t until I was engaged as a change manager that I saw the focus on people instead of process as the way to make radical change. It was hard to believe something that now seems so obvious was so slow to be realized. I began reading and expanding my knowledge in organizational transformation and eventually found my way to Agile and Scrum project management. In these books and seminars my eyes opened and I realized that a better way not only existed but had been clearly articulated by many capable professionals.Many of these sources directed me to Stephen Denning’s book, ‘The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management’. In it Denning outlines the development and organizational environment, the pitfalls of using dated and inappropriate methods, and the application of methods and mindsets that work. He is passionate about the approach and he is clear that it is not a prescriptive set of detailed practices but an ideology, a new way of thinking about managing dynamic projects.Denning does an excellent job at laying the foundation for this new methodology, one that is both easy to understand yet difficult to implement. He outlines the fail points that can derail the approach, environments where it is not appropriate, and he describes how anyone within the organization, regardless of authority, can spread the message and drive change.This book is a must read not just for project managers, but for anyone engaged in the development and delivery of dynamic projects. If you get just a single take-away from this book it should be this; 1) Delight the customer with incremental value, 2) Develop a sustainable rhythm, 3) Have fun. The old focus on performance metrics of cost, schedule, and quality with take care of themselves.Read this book and share it and what you learn with others. Become the person on your team that leads your organization to a more effective and satisfying way of working. Then continue to read other works on Agile, Scrum, Lean and similar methodologies to expand your personal toolkit and your ability to apply the right approach to any given project.My story or how I got to writing this review:When I entered project management in the early nineties the practice was new to the company so my experience was gained through informal trial and error. Over time I developed a personal project management toolkit that allowed me to be successful but I continued to be conflicted with the prevailing hierarchical management practices. Projects were delivered mostly on schedule, but were plagued with missing or underperforming functionality. In addition, management dictated the team work excessive hours to maintain delivery with no connection with the ‘why’ of what they were doing.Efficiency, quality, performance and personal satisfaction were low and I focused much of my time following each delivery trying to restore a sense of team and to improve on those low metrics. My project management peers shared the same issues and together we learned and established process standards to improve the development cycles. The process improved but only marginally. As the company grew the challenges became greater. We talked about how we worked as a small start-up, on the floor shoulder-to-shoulder without regard to who was best experienced to lead. The team made decisions collectively and because we had just a handful of clients we were all aware of their role and expectations.In retrospect we were fairly successful in delivering software using our own modified waterfall technique. Projects began using pure waterfall processes with requirements fully defined and approved before moving into development. But once we were deep into development itself, changes came often and pushing back was pointless. With each new project or new release we continued to start with the same waterfall premise because we thought that if we applied more process and tighter control we would achieve success to the satisfaction of all. We never did; not fully.I tell this story because if you were learning project management in the early nineties this was likely your story as well. Formal industry practices and standards driven by organizations like the Project Management Institute were not part of our common language.Today project management is taught in high schools, colleges and most project management positions list PMP or similar certification as a requirement. Much progress has been made but for projects that are dynamic in nature with only some of the requirements known up front, the traditional waterfall process and the hierarchical management practices are not appropriate. PMI and other standards centric organizations held to the classic waterfall methodology and continued to refine and focus on ‘the process’ but the shift to more dynamic development in the workplace has driven them to expand their practices or become less relevant.Those entering the project management profession have at their disposal a wide array of tools and methods that have been refined through years of experience and documented by people such as Denning to learn from. In the future better products leading to happier clients and developers will be the norm and the ideal of Radical Management will be seen as standard practice.

Steve Denning begins his book, The Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century with a quote from John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison's 2009 Shift Index to lay the foundation of the problem we face:"Remarkably, the return on assets for U.S. firms has steadily fallen to almost one quarter of 1965 levels...very few [workers] (20 percent) are passionate about their jobs...executive turnover is increasing. Customers are becoming less loyal to brands...the rate at which big companies lose their leadership positions is increasing."Everyone is talking about innovation in products, services, processes, supply chain, etc. But few talk about innovating management itself, perhaps because it hits the closest to home and is the hardest and scariest form of innovation. We tend to think of start-ups or `younger' companies when we think of innovative forms of management (e.g., Google, Zappos, etc.), but W. L. Gore is not a `young' company, nor is Standard & Poor's. Innovating management evokes the root fears of innovation - fear of the unknown and of losing control, authority, power, respect, even one's job. How do you experiment and prototype this type of innovation without rocking the company to its core?That's what Steve's book is about - how to start moving your company forward through radically innovating how and what you manage, based on 7 Principles. In his forthright and clear style, Steve provides a framework for radical management that is simple to understand and follow - but bear in mind, simple doesn't mean easy, and this isn't easy.The 7 foundational Principles to Radical Management are:Principle 1: Focus on delighting the client: Traditional management focused on managing things (products/services), not people (like customers, employees); how can we meet customers' needs this way?Principle 2: Do work through self-organizing teams: Did you know there were self-organizing teams in the 1100's (legal), we keep `rediscovering' them so why don't we remember them?Principle 3: Do work in client-driven iterations: Business today is not once-and-done; meeting real needs is iterative, applying learning at each iteration with clarity of needs, wants, goals, and expectationsPrinciple 4: Deliver value to clients in each iteration: Each iteration must deliver real value; test the critical needs first, then finesse, letting the team decide what they can/cannot do and by whenPrinciple 5: Be totally open about impediments to improvement: Balance truth & power/authority, be transparent; it takes courage to be responsible and accountable, but it's a two-way streetPrinciple 6: Create a context for continuous: Improvement is foundational, there is always something to learn, do better; communication WITH employees, customers, stakeholders matters more than we thinkPrinciple 7: Communicate Interactively: stories, questions, conversations - We live in 3 worlds at work - the social, the market-based and the power structure - authenticity is vital - conveyed through interactive communicationWhat makes The Leader's Guide to Radical Management so readable and "apply-able" is that it puts theory into practice, making it a `user manual' if you will for radical management. Steve does this by using real life examples in multiple industries, examples we can relate to and apply to our own businesses. He also puts management into historical context so we understand how we got here and how best to un-learn old habits and lead others into more radical management. All this is good, but it needs to be broken down into `manageable' steps to make it reality. Each principle has several Practices showing how to make the Principle real. These practices are tried and true, not theory. Finally, Steve gives examples of how radical management has been implemented today. We know execution is key and the book provides examples of companies, in various industries, sizes, ages, who exemplify radical management. (In full disclosure, I did suggest one of them, Thogus, because they have undergone an amazing, courageous transformation to become what I call the "google" of manufacturing)This is an important book to read, especially at this time and place in our economy and society. I encourage you to read this, put it at the top of you pile, read and discuss this book at your management team meetings, mark it up, put it to use and share it. It will change your organization for the better, if you've got the courage to try.

Dated - but still some good concepts.Particularly enjoyed the final chapter which outlined how he rolled out agile in his company - more as a revolution than your typically (and usually failed) agile adoption plan.I found it a little too prescriptive and hence dated. Many modern agile practices have replaced ideas proposed in here that are now questioned e.g. velocity, planning poker. We have discovered new models of agility which work better than many of the (now dated) practices described in the book.It is refreshing to find a book that talks about the management side of agile however. Perhaps would have been better if he stuck to this aspect instead of trying to outline what practices should be adopted also. Would have kept the book more current.

Libro muy recomendado para quien este transitando, o aspire a transitar la travesía de la agilidad en cualquier ambito. Lectura obligada

Stephen Denning ist ein Forbes-Autor, ehemaliger Manager des IWF und Wirtschaftsjournalist. In diesem Buch versucht er, die Erfahrungen der "Scrum"-Arbeitsmethode aus der Softwaretechnik für andere Managementbereiche zu verallgemeinern. Das führt tatsächlich zu einer verblüffend neuen Arbeitsorganisation.Für das "Radical Management" stellt Denning sieben Prinzipien auf:1. Fokus darauf, die Kunden zu begeistern (nicht nur zufrieden zu stellen)2. Arbeit in selbstorganisierten Teams3. Kundengesteuerte Iterationen (regelmäßige Annäherungen an das Arbeitsziel)4. Jede Iteration soll konkreten Nutzen bringen, auch wenn er nur gering sein mag5. Völlige Offenheit über Hindernisse, die Verbesserungen im Wege stehen6. Permanente Selbst-Verbesserung des Teams7. Interaktive KommunikationStatt einer konventionellen Hierarchie und Projektplänen mit Managern als Antreibern sollen die Mitarbeiter selbst die Kundenanforderungen verstehen und sich selber realistische Ziele setzen, die ihrem Tempo entsprechen. Weil das mehr Spaß macht und Erfolgserlebnisse bringt, gibt es kaum noch Reibungsverluste. Demokratisierte Strukturen erhöhen die Produktivität.Die Sache hat einen Haken, auf den der Autor nicht eingeht: Selbstbewusste Mitarbeiter werden keine schlechte Führung mehr akzeptieren, und so geraten unfähige Topmanager unter Druck. Aber das ist Denning egal. Hauptsache, die Arbeit funktioniert besser. Denning will die Hindernisse für die Weiterentwicklung der Produktivkräfte wegräumen, etwa Innere Kündigung, Passivität und inkompetente Führung. Das ist ein mutiges Ziel, eben "Radical Management".Die beschriebenen Methoden lassen sich bei Knowhow- und Hightech-Arbeitsplätzen anwenden. In einem Discount-Supermarkt wird Radical Management kaum funktionieren.Denning ist es gelungen, einige wirklich neue Ideen zu formulieren, gut zu erklären und zu begründen. Management-Theoretiker wie Peter Drucker genügen nicht mehr für das 21. Jahrhundert. Wer innovative Firmen managt, sollte dieses Buch gelesen haben.

Good introduction to agile management midway gives way to much weaker preaching with lots of redundancy and advertising for the author‘s other books.

This is a great book if you are interested in management. It explaines how empowering first line workers and a focus on delighting customers is at the centre of the succesfull management approach. This approach was pioneered by Toyota but misinterpreted by researchers from the western management culture. You may have heard of Agile in the IT industry wich is based on the same filosofy of delivering customer value quickly and iteratively in a work setting that is non hierarchical. Dennings clarifies why a redesign of the workplace and getting rid of traditional management habits is necessary to reach the continuous improvement that is required to keep your organisation and your customrers happy.

A must

This book is the first book by Stephen Denning I have read. I thought it was very easy to read but also inspiring. I leadership must.