#173 - Flow Engineering: Collaborative Mapping for Effective Action at Scale - Steve Pereira & Andrew Davis

Tech Lead Journal

“Three characteristics of an organization that is operating with maximal effectiveness are value, clarity, and flow."

Are you feeling the strain of growth? Struggling to maintain alignment and efficiency as your organization scales? In this episode, I sit down with Steve Pereira and Andrew Davis, authors of the groundbreaking new book, “Flow Engineering”.

Learn why traditional scaling methods focusing on rigid coordination can actually hinder progress and how flow engineering offers a solution. We delve into the challenges and paradox of scaling, the core principles of flow engineering, its five primary mapping techniques, and the leadership mindset shift required to create a culture of flow engineering.

If you’re looking to overcome misalignment and optimize performance as you scale, this episode is a must-listen!

Listen out for:

• Career Journey - [00:01:33]
• The Problem with Scale - [00:07:12]
• The Dangers of Increasing Coordination - [00:14:49]
• The Paradox of Scale - [00:19:58]
• Flow Engineering - [00:23:34]
• 5 Primary Maps - [00:27:50]
• The Biggest Impact Maps - [00:32:31]
• All Maps are Wrong - [00:38:23]
• 5 Principles of Flow Engineering - [00:40:11]
• Leading Flow Engineering - [00:46:00]
• 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:52:53]

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Steve Pereira’s Bio
Steve Pereira has spent over two decades improving the flow of work across organizations. He’s worked through tech support, IT management, build and release engineering, and as a founding CTO for enterprise SaaS. After shifting to consulting large enterprises on value stream performance improvement, he created Flow Engineering to make value stream mapping simple, quick, and actionable. He serves as lead consultant for Visible Value Stream Consulting, as a board advisor to the Value Stream Management Consortium, Chair of the OASIS Value Stream Management Interoperability technical committee, and co-founder of the Flow Collective to bring flow-focused professionals together.

Andrew Davis’s Bio
Andrew Davis is a Salesforce DevOps specialist who’s passionate about helping teams deliver innovation, build trust, and improve their performance. After studying engineering at Virginia Tech and Johns Hopkins he became a Buddhist monk, teaching and building meditation communities for almost 15 years. Since 2014, he’s focused on the Salesforce platform as a developer, consultant, and architect. He launched Wipro’s Salesforce DevOps practice, and focuses on promoting modern development practices for Salesforce. He is the Chief Product Officer for AutoRABIT, helping people understand the importance of DevOps for scaling Salesforce implementations. He lives in San Diego with his amazing wife and very cuddly dog.

Follow Steve and Andrew:

• Website – flowengineering.org
• Steve’s LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/devopsto
• Andrew’s LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/andrewdavis-io
• Andrew’s Twitter/ X – @AndrewDavis_io

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