Take a Quick Peek Inside

   What do paratroopers, Zip disks, and Japanese radios have in common? These are the best examples to learn how to implement enterprise Agility in the 21st century. This book presents extended case studies of the Airborne invasion of D-Day in 1944 and Iomega of the mid-1990s, along with others such as Matsushita of the 1930s. The author promises 10X improvements to those who learn from these instances of Agility and apply the principles to their companies and lives.
   Most people think of Agile as Scrum teams developing software. You’ll find much better examples from the largest-ever military invasion and computer peripherals in this book. The author draws on additional analysis of the automotive industry, petroleum companies, commercial airline accidents, baseball franchises, cell phones, the Wizard of Oz, renaissance scientists, surfing, taxi drivers, weight loss, juggling, corporate mergers, and many other diverse topics.
   In this book, you’ll get fresh takes on well-beaten topics such as leadership and accountability and a step-by-step approach to innovation. It contains a simple way to build winning strategies and align efforts across the entire enterprise. All of these breakthrough insights are based on the same set of principles. Discover how these principles make air travel safer, employees happier and smarter, weight loss easier, health care better, and business meetings shorter.
   Through personal stories, the author demonstrates the universal nature of these principles and that each reader can draw on their own experiences to get additional understandings. Using non-traditional sources and stories to reinforce the arguments keeps the reading light and enjoyable. The book does draw on a few academic studies and evaluates a few well-known targets of business books, such as Apple and Amazon, but from new angles and with new conclusions.
   You’ll get inside histories of CDs, DVDs, computer hard drives, and the origins of online music and movies with previously unpublished details. Find out why the US military of this century had to re-discover the lessons they learned in the 1940s. Learn why Sony doesn’t dominate digital music – even though they had the technology and advantages beyond everyone else. You’ll also read the first analysis, with internal details, of the rise and fall of Iomega, an early innovator in external computer storage—why its market capitalization rose 522X in less than 2 years, then lost 98% of its value. Most importantly, you’ll learn from these examples what to do and – just as importantly – what to avoid in your business now.
   You’ll see both familiar and new tools for analyzing and explaining enterprise strategy and behavior. These include Job Theory, fish curves, ugly baby syndrome, two-world dilemma, Tuckman curve, and industry blindness. You’ll learn why maximizing shareholder value won’t work, seeking consensus is counter-productive, and continual improvement can be deadly.
   Embracing Agile Principles for Business will deliver 10X returns. The proof comes from inside and outside of business and across centuries. The applicability is likewise expansive. Agile isn’t something you do but what you become. What’s your mission? These principles will help you fulfill it.