Pioneering Change from Code to C-Suite with Gene Kim

Innovation and the Digital Enterprise

Should we look beyond technology organizations to learn essential lessons on how to innovate and run successful, complex technology organizations? Gene Kim believes so and contains unbridled curiosity for transformation across industries, as seen in his most recent book Wiring the Winning Organization. Gene Kim returns to share new lessons in change-making for leaders and companies tackling an array of challenges.

Gene Kim is a bestselling author of several books on technology innovation, DevOps, and organizational strategy. He founded and served as CTO of Tripwire for thirteen years, an enterprise security software company, and is the founder of IT Revolution. Gene offers an engineering perspective with an executive-eye view.

In this episode, Gene discusses being inspired by Toyota and his goal to lead great organizations toward the most effective, liberated problem-solving capabilities. He shares how coordination is the layer that is the difference-maker in a successful company and offers several case studies across industries. Gene highlights three key factors in a cohesive organization: 1) independence of action, 2) time (for practice and planning, and experimentation and implementation), and 3) actionable feedback that reaches the right people at the right time.

Gene offers a metaphor from his book—moving a couch—that exemplifies his experience in communication and coordination. With this simple metaphor, Gene shares how small, cross-functional teams with the right number of collaborators are a great tool for success.

Join Gene in Las Vegas from August 20 to 22, 2024, at the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit (formerly DevOps Enterprise Summit).

• (01:40) – Gene Kim returns
• (04:22) – Layer three as difference-maker
• (09:22) – Healthcare case studies
• (11:55) – Three mechanisms for a cohesion
• (15:04) – The CheckBox Project
• (20:29) – “Slowification”
• (26:55) – “Great in the large, great in the small”
• (29:03) – Specialization of roles and coordination
• (34:34) – The technology leader’s boss

Gene Kim is an author, researcher, and technology leader studying high-performing technology organizations since 1999. Gene founded and served as Chief Technology Officer of Tripwire, Inc. for thirteen years, an enterprise security software company. He is the WSJ bestselling author of Wiring the Winning Organization, The Unicorn Project, and co-author of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, and the Shingo Publication Award-winning Accelerate. Since 2014, he has organized the Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit (formerly DevOps Enterprise Summit), studying the technology transformations of large, complex organizations.

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Podcast episode production by Dante32.