Sooner Safer Happier - Review

Just finished reading the book Sooner Safer Happier Antipatterns and Patterns for Business Agility by Jonathan Smart! Its undoubtedly one of the best books I have read recently! As someone who has been through an organizational transformation years back, I can only wish this book was written five years ago. The topics covered by this book were so relevant that, by the time I finished couple of chapters, I already made up my mind to start a book club and stir some good conversations on these topics.

Jonathan and team have done an amazing job with finding good case studies and interesting relevant stories. This book is rich with those stories. It gives a holistic picture of technology world, capturing decades of experience through its growth and provides leaders with a clear view of pitfalls and proven paths for their transformational journey with the help of anti-patterns and patterns. I especially loved chapter 2 ‘Achieve Big Through Small’ which I believe forms the premise for pretty much the entire book. It highlights the beauty and importance of keeping an agile mindset to transformation and the far too common mistake of attempting to solve an emergent problem with a deterministic mindset . These ideas are simple and clear but do not come naturally to many who fail miserably in the process. Jonathan is right on with the patterns, especially Descale Before You Scale and Scale Agility, Not Agile, Vertically Then Sideways. Looking back, I can now see how much scaling vertically would have helped us in avoiding certain challenges we faced.

Transformation is rarely a one and done deal. In fact, it is a necessary evil for the growth of any organization as it unlearns, learns and adapts new ways of working to reach the next level of maturity. This book will sure help us steer away from mistakes of the past and make the transformation as painless and efficient as can be.

Let me wrap up with the comment that this book is an absolutely necessary read for anyone going through or even remotely thinking of a transformation in their ways of working. I strongly recommend it to all; leaders, executives, managers and individual contributors alike… everyone has something to take from this book.