Book club resource

Facilitator’s Guide

A practical, chapter-by-chapter guide for exploring Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery with your team.

By Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi

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Getting started

See the same realities together.

Organizations building software products are constantly looking for ways to build better products sooner. Frequently, that leads to decisions with the best intention and the less-than-best outcome: a new process meant to create transparency that produces an over-focus on minutiae; “best practices” that create conformance instead of improvement; innovation and change theater; or tools and people added to speed delivery that end up slowing things down.

We have all felt it. We’ve talked about context. This book helps people delivering software see the same realities together and, ultimately, make better decisions.

It is for everyone—from current leaders to future leaders who might be individual contributors today. You’ll learn to see the overall system through signals; understand how context and variability shape good options; and find the levers available in your context. Along the way, you’ll see how understanding the overall system helps you learn faster through faster feedback, and how the slightest nudge can drastically shift a system. Ready? Let’s jam.

How to use this guide

Do the exercises. Share what you learn.

Anyone can use this guide, regardless of title or experience. Invite a diverse group: people see and interpret signals differently, and those differences will benefit the discussion. Share, update, and adapt the guide in whatever way helps your group.

Each chapter of Signals & Levers includes a lightweight “Better in 30 Minutes” exercise. Those exercises are reflected here, along with questions for group discussion. When people share an organization, have them work together. Complete exercises as homework, then use club time to share and discuss what participants learned and observed.

You may use the discussion questions instead, but switching back and forth between exercises and discussion alone can be challenging because the exercises build on one another. Early sessions may cover multiple chapters; around the middle of Part Two, consider one chapter per session so there’s time to explore how the tools interact.

And don’t forget the story. Apply each chapter’s concepts and techniques to its characters and situations—the narrative is there to help you get started.

Part one

Reading Signals

See the system around you, including when illusions prevail. This part introduces signals, explores how to interpret them, and treats variability in signals as a meta-signal.

Chapter 1Illusions

Companion resources

Homework

Pick a recent crisis in your organization. At the moment it broke out, which illusion was in play? Be specific:

We believed that ______,
but in reality ______.

Consider the illusion’s source: a visibility problem, no place to adjust estimates and expectations, or a belief that reality can be controlled through force of will? What would have to be true to burst the bubble sooner?

Discuss

Which character can you empathize with most? Why?
What did you observe in the homework?
Which illusion is most prevalent? Why?
Are any illusions missing? Name them and give examples.
What feeds illusions? What would happen if you pointed one out in your organization?

Chapter 2Seeing

Companion resource

Debt Metaphor — Ward Cunningham

Homework

Using the crisis from Chapter 1, identify the final signal that launched crisis mode, then three earlier signals that may have shown it was coming. Which are proxy metrics? What were they actually trying to measure? What noise made the signals difficult to decipher?

Discuss

Gus seems like a tough manager. What motivates him, and how might you put him in a positive light?
What did you observe in the homework?
Which important signals are missing from your dashboards?
What causes noise, and how do you manage it?
Which proxy metrics exist, and why are they used instead of measuring what they proxy?

Chapter 3Variability

Companion resources

Homework

Pick a metric you commonly use for insight into your work—quality, cycle time, customer conversion, or another measure. Create Shewhart charts for the last quarter, half year, and year. Do the time horizons show anything significant changing?

Discuss

How does variability affect the characters’ interactions?
What did you observe in the homework?
What causes variability in your organization?
How does it affect decision-making?
How much of it could you influence?

Part two

Finding Levers

Understand the influences on a system, then use causal modeling to see the system and find your levers.

Chapter 4Unintended Consequences

Companion resource

Better Testing, Worse Quality

Homework

Reflect on the initiatives used in earlier exercises. Were there unintended consequences? Using CREATE, which dimension were you monitoring and where did the consequence appear? What hidden connection caused it?

Discuss

Which characters misunderstand peers they need to work with? What is at the root?
What did you observe?
Where have you seen an attempt to influence one CREATE dimension affect another?
Where has controlling variability increased it elsewhere?
Is a dimension missing from CREATE? Which signals belong there?

Chapter 5Cause and Effect

Companion resources

Homework

Create your first causal model. Use earlier initiatives and signals to map how signals influence one another, then explore second-order influences. Annotate relationships with arrows and “+” or “−”; bold the stronger relationships.

Discuss

What helped Preston, Carla, and Theresa form a reasonable experiment?
What did you observe?
Why is it okay for the model not to be perfect?
How often do you or others discuss influences without modeling them?
How long would modeling before decisions take, and what stops you?

Chapter 6Feedback Loops

Companion resource

Feedback loops — Complex Systems Frameworks

Homework

Using the model from the previous chapter, identify at least three potential levers.

Discuss

What experiences resemble Kai’s experience with the tests?
What did you observe?
Was a recent success or challenge “despite” or “because”? Why?
What created time delays can you identify?
Which lagging indicators do you use, and how could you get feedback sooner?

Chapter 7Reinforcing and Balancing Loops

Companion resources

Homework

Estimate how much of last quarter’s work was value demand and how much was failure demand. Then use the data to find the actual amounts, placing anything that fits neither in “reduces system capacity.” How far off were you?

Discuss

Kai and Nora flipped a vicious loop. Which other loops appear at Limitless Systems?
What did you observe?
Which reinforcing loops exist in your organization? What might balance or flip one?
What keeps your balancing loops balanced?
What drives failure demand and variability?

Part three

Pulling Levers

Explore why a lever works differently across contexts—even within one organization—and set up context-aware choices for learning through hypotheses.

Chapter 8Context

Companion resources

Homework

Make your context explicit. In one circle, map your local context with CREATE terms and the signals you use and influence. In an outer circle, map the context influencing you—perhaps your organization. What differences do you see?

Discuss

How do the different signals Monique, Rohan, and Theresa experience shape their decisions?
What did you observe?
How do differences between context circles affect discussions?
How is interpreting signals differently unlike basing decisions on different signals?
If context constantly changes, how can you make better decisions?

Chapter 9U-Curves

Companion resources

Homework

Return to your initiative and find a decision between two extremes. What was the essential problem or optimization target? What influenced it? Use your causal model, then create a U-curve for the problem and context.

Discuss

Which U-curves appear in the story? What are their two ends?
What did you observe?
Why can a non-mathematically-perfect U-curve still aid decisions?
Which U-curves exist in your organization?
How can U-curves account for changing context?

Chapter 10Strategy Requires Choice

Companion resource

Play Chutes and Ladders—with a great strategy

Homework

Create an options map for the initiative you’ve explored. Your U-curve may reveal options. Does the map offer opportunities for faster feedback?

Discuss

How has added context about Gus changed your perception?
What did you observe?
When have you discussed “strategy” without clear choices?
How can causal models, U-curves, and variability reveal more options for your context map?
When is pausation the right lever?

Chapter 11Hypotheses in Change

Companion resources

Homework

You’re about to pull a lever. Frame it as a hypothesis. Explore why the problem matters now, which lever you’ll pull, where feedback will appear, and where your causal model suggests unintended consequences might emerge.

Discuss

Mark triggered an “Indy Maneuver.” What recent work or home examples resemble it?
What did you observe?
When has the absence of a particular solution been framed as the problem? What happened?
What would make hypotheses more welcome in improvement work?
How do time delays affect hypotheses, and how can you address that risk?

Part four

Building a Thriving Organization

Take the concepts forward to create spaces and organizations that thrive.

Chapter 12The Learning Flywheel

Companion resources

Homework

Help a peer find a new path. Ask: What is the real problem? Are illusions at play? What influences the challenge? Which options exist? What contributes to their cost, risk, and time? How might feedback reframe the problem and assumptions? Which levers are visible?

Discuss

How has Limitless Systems changed? Which signals identify its model in each chapter?
What did you observe?
What happens when a team’s psychological safety or model differs from the wider organization?
Which signals reveal safety and learning?
What could previous lever pulls teach you? Try exploring them.

Chapter 13Self-Correcting Systems

Companion resource

The power of enabling constraints — Ray Arell

Homework

Think about the culture you want. Identify its observable hallmarks, then build a causal model of its influences. Which parts of the model will you feed?

Discuss

What caused the disconnect between what Sarah heard and expected?
What did you observe?
Which governing constraint would you shift, and how could you make it enabling?
What governing constraint is necessary and helpful?
Where do teams and the organization sit on the hallmarks-of-culture scales?

Chapter 14A New Context

Companion resource

Share what you would like to read next.

Homework

The change starts with you. You have levers you might not have known about. Start the change.

Discuss

What do you think about the big decision for Theresa?
What did you observe?
What happens if you use “illusion,” “signal,” “lever,” and “noise” in everyday work?
Where will you start looking into variability, and why?
Which lever will you pull first?

Keep the flywheel turning

Next steps

Congratulations on completing the book. Continue as a cohort: apply the ideas, share what you tried or modeled, name the levers you found, and compare what happened. Or continue exploring together:

And simply start using the language: call out illusions, ask whether something may be a signal of something else, and ask what other levers are available.

Ready to apply the ideas?

Talk with the authors.

Explore how Signals & Levers can help your organization.

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