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Book reviews and movie lists, an exercise to improve my memory. Checkout my Goodreads profile if you want to see more books I read, https://goodreads.com/rafaelrosafu. This document covers only 2016, I'm trying a Trello board for 2017: https://trello.com/b/UvZfFdGq
"Red Son (2003)" by Mark Millar
* I usually don't like Superman stories, but Red Son is an exception, it's a very cool reimagining of the boyscout landing in soviet Russia instead of the USA. A lot of the traditional mythology is there, but with a lot of double talk and social commentary, and the propaganda-like art is pretty cool too.
"From Hell (1999)" by Alan Moore
* A long but cool book, I don't really like Campbells' art style, but the writing is good and the extended Epilogue where Moore talks about all the theories he came across during its writing, how they contradict each other and how they disconnect us from the main fact: that 5 women were brutaly murdered in a poor area of a major city. His veiled social criticism is what I like about the book, the crazy stuff that we are bound to see is incredibly creative, but not my favorite aspect of it.
"Marvels (1994)" by Kurt Busiek, Alex Ross
* A cool graphic novel, focusing on how mere humans perceive superheroes, starting on the golden age up to the 80s, covering a lot of famous Marvel story archs and characters. Ross art is beautiful, he has a unique style, and his semi-relatistic depictions of the superheroes are very interesting. The text is pretty good too.
Unfortunately, this movie concluded my Villeneuve retrospective with the lowest score of all. I was surprised to see during the final credits that it was based on Saramago's "The Double", he usually has interesting books, and this one could be good, but it was lacking. It doesn't manage to capture the attention, despite being well produced and acted, it just doesn't flow, I cannot say why, it's just a shame.
Good movie, well produced, a photography that keeps you on your toes (which is amazing) and very good acting, a very well executed piece overall with a touching story and relevant social criticism. That said, I'm still trying to understand why people are raving about it. It's one of the best movies I saw this year, but something is missing, and I can't put my finger on it.
I thought it would be very different from the original but it has only a few extra minutes and a different subplot that doesn't add anything really useful to the movie. Not worth it
The follow up is really well connected to the first movie and the story makes sense. I do feel they under utilized some of the characters, like Gary Oldman's, but it's good. The relationship development on this movie, especially among the apes is really something. I'm looking forward for "War for the Planet of the Apes next year.
Caricatural acting, slow as death pacing, 70's special effects and editing. It's hard to say good things about the movie, but it's a WWII classic, worth watching at least for reference.
Very very different from what I expected based on the trailer I saw sometime ago, and that's a kind of good thing. I'm still trying to decide if I liked it or not, the whole "book inside a movie, with flashbacks" is a bit confusing, but the acting is pretty good an they manage to keep the tension throughout the movie. Choosing Jake Gyllenhaal was also a win, because they managed to make him feel vulnerable even though we are used to see him more as an action hero, which is a big change. Unfortunately I saw dubbed in French by accident, which was very annoying.
An interesting but dense documentary that try to explain how we got to an age were the most weird things, like Donald Trump, are considered normal. It starts with the rise of corporate america in the Reagan years, the continuous disastrou relationship with the Middle East, the rise of suicide bombing and the failed utopia of the tech world. I'm still trying to gather all the pieces, it tries to be didactic, but something doesn't feel right about it, there's some missing core principle there.
I heard it was a good series and I picked it up just for fun, but I ended up being forced to see the whole thing in one go. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson do an amazing job, both transform into their characters and it's super interesting to see how they evolve as the story progresses. The main plot is interesting in a "Silence of the Lambs" way, but the "real life" from the sub-plots is what give it life. The last 2 episodes aren't awesome, which is a shame, but the continuous tension of the first 6 make up for them. I will get the second season to watch over the Christmas break.
Some friends told it's a modern day Twilight Zone, it seems to be a fair comparison but I never watched TZ for more than 5 minutes, so I might be missing something. The fact that they extrapolate our current technology in a realistic if insane way, is super entertaining and sad. It's hard to watch an episode and not ask yourself "what the heck I'm helping to build?". In the end tools are just tools until humans make sure to turn them into nightmares.
It follow the authors of a minimalism book on their promotional tour across the USA, and inserts a bunch of interviews with people selling the concept on their own and some academics commenting on the notion. It isn't amazing, but it's useful as a quick overview of the various aspects of the minimalist trend we are experiencing. In the end I'm affraid a bunch of them just want to be self-help gurus, but the main concept is still interesting and useful.
A good tie-in for Episode IV if you consider the last 3rd of it, but bad everywhere else. Acting was whatever but the special effects were pretty cool.
"No Country for Old Men (2007)" by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen - BANQ
* Rewatched it right after finishing the book, it's amazing how much they just copied and pasted from it, including most of the dialogues, which are really amazing. In the end it's a good adaptation, quite faithful, simplifying some pieces, but it dilutes the struggle and thought process of the xerife, which is the key value of the book.
"Sicario (2015)" by Denis Villeneuve - BANQ
* Following the drug war vige I rewatched Sicario, which was one of the best movies I saw in 2015, and it still feels like a punch in the gut, but the smaller screen and less powerful subwoofer didn't help, this is a movie to watch on the big screen. I still don't like the lead actress, but the good news is that it will have a sequel. I'll keep an eye on new scripts by Taylor Sheridan, the xerife from Sons of Anarchy, he apparently has a lot of talent.
"John Wick (2014)" by Chad Stahelski, David Leitch - Netflix
* Watched it because people told me it was good, and if you consider it a B-movie, I guess they are right. It was written and directed by stunt coordinator folks and it shows, but at least it has focus on the violence and action, without trying to be something more, a good choice.
"Rear Window (1954)" by Alfred Hitchcock - Netflix
* A classic missing on my list, it isn't amazing, but Grace Kelly beauty was so stunning that it was worth it.
"The Road (2009)" by John Hillcoat - BANQ
* It was good and quite true to the material, but even if the acting is great, the movie doesn't provide the same emotional depth of the book, there's something missing. Viggo Mortensen acting is really good, he knows how to truly become his characters.
"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)" by Frank Capra - BANQ
* A Capra classic, a useful tale in our days of media corruption, the fan fact is that it isn't much different from 1939, perhaps it's even worse since people just assume that corruption is a part of the game. It is a powerful message about standing by high principles, but I wonder how naive this is. Apparently I'm getting old and jaded.
"Sing (2016)" by Christophe Lourdelet, Garth Jennings - Forum
* Funny animated musical, I need something light after Bebe passed away. Nothing amazing, a very shalow and uplifting plot, but the songs were good and there some funny references, like Nana, the black sheep, being Sunset Boulevards Norma Desmond.
My least favorite part of the trilogy, except for Cat Woman, which is good throughout the movie.
"Zootopia (2016)" by Byron Howard, Rich Moore - Netflix
* A funny and cute movie, with an obvious moral message (no discrimination, you can do whatever you want as long as you try hard, drugs are bad, etc). As always, I'm biased towards movies with antropomorphic animals.
Powerful acting and constrained cinematography, another good piece by Villeneuve. The plot itself isn't out of this world, but it's clear that he always put characters in a moraly challenging situation and pushes them. Jackman and Gyllenhaal have great chemistry on the screen. I wish he made more movies about Gyllenhaal's character, there are many stories buried there.
Ok movie, nothing amazing but well done and with decent acting. Reading the Wikipedia page about the differences between reality and the movie reduced its power considerably.
It's an earie watch but necessary to complete my reading of The History of the Thrid Reich, pure propaganda but made me want to visit Nuremberg to compare. The techniques used to film and edit it are really good for the year, now I understand why it's considered a landmark. I'll probably watch The Birth of a Nation to see how they compare in terms of language and propaganda power.
Another home run from Villenueve. The first half is kind of boring but it gets much better by the end. Who knew someone could mix aliens, time travel and human relationships so nicely.
Cool documentary about Banksy's month long "residency" in NYC. Given the nature of his work it's a nice way to keep it alive for the future, beyond the galerist profiteers.
Interesting complement to The History of the Third Reich, especially regarding what happened after the war. Stone has a socialist bias and some historians don't like his perspective, classifying it as revisionist, but I see it more like a "what if" scenario than revisionism
I remember that I liked the movie when it came out, rewatching it just made me realized that either I was a really bad movie critic or the starvation of good comics based movies made me accept it. It has more plot holes than a Swiss cheese and most of the acting is just crap.
Got the remastered collection and played all 3 games in a single week. The remasterization was fantastic, they did a really good job and the games are fun enough, despite the fact that they are super railroady and have zero replay value. I still think that Tomb Raider reboot is a better adventure game, but it's clear that they stole a ton of stuff from Uncharted and vice-versa. I'll wait a little for Uncharted 4, but I'll surely play it eventually.
The most beautiful game I ever played on PS4, it's a movie with interaction. The story isn't bad, art direction and graphics are superb, but the gameplay is awful, it's hard to say how bad it was.
Quite interesting, I was surprised by "Poe Dameron"'s interpretation, they were so bland on Star Wars but delivered good performances this time. It wasn't one of the best movies ever but I really enjoyed it. Knowing that Garland wrote the script for Dredd, which was freaking awesome all around, I can only praise him, I'm looking forward to more of his movies.
Bad, but could be worse, like Man of Steel or BvS. I wanted to watch it because John Goodman's performance on the trailer was interesting, but to be honest it wasn't much more than we saw there. The premise is semi-interesting, the ending is a big joke, but I didn't expect much more. Michelle, the main character played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is pretty decent, not a damsel in distress, she kicks ass. It is linked to the original Cloverfield, which I didn't watch.
Based on Cheryl Strayed's memoirs about her track on the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT), from Mexico to Canada, an interesting story, I was attracted to it because I fancied doing a trail like that in the past. Reese Whiterspoon's acting is pretty decent, and the fact that the story doesn't flinch on heavy subjects, like sex, sickness, death and guilty, made me respect and appreciate it even more.
As alternative as it gets, few dialogs and deep sentiments - Film Forum NYC
Other
Mad Men - Season 7 - Part 2 - Netflix - the final chapters of the series. It ended on a positive note but I cannot help feeling betrayed by the "hopeful" ending, I was expecting a harsher finale.
Dexter - Seasons 1 and 2 - Netflix - I love Dexter, despite finding out that most of the series was filmed in Long Beach, CA, and not Miami :( The first 3 seasons are the best
Hard to digest but very good. The photography is pretty unique and provides a claustrophobic feel to the movie, which fits like a glove. The main actor is pretty good too, giving a powerful performance with very few lines of dialog. It's Nemes first movie as director, quite an achievement. He got the Grand Prix du Jury de Cannes and was nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar. Film Forum NYC
Continuing my Villeneuve retrospective, it's another punch in the face, so far I haven't seen a movie of his that wasn't. The story is inspired by the Lebanese Civil War, but all locations are ficticious. I really liked Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin acting, not so much Maxim Gaudette's. The twist is a bit over the top, but it's such a dark world that makes it plausible. BAnQ
I believe I saw it in the past, I was familar with many scenes, but it was worth rewatching. Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen steal the movie, Charlie Sheen is, as expected, bleh. The choice of actresses was abysmal, I never saw so many miscasts in a single movie and the characters were extremely shallow, what a shame. The blueray edition has a 1-hour documentary about the movie, with comments from eveybody, it's pretty interesting. As they mention, it's sad that the most memorable part of the movie is the "gree is good" speech, but what can we expect, it's by far one of the best scenes in the whole movie. BAnQ
I had better memories from the movie, I remember watching it on double VHS tapes right after it was released. De Niro and Pacino are good, but today I think that Pacino was a bit over the top, Val Kilmer was good but he had very little screen time. The weapons' sound effects are pretty different from regular action movies and they aged well, but today I see a lot of small flaws on it that make me cringe. Still a decent crime movie. BAnQ
It's an interesting story, blending fantastical with social comentary, especially regarding the aristocracy. It's incredible to think that this kind of people really existed, living the good life and doing nothing of value, and that they still live on the mega rich of our age.
Lord Wotton's absurdely self-centered, narcisistic perspective is repulsive, but the pious Basil is so lame that it kind of makes Wotton more interesting. Dorian is repulsive too, not so much due to his tastes or actions, but to his lack of personality, he would be more likeable if he had a spine, but the point of the book is't to paint him on a good light.
The best part of the book are the dialogues, Wilde was really good at them. The book kind of loses steam after its first half, but it's a short nice read anyway. His veiled homoerotic commentaries must have shocked people at the time, the fact that he had a lot of problems with the law in the sense confirm that, but it provides a fresh perspective on society at that time.
Narration
Simon Vance does a good job as always, nothing surprising.
I didn't know what to expect, but I was disappointed to find out it's a kind of ghost story, which is pretty disappointing. The style is pretty boring, relaying heavily on the internal worries of the main character in a very exagerated style, every paragraph was a river of adjectives and superlatives.
I guess I didn't understand the book or missed it's main point, but I found it plain boring. The author style wasn't interestin either.
Narration
Emma Thompson's narration is quite good, she manages to create disctinc voices and her voice is really good. She makes the last chapter pretty scary.
Really good, I wasn't expecting it to be intersting at all, my experience with Farenheit 451 wans't super, but Bradbury managed to create an interesting story which is a social critique from start to finish, trashing consumerism, racism, segregation, atomic weapons, wars, colonization and more.
The book is a history of a potential future, with a lot of high expectations on our technology but without painting its achievements as pure good, instead he depicts this advances as useful but dehumanizing. The clash betwen humans and martians is interesting, especially because he doesn't use the traditional savages vs civilization, or super powers vs underdog, it's a much more subtle problem.
The best story in the book is the one where he deals with racism and segregation, depicting an exodus of black people from earth on a ship, it's powerful without being dramatic, a especially important piece in these days of intolerance.
The pictures created by Bradbury were also incredibly beautiful without being "too poetic", it's rare for me to notice this kind of thing, but he managed to make me rewind a couple of times to listen to some of his compositions. Also, you can see some links with the universe of Farenheit 451, when he mentions the fireman that burn forbidden art and books.
Narration
Mark Boyett kills it, fluid and melodious narration, with different voices and accents when needed, I'll probably look for more audiobooks narrated by him.
Interesting collection of 30min lecturs on 36 important books in history, some literature, others philosophy, others in politics, but all impactful works.
The quality of the lectures varied quite a bit, not everyone had the same goal, some wanted to talk about the authors, others about the historical period when the book was written, others tried to talk about the book itself. The lecturers were pretty decent in general and it served to wet my apetite for some of the works they mentioned.
I think I will invest time to read: Plato's Republic, The Divine Comedy, Democracy in America, The Jungle and One Day in the life of Denisovich.
One notable issue with most lecturs was the lack of any criticism regarding American politics, most of them were neutral or just kept beating the drum on American exceptionalism, which as annoying.
Huxley narrates his experience with mescaline/peyote, a native american drug that "expands the conscience". The description of the trip is interesting, apparently it provides an "out of body" experience and intense sensory allucinations that could be classified as divine expereinces.
Unfortunately this part of the book is pretty short, he spends most of the time talking about the limitations that society imposes on this kind of experience and that christian faiths lost any kind of divine experience based on drugs, and that this converted religion into a intellectual problem rather than an experience, which is an interesting point, but not super entertaining.
I can say that it made me curious about it, especially because apparently there aren't side effects or physical addiction risks, it's a shame it isn't legal.
The conclusion of the trilogy is pretty good, this time it tracks the progress of the war a bit more chronologically thant he others, but it's the same super dump of info.
In the end it's clear that the nazis were not amazing, super smart, incredibly technologically advanced, they had a ton of flaws and screwed up super often, in part due to their anti-intellectual approach and in part due to their internal squables, and we should be thankful for that.
If Hitler wasn't so aggressive and had moved slower on Poland or at least avoided pushing the USSR, he might have made more damage.
The description of the holocaust execution is appalling, I'm still trying to understand how people managed to follow through with that, it seems to alien to just assume people would go along with it, but the piles of bodies or ashes don't lie, which means we as humans are extremely weak, flawed and just evil. Savage animals don't act like we did, and that says a lot about our species, especially when we consider that neo-nazis are still a thing, and growing.
There are too many details and the numbers are too staggering to be remembered, but I do believe it's an important civic lesson to study WWII so we can see how low humanity can go. It wasn't the end of the attrocities, the whole pacific theater was another massacre, but it's enough to shock any reasoanable person. I wonder how much this expanded understading will change my life, I hope it does change it a lot.
Narrator
Same as the previous book, he apparently had issues with some words, 2 stars max.
If the first book was about the problems that provide us context to understand why the nazi party was created and how it got enough traction to reach the chancelery, this book focus on the actual changes that they forced down Germans' throats once they got there.
The number of changes and the scale of centralization and propaganda they achieved is outstanding, I didn't know it got so bad. Also, the clarification of the low standard of living in the country post-recession and the insane drive to get everybody ready for war was elucidating.
Another point that was unexpected was the drive for advanced technology while they did their best to quelch rationalism and the academia, it's hard to understand how the made so much progress while pushing intelectualism to the side, I wonder how much they would have achieved if they were more rational, assuming the movement could survive in a rational environment.
Understanding how they pushed their racist agenda and managed to keep the nation quiet while they prepared everything was sad. The general feeling is that people didn't like the Reich, but was "proud" of Germany's restoration and were better off than during the depression, which was enough, but it's still baffling how they almost didn't have any opposition.
In some ways they wanted to turn Germany into an ant colony, removing any thought that wasn't directly beneficial for the colony as an homogenous hive mind. I don't think ants are so boring.
Narrator
Same as the previous book, but apparently it's slightly better, but not enough to give the performance 3 stars.
This quote from the last chapter sums up the promise that propeled the Nazi to power:
... or an entreched social elite, but a charimatic leader that came from now nowehere served as a lowly corporal on WW1 and constantly harped upon his credentials as a man of the people.
The nazis declared they would scrape away foreign and alien incrustations on the German body politic riding the country from communism, marxism, jewish liberalims, cultural bolshivism, feminism, sexual libertinism, cosmopolitanism, the economic and power polical burdens imposed by Britan and France in 1919, western democracy and much else.
They would lay bare the true Germany
The fact that the german population decided to vote on them as a "protest vote" is scary, and I cannot ignore the parallels with Trump's election.
Narrator
Unfortunately Sean Pratt doesn't deliver a good narration, speeding it up to 1.5x (my regular speed) improves it considerably, but he was a bad choice.
Apparently this book is the original "natural catastrophe" book, creating a major disaster that threatens humanity and especulates on what it would look like if we were suddenly thrown back to the stone age.
It's quite interesting, a bit too long to be honest, but the progression is realistic enough and the main character, Ish, is charismatic. The interacial relationships bring another interesting point to the novel, it must have been something very avant guarde at the time, but the criticism fits nicely on theme of the book.
In the end, it's a tale about humanity resiliency when facing a bleak future and uncertainty, and it's more optmistic than I think we deserve to be. An important book for people trying to understand science fiction.
Narration
Jonathan Davis does a good job narrating the book, but nothing to write home about.
This is the second "random tales" book on Geralt, it has many short stories about his adventures outside a major arc. As usual, Geralt isn't an action hero, slashing people and killing monsters with magic every second page, instead the whole think is focused on his social interactions and the politics of the world, a far cry from standard sword and sorcery.
By focusing on the humans aspects instead of action, we can believe that his world is real, genuine, and it makes our connection with the stories and the characters much stronger. I genuinely like Geralt, Dandelion, Siri and Jennifer, they all seem too real, and Jeniffer is a bad ass feminist to boot, props for strong female characters.
I would suggest reading this after The Last Wish and before the main trilogy, it will make a lot of difference because you will have a better understanding of his relationship with Siri.
Narration
Peter Kenny is again remarkable, a man of many voices, it makes the whole series much better. I'm glad they hired him for all the adaptations.
A really good overview of western philosophy over time, talking about major schools, their exponents, main ideas and works in a very didactical way.
The author defines the evolution of ideas as a build up process, from Socrates to Kierkegaard, each one adding or changing what previous schools thought. I cannot say if this is accurate, but it makes it easy to understand.
One day I will listen to it again and make notes on each chapter, because it really hard to remember everything, there were too many philosopher's out there.
Narration
Kris Dyer does a good job without being out of the ordinary, but in this kind of books all I want is good diction and pacing.
I was a bit skeptical at first, but the book grew on me. The book focuses on a black family living around Chicago in the 40's and they get caught up in the schemes of a group of Lovecraftian warlocks that is operating in the area.
A lot of the book focus on the racial segregation and the awful stuff the Jim Crow years brought upon the USA, but it goes beyond racial tensions to tell and interesting and intricate plot by the Braithwhite warlocks and their "natural philosophy" lodges to gain power on an incresingly complex society.
If you like Lovecraft and horror magic type stories you should read it, and you should read it to feel ashamed that humans managed to be so evil to a part of it's own kind.
Narrator
Kevin Kenerly does a good job narrating the book and manage to create some different voices for the characters, but it's just ok.
Second time I read this book, it's really really good for old geek farts like me, a ton of cool references. Some of his tricks get a bit boring by the end, but I do like the book, nostalgia alone probably account for this.
If you are a geek raised in the 80's you should read it. The author's next book, Armada, isn't half as good.
Narrator
Will Wheaton does a really good job narrating this book, he isn't awesome providing multiple voices, but his enthusiasm compensates his shortcomings.
A follow up to Legion, bringing a new mistery for Stephen Leeds to solve, kind of picking up where he left on the previous story and expanding his universe.
Since this book is roughly twice the size of the first, they have a bit more space to expand set up the story and add some support characters, but the focus is still on Stephen and how he interacts and handles his aspects.
I really liked it and I'm hoping Sanderson will create more stories on the same universe. I could easily see a Netflix series based on it, and it would be amazing.
Narration
Oliver Wyman does an amazing job creating voices for the main character and all his different aspects.
What a wonderful book, a very short but interesting story, focusing on Stephen Leeds, a "regular" guy that has a weird multiple personality disorder: he can spawn new personalities (which he calls aspects) when he studies a new subject, like cryptography, and this new knowledge is represented by it. He talks and intereacts with these aspects and works as a super detective (I'm sure the Sherlock Holmes vibe isn't by accident) helping people.
The premise is cool, but the execution is what sells it. Set in our contemporary world, with plenty of modern references, it puts this peculiar character in interesting plots and his interaction with his aspects and people who want to study his as a "nut case".
The main mistery isn't amazing, but it's good enough to get things going and it's cool that they don't fall for standard origin story plots. I really loved it and jumped into the sequel, Skin Deep, right after finishing it.
Narration
Oliver Wyman does an amazing job creating voices for the main character and all his different aspects.
I bought this book thinking it would talk about fiction writing, but it's focused on writing true stories mostly for an audience or radio show, like This American Life. It isn't necessarily bad, but this is not the book I was looking for.
A must read classic of science fiction, super interesting if simple, but it makes sense given the fact that it was his first novel and scince fiction didn't really exist at the time.
The plot tells the story of the time traveller, a victorian era engineer who created a time machine and used it to go thousands of years in the future and his experiences there.
It's a pretty short story, around 3:30 hours of narration, but it's well rounded. It was funny to see that he was the one who created the "morloks", that later became the underground mutants on X-Men, and it's interesting to see how they thought about social relations back in the day, especially ideas about socialism and how our society would evolve.
Worth reading/listening, in fact, I would say it's mandatory for fiction enthusiasts.
Narration
I got an audiobook narrated by David McAlistair and I think he did a fine job, if not stellar.
I really loved these lectures, Prof Wolfe uses science fiction history and evolution as a guideline to talk about themes and movements in the genre, focusing on a single theme per lecture.
He provides examples of books and writers pertinent to each lecture and, when applicable, he explains the plot and even some of the twists, so beware of spoilers. In any case, I do believe it's worth listening to if you like science fiction and want to learn more about its history, influences, how the rest of the world influenced it and some of its luminaries.
Some chapters are more interesting then others, or may touch subjects that you like, but the whole thing is coherent and interesting, don't skip any of it. I'll probably listen to other Great Courses and I hope the have the same level of quality.
Narration
He does an stellar job narrating it, if his classes are 50% like them I would like to be his student.
What a boring, prolix mess. The 3 Dupin stories ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841), "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt" (1842) and "The Purloined Letter" (1844)) might have their literary value and might be the basis for Sherlock Holmes and most of the western detective stories, but they could probably be rewritten in a much more interesting fashion in a couple of pages were they written by a non-poet 60 years in the future.
If I complained that Sherlock Holmes is boring, at least it's readable and there's a good sense of rhythm, two attributes I cannot concede to Dupin. That said, Holmes is a clear carbon copy of Dupin, including the existence of Watson, his peculiar behaviour and incredible deductions, but Doyle was more direct and certainly able to reach an audience that wasn't impressed by or didn't like big poetic talk.
In this light, I get why Holmes succeeded and got immortalized while Dupin got relegated to a note in history, as the first but least known detective of our culture.
Narration
I listened to the Naxos version, as usual they use solid narrators, Kerry Shale does a really good job, creating different voices for each character, I would listen to something else narrated by him.
The flashback on "A study in Scarlet" was surprising, I didn't expect it and it came out of nowhere, but it made the story pretty interesting, and the religious bashing was entertaining. It's interesting to see his points on not knowing everything, just the stuff that helps his trade, and his cocaine addiction treated so matter of factly.
Watson is kind of lame but he's too nice for us to hate him. I was surprised he got married by the 2nd story, but Doyle "fixes" it by mentioning offhand that he gets divorced, his wife is seldomly mentioned, and later he moves back with Holmes or drop by very frequently.
Irene Adler's character appears in a single, very short, story, and is mentioned a couple of times later, but she is always explored on modern interpretations of Holmes, which displays a constant distrust of women, being characterized as impervious to their charms.
Moriarty is another disappointment, he's the linchpin to Holmes "death", which was retconned by Doyle soon afterwards, and he is always mentioned as his most dangerous opponent, but doesn't really appear on his stories, he's only a dark shadow looming over Holmes.
Mycroft appears in 2 stories, and he's a "more powerful but lazy" version of Holmes, and his stories aren't super interesting, but he does make the link between Holmes and the government, as it usually happens on modern versions.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed, after listening to all his stories, the most famous ones (A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter and The Valley of Death) are the best stories, Valley and Study being very interesting due to their long flashbacks, which do not include Holmes.
Most of the other stories are ok if dull, you can never really uncover the mystery because Holmes always does something hidden from Watson, who's is the narrator on 95% of the stories, that uncovers a key pice of the puzzle, it's very deus ex machina. It's also sad that most of the time this "action" is sending a telegraph to someone to confirm a hunch.
All in all, I understand why he influenced so much of our crime stories, but it isn't good enough to deserve it, it's just a penny novel that happened to become famous and has some remarkable characters, but I fail to see why it succeeded, the competition must have been dismal.
Narration
Simon Vance is a veteran narrator, he always does a competent job. He doesn't have a ton of different variations but the ones he use are enough to identify recurrying characters.
Be advised: it's a really long listen, 58 hours split into 7 books.
Short but interesting story with a crazy premise (murdered people don't die but get teleported to their homes). The author manages to make it belieavable and involves a bunch of colorful characters in a very short time.
Narration
Zachary Quinto has a good voice but doesn't know how to create different characters, which breaks the charm of a good audiobook. He should stick to screen acting or work on his voices.
Now I understand why Paulo Coelho sold so many books, he sells a magical thinking bullshit that preceeds The Secret by decades and is as useless as all self-help books around, but it's "positive" and "makes people believe they are a special snowflake", which is bullshit. The whole personal legend thing is a disaster, but it was ok-ish up until the a third of the book, which is short but is still a waste of paper.
Narration
Jeremy Irons does a good job, nothing stellar but he makes the book bearable.
An interesting take on "what would happen if aliens came to earth?" story. It hammers down the notion that humans are super special in an elegant way, but the conclusion is too trippy to be satisfying. In my opinion, Randevous with Rama is way better than this one.
Narration
Eric Michael Summerer does a fine job but nothing out of the ordinary.
Another juvenile story about space, it starts slow with the whole twins plot but gets better when he starts to talk about thei psychological aspects of the relativistic travel and how people see their lives from a very weird time perspective. The ending is a quite surprising and it smells like Heinlein's standard "macho" narrative, but it's a product of its time.
Narration
Barrett Whitener does a good job but nothing out of the ordinary.
A middle manager remote worker for tech companies I can sympathize with him, I've lived through similar situations and I agree with several of his opinions, including the fact that remote working for "meta workers", like middle managers, is different from remote workers for makers, like coders and designers. His point on the disproportional influence of founders and early employees on the company culture and their impact on how it will move forward is also spot on.
I liked his description of the meetups, it's interesting how they used them to focus the work, an idea to copy, but I'm skeptical of his enterprisey insights at the end. The fact that he worked on a SaaS company also changes how things work, companies selling products that aren't so easily updated or that require a lot more stability requirements will operate differently, I was appaled by the apparent lack of automated testing on his descriptions, but that might be me misinterpreting him.
All in all, this book doesn't provide any amazing insights, but reinforces some of my opinions on remote work for tech companies. It's a good read for peopel in the field.
Narration
Passable, but he could have gotten some support with technical terms, like MySQL, he just read them as acronymns like M-Y-S-Q-L. This happened several times, which is annoying.
A fitting if non-dramatic conclusion for the trilogy, the psychological and moral aspects of the interaction between powerful and common people are still front and center, the focus on gender severely diminished, but I don't think this was a bad move. All in all I really enjoyed the series and would read other works by the author.
Narration
Another really good performance, the second series narrator is really good, she has a beautiful voice and manages to create distinct voices for the main characters, which helps immersion, truly good job.
The conclusion of the story is a cyberanarchist wet dream, which is quite different from what I expected at the beginning of the first book. I cannot say I'm sold on the author's idea for real, but I enjoyed it, but it's less interesting than the first, I'm not sure why. He still uses flat archetypes and some unnecessary corny dialogues, but this is apparently his limitation as a writer.
One interesting thing is that he does kill characters from time to time, apparently he got influenced by RR Martin.
Narration
The narrator and the production are still above average, props for them.
The characters feel flat, very square archetypes and he likes technobabble a bit too much, either to imerse people or to show off how much he knows about stuff, which is annoying.
That said, the core idea is good and he goes so over the top sometimes that it becomes really entertaining, I had a hard time dropping the book halfway through it and ended up buying the sequel and started reading it right away. I'm looking forward for the conclusion.
Narration
Jeff Gurner does a really good job, but the production on this book, with digital voices and some effects on specifc characters, they did a really good job with the production.
Really good and short novel, it feels like a Sons of Anarchy season, normal people facing bad situations and making decisions as they go. The very ending could be stronger, but I still think it's a very good book.
Quite boring, the only interesting part is the impact that the invisibility power has on the main character, changing his behaviour and some questions left to the readers about it, but nothing spetacular.
Narrator
James Adams does a good job, especially with the English accents.
I was expecting something more interesting on the philosofical aspects of meaning, but instead I got an interesting perspective on the life of a concentration camp inmate follow up by: "given life has meaning, figure out yours and your life will be better", which I understand is a practical and potentially "useful" advice, but just assumes that the reader believes that there is a meaning to life.
All in all I would recommend the book for his concentration camp account.
If you like children fables this book will make you happy, it's pretty similar to what I remember of the movie, except that she has silver slippers intead of ruby ones. It's a short read, try it just to quench your curiosity, but it isn't amazing or profound by any means.
Narrator
Anne Hathaway does a pretty good job voicing all the different characters, quite a decent performance.
War is boredom interpolated with crazy uncomprehensible action. An interesting perspective on the Vietnam war, anti-war but from a real person point of view, including the emptiness post war.
Narrator
Bryan Cranston, from Breaking Bad fame, is a really good narrator.
I thought it was a stupid business self-help book but I was happily proved wrong. It does feel a big self-help but the fact that the author doesn't say he was perfect and doubted himself 90% of the time, shows that he's human and not a magical guru that knows it all.
I would boil his advice into "be agile", in the sense that experimentation and empiricism was what made them better on their own context, not business school theory. Also, he doesn't say to copy Pixar, but to be inspired by it and learn how to fix your own company, which is awesome.
His notes on Steve Jobs decreased my dislike of him by 5%, which I think is a good thing.
Narrator
Peter Altschuler does a good job narrating the book, it sounds like an enthusiastic grandpa but it doesn't hurt the book, I do believe he conveis the sentiments on each passage quite well. For what is worth, I listened to it on 2x, it might be an improvement over regular speeds, I don't know if that's the case.
Peter Kenny's narration is very good, above average on many levels, he not only created different voices for each character, but he instilled them with small accents and details that match their personality and fits them like a glove. I really liked his narration of "The Last Wish" and he kept the voices on this book, I'm super happy to have him reading the rest of the saga.
World War I in a steampunk fantasy, not bad but not awesome. They do have some ok characters, interesting concepts and a lot of neat slangs, like Clunkers, but the plot feels a bit too heavy handed. I'll probably read the rest of the series but without crazy expectations.
Opinion
I don't believe I ever read any steampunk before, so I decided to give this one a try during an Audible sale. It's an interesting concept, making an alternate version of WWI were the Central and Allied powers are grouped by different technologies and world views, the first using Clunker technology the later Darwinian monsters, and it's funny that Clunkers are religious while Darwinians are apparently atheists. It's interesting that the author is pushing for some modern agendas, like women equality and things like that, which I support 100%.
The plot is led by one character from each side, Alek and "Mr" Sharp, they are interesting if too teenaged to my taste, but perhaps that was the goal, and I'm the old one. The story really picks up halfway through it, the start is pretty slow even if the author tried to make it seem more urgent, in the end it came off as deus ex machina, but that's ok.
I'm curious to see how he will keep using semi-historical facts and people on the rest of the trilogy. I can say it isn't deep but it's fun, more than I can say about a lot of books I read recently.
Notes on the format
Narrated by Alan Cummings, I don't think he is an amazing narrator, but he does a decent job, even switching voices and accents between characters. Better than average, far from stellar.
Narrated by Lewis Grenville, he's a good narrator with a nice voice, but he doesn't goes above and beyond. Pretty ok for a non-fiction book, speed it up to 1.5x and you won't miss anything.
Typical libertarian book by Heinlein, this time including macho nuclear scare preppers. Far from his best novels, but has some interesting discussions about power and race, especially at the end.
Opinion
I like Heinlein books, even if I have a complicated relationship with his super libertarian views. This is one of the most extremes in this sense, since the protagonists are mainly libertarians caught up in a nuclear war, which he uses as excuse to talk about prepping, liberty, homesteading and the true american way.
I wasn't expecting the book twist, it came out of nowhere because I didn't read reviews about it, it was on my "read all Heinlein titles list". I do believe he purposely used this as an excuse to include a lot of stereotypes, especially about race, to force a discussion about power, class and racial domination. From all I read about Heinlein, he wasn't necessarily racist but his constant uses of racial stereotypes on multiple books don't help his case.
Another issue is that, while he often uses strong female characters, they usually fell like "men disguised as women with a ton of sex drive", which dilutes their impact and personality. In this book he goes beyond that by including some borderline incestuous/daddy sexual fantasies, which is probably going to disagree with a lot of readers, I didn't enjoy them.
I do believe the final discussion is interesting and has a positive, if too "American Way", conclusion, but it isn't high on my favourite list. I believe it's slightly above his "Glory Road", which is my least favourite Heinlein book of all times.
Notes on the format
Another Audible, narrated by Tom Weiner, who is the standard Heinlein narrator. He is competent, manages to give distinct voices for each character, including different regional accents, but I dislike his "stereotyped" options.
Not super interesting story about appearances, money and dubious morality in NY during the 20's. It improves a lot around the last 3rd but I wouldn't say it's a must read. At least it's short.
Opinion
Rich socialites living in a fairy tale that disguises fake morality, empty lives and repressed sexuality. That could be a summary for the book, which I don't think is a must read but has some interesting nuggets. The author's style is fluid and, for time, probably coloquial, but nothing amazing. The characters aren't super interesting but the scenario makes them at least curious, it's funny to see that they were as shallow back then as today.
I'll try the movies to see if they improve my appreciation, but I doubt it.
Notes on the format
Audible book, narrated by Jake Gyllenhaal, who does an ok job but that's it. He doesn't create distinct voices or personalities for them, and in a book about characters like this, this issue becomes a cardinal sin.
Why we had so few women writers back in 1920? Virginia Woolf points to the lack of independence, both financial and cultural, afforded to women, and provides some interesting illustrations on the subject. An interesting and powerful feminist book, the struggle isn't new at all.
Opinion
I got it during an Audible daily deal, I didn't really know what to expect but it hinted to be an interesting early text on feminism, and that attracted me. Virginia Woolf asks the question "why there are so few women writers?" or artists in the 1920. Why was Shakespeare a man? Could he have been a woman?
The context for these questions is a post-war UK, growing facist Europe, shortly after women suffrage in the UK. Using a fictional story, she points out the reasons that impede women from becoming writers and the factors are many, like forbidding women from getting higher education for most of history, once created, colleges for women were much more restricted in funding, the fact that for the longest time women didn't own their money, it was their husbands property, that they were unable to actually get a job, after all they were stuck tending the house and raising children, that they couldn't participate in great events of the world, since they were excluded from the military and power in general.
All these factors explain why there were no female Shakespeares, not because of the explanation that was prevalent at the time, that women were morally and intellectually inferior. To fix that and create space for a female Shakespeare, women would need 3 things: a room of their own (personal freedom), 500 pounds a year (financial freedom) and time. Given these 3 factors they could become writers and artists as good as men, and a female genius would appear in time.
This seems simple, but even today, 2016, I wouldn't say we accomplished that, women are still marginalized in many fields, lack the same conditions as men and are still trapped into a conservative society that don't want them to have power. It's much better than the 20's, but we might need another 100 years to reach true equality.
All in all, I liked the book very much, I do think it could be a bit shorter, especially close to the end, but it was very good reading. The Audible version has some short stories in the end, I didn't like them very much, because, unlike the main text, they were more "poetical", and that's something I don't enjoy, but their themes were interesting.
I highly recommend the book, at least to put in perspective the feminist movement and how much work we still have ahead of us.
Notes on the format
Another Audible, narrated by Juliet Stevenson who has a very beautiful voice and gives emotion to the text. She didn't make very distinct voices among characters, but there were few opportunities to do so in the book, but I would listen to other narrations by her without a second thought.
Interesting fictional account of a slave's life in the USA at the beginning of the War of Independence, highlighting the hypocrisy of the "freedom for all" idea that the revolutionaries sold. Especially interesting to see a very different Manhattan. The narration was only ok.
Opinion
Notes on the format
I listened to the Audible version, narrated by Madison Leigh. She does an ok job, but lacks different accents, especially to differentiate English and Americans, and there's very little variation among characters. It doesn't kill the book, but doesn't improve it.
A extremely short but powerful look into the hardships and difficulties of black people in the 60s, fighting for civil rights and caught into the battle of different ideologies and resistance methods. Another "must read" for people who want to learn more about racism in the USA.
Opinion
James Baldwin provides a moving and interesting perspective on the struggle for civil rights. A former "boy preacher" turned unaffiliated writer, he describes his choice between the streets and the pulpit, his inspiration and eventual disillusionment with the church and his meeting with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam movement.
Like Du Bois, he highlights the differences between black leaders on how to deal with segregation and civil liberties, in this case the NOI's extreme separation between blacks and whites and James' own Christian beliefs that love, not the colour of the skin, should be the unifier of all people.
He doesn't stop at the ideological issues, he ask us to think about their broader implications, how they would affect economy and society as a whole, which is refreshing.
Being white myself, I cannot truly understand the feeling of being oppressed based only on a cosmetic difference, but I admire his positive attitude, trying to find a way to find a common path for blacks and whites while not giving whites a free pass on their oppression. I highly recommend this book.
Notes on the format
I listened to it on Audible, read by Jesse L. Martin, and his voice is AMAZING, excellent diction and an entrancing tone. Unfortunately he narrated only one more book.
Surreal, crazy critique of life in modern (1960's) America, with harsh and witty commentary of the dysfunctions and prejudices that lay beneath the facade of civilization. The rhythm is weird, but I guess it isn't by accident. I recommend it.
Opinion
The plot, in theory, tells the story about how Dwayne Hoover met Kilgore Trout and how this meeting initiated a chain reaction on Dwayne's life. Dwayne is a successful and rich car dealer in the American heartland that lives an apparently normal life but, just like everybody else, this is just a façade. Kilgore Trout is an insane sci-fi novelist that gets published on porn dime magazines and travel's to Dwayne's town for an art convention.
This apparently innocent plot isn't told in a straight forward manner. It's completely surreal, mixing the characters background and current story with an omniscient but not omnipotent author that breaks the 4th wall and reach out to the readers brain and shakes their neurons. To increase it's weirdness, the book is filled with illustrations by the author that are very cartoonish but add another level of impact to the novel.
The focus is a critique of the American way of life, that seems so civilized and moral on the surface but is a mess if you try to dig just a bit deeper. The author explains some of the background and motivations of all characters in the novel, highlighting the differences between their appearance and their inner selfs, and society's pressure to maintain appearances and act in illogical ways.
If you like or is looking for this kind of questioning, the book will do you some good, if you're looking to maintain the status quo and not face your inner demons, keep away.
Notes on the format
I listened to it on Audible, it's read by John Malkovich who does a decent job, but the book makes a ton of references to drawings by the author that are intertwined with the text, so he was forced to describe the pictures, which breaks the flow and significantly diminishes their impact.
That said, I'm happy that Audible added a PDF that you can easily download from your "library" page with all the drawings and the text that mentions them. Without this the audiobook would be unbearable.
Very interesting book to gain a better understanding of the historical evolution of racism in the USA. By focusing on the years following the war, it narrates the difficulties the now "freed" black population had to adjust to and the various ideological currents of the time.
Opinion
I'm trying to increase my knowledge about racism in the USA, a struggle that scarred the country and still has a lot of consequences and no real end in sight. Du Bois narrates his story and the events just after the end of the American Civil War, when black people became officially free but had to figure out how to survive in a land that first enslaved and now subjugated them by debt and exclusion from the economy and power.
American history isn't a subject I'm deeply familiar, we don't study it in depth in Brazil, and we end up "believing" on the depictions of the end of slavery that we see in movies, which, of course, are far from telling the whole story, when they don't plain whitewash the whole thing. Du Bois dives into the failed attempts by the Union government to create some kind of support structure for the freed slaves but it didn't work out, either by incompetence or malice.
He then go over the differences in education and opportunities between whites and blacks, and the expectation that black people shouldn't aspire to become anything but wage slaves. In this section he explains the differences in ideology among black leaders, in this case his opposition to Booker T. Washington push for a "trade education" without confrontation with white power structures. This was the first time I read some good argumentation debating different ways of approaching integration.
The rest of the book is a sociological analysis of the situation of black people after the war and how the powers structures in place perpetuated the segregation and forced them into poverty, increasing the gap and hatred instead of mending problems, a very sad but eye opening discussion. He closes with some fiction stories of blacks working their way into white society and finding that they were not welcome and making their previous lives unsustainable.
All in all the book is an incredible time capsule that clarifies some aspects of why ending slavery didn't fix the problems and led to segregation and provides causes for the social differences we see even today. I highly recommend it.
Notes on the format
I listened to it on Audible, narrated by Mirron Willis who does a very good job, adding some soul to it.
A good critique of the bourgeoisie, it's decadence, fake morality and shallowness, but nothing really special. The voice acting is pretty good, but I wouldn't say it's a must listen. I'll try to rewatch the 1988 movie.
Decent closing book of the trilogy, it kind of solidifies the personalities and interactions the characters started building on The Alloy of Law while expanding the world to allow future expansions. This trilogy is almost as good as the original, but the dialogues are much better, the twists aren't as crazy and characters are deeper. I'm looking forward to other novels set in modern Scadrial.
Notes on the format
Michael Kramer does a very good job as usual. See notes on previous reviews.
It isn't bad but not amazing, apparently Sanderson has problems with novel in the middle of a trilogy. It expands the main characters, reinforces some relations, clarifies their background but the core of the plot is weird.
Notes on the format
Michael Kramer does a very good job as usual. See notes on previous reviews.
If you like the first Mistborn trilogy you'll probably like this book. It starts a bit slow but picks up after the first quarter. The evolution of the scenario is interesting and the characters and dialogs are much more dynamic and funny than the original trilogy. I'm looking forward to read the next two books.
Opinion
I loved Mistborn, the world, the magic and the different characters made for good binge reading, looks like this new trilogy will offer the same kind of pleasure. The story starts 300 years after the events of the first trilogy, and the world is in a kind of post-Victorian Era, with cities, industry, trains and electricity transforming the world. We start by following Wax, a western style lawman, and we learn about the environment, technology and plot through his interactions and misadventures.
The support characters are pretty good too, especially Wayne, and their interactions are super funny and fluid, props for Sanderson's improved dialogue skills. There are new allomantic metals and abilities, and they add a nice flavour to the mix.
One of the best things about the book is that apparently Sanderson toned down the superpowers, no more armies of ultra powerful mistborns, which makes for a much more "plausible" story without making it dull.
For the curious, he does use characters from the original trilogy, but in very subtle way, which I think is perfect to make fans happy without stealing the spotlight from the new characters.
I hope he keeps these improvements on the rest of the trilogy.
Notes on the format
As usual, I'm listening to the book on Audible, again Michael Kramer does a very good job, Wayne's voice is just perfect, but this time he slipped a bit when changing voices between some of the characters, which is noticeable for me but doesn't spoil the book in any way.
Provides some structure to how to approach a new management job, with useful "reminder lists", but nothing out of this world. If you're new to management or looking to improve your political skills on higly hierarchical organizations it might be useful. The author is too forceful trying to sell his ideas and focus a lot on adapting to the environment and only rock the boat when needed, which is an approach I dislike.
Opinion
Not bad as management books go, he provides useful check-lists of "things to consider" when on boarding or making management decisions. His accomplishment is giving a decent structure to these ideas that are usually spread across different disciplines or learned from experience.
His method is a kind of "paint by the numbers" for on boarding and planning, split into the following parts:
Prepare yourself
Learn about what you're getting into before joining and mentally break away from the previous job
Accelerate your learning
Don't start by making changes and decisions. First spend time learning about the company history, culture, politics and processes before you act, but you need to do it methodically to speed up the process
Match your strategy to the situation
Undertand the situation and direction of the company using the STARS framework and adapt your actions and approach to it
Secure early wins
Early and small successes will build your reputation and buy you time to act on the long term
Negotiate success
Make sure your clear about what your boss and the organization expects from you. Underpromise and overdeliver.
Achieve alignment
With a clear understanding of the direction and strategy of the company make the necessary adjustments to structure, processes and skills to deliver it
Build your team
Be methodical when changing your team to make sure they can contribute to the company's goals, you don't get in legal trouble and you set the tone for the remaining team
Create coalitions
How to play politics and get the support you need to achieve your goals
Keep your balance
Make sure your personal life is under control to avoid derailing your new job
Accelerate everyone
Sell your company on the need for formal on boarding process, especially if they buy the authors' consulting services
The good
One thing that I think is valuable and I didn't know before reading the book is the STARS framework to classify the company's direction and adjust your approach accordingly. STARS is an achronym for start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, and sustaining success, which are different situations that a company, division or product line might be going through. Each situation calls for different approaches and pain thresholds the company is prepared to take. For example, during turnarounds the company can tolerate brutal changes to structure and products because they need to adapt fast or die, while in realignment situations it probably won't accept the same changes without a lot of resistance.
The author has an article explaining the basics on HBR, it isn't rocket science and anybody with a few jobs under their belt will have an intuitive understanding of it, but it's the first time I saw it structure in this way and it provides a good share language to discuss such things.
Also, the check-lists he provides throughout the book are useful, both when you're new to the job and when you're struggling with some organizational problem. They do not solve anything for you, but will help you approach these situations with more structure, which is helpful.
The bad
Unfortunately, by trying discuss so many topics, he's unable to discuss them in depth, a problem compounded by the lack of substantial reading recommendations. A good example of this is when he discusses strategic positioning and uses SWOT as a reference framework for it. He doesn't provide an in depth discussion, provides external references and barely suggests that there are alternative frameworks to strategy analysis. Adding some good external references, beyond his own articles on HBR, would improve the book a lot.
The ugly
All over the book he tries too hard to sell his awesome method, which is incredibly annoying. I get that he likes his method and it's "acclaimed" by the management publications all over the world, but I'm already reading his stuff, I don't need him hammering the marketing tag line on every chapter and have a sales pitch disguised as the "accelerate everyone" chapter.
Another annoyance is that the book is clearly geared towards traditional, highly hierarchical and political companies, a more cynic review could summarize the book as "get your political backstabbing game to a higher level". I get that he wrote it thinking about joe-white-collar, but the fact that he proposes a chameleon approach when getting a new job, politely suggesting that you hide your true self until you're established, is a very disappointing.
To his credit he asks readers to treat their employees with decency and respect, but in my book this is the bare minimum when dealing with people's livelihoods, so no extra cookies for him.
Notes on the format
I read it on Kindle, this is the kind of book that's probably better suited to print or e-book, but not audio, since most of the useful stuff is on diagrams and check-lists, and you'll probably want to refer to them from time to time. Some of the tables are mangled on Kindle, you were warned.
Teaches you about a very useful tool for strategic planning and change, but that's the limit, you need to know Lean principles and how to implement them by yourself, it assumes you got a handle on that, or point you to sources, but that's it. It doesn't diminish the value of the book, but a real implementation will require a lot more research and investment, the execution part at the end of the mapping is the real challenge.
Opinion
The authors propose Value Stream Mapping as a tool to plan and guide strategic changes for a company, the basic methodology consists of a 3-day workshop split into: current state mapping, future state design, coming up with a transformation plan, one day for each. The workshop participants should be high level executives or people with power to approve and oversee the execution of big strategic changes, middle managers that like to talk and do politics but cannot change anything without permission from above aren't welcome. Before the actual mapping starts the organizers need to scope which value stream will be worked on and gather preliminary data that will support the process, then the mapping starts for real.
The current state mapping on day one is pretty self explanatory, but the way it's done is interesting, because it isn't a white-boarding session with people who have no contact with the real work, instead it consists of people "walking the gemba" (visiting where the work is done), seeing and talking with the folks that actually do the work. After that they retreat to a room to draw what they saw, using a specific notation (which is pretty simple) and adding some metrics to it. With the diagram they have a better understanding of the process, their lead time, process time and "quality", and they go back to the gemba to verify if it's accurate. After that the current state should be close enough to reality and people can share a similar understanding of the situation, share it with people that will support the changes and then go to sleep.
On day two they revisit the scope and the current state and discuss what changes should be made to the current state to achieve the pre-defined goals. This might include removing or adding processes, change the way inspections are made, train people in a different way, etc, there's a suggested list of traditional changes but they aren't very prescriptive, because each situation is different. Once the changes are decided upon the group create a future state map that will reflect the value stream after the changes are made, and add the target metrics that they expect with the new flow. They might go back to the gemba to review it and then show the result for supporting collaborators, and that's the end of day two.
On day three they will go back to the future state map and document the list of changes they expect to make, assigning owners, defining timelines but NOT going into details of "how" they will be implemented, the implementation part is up to the people that will actually do the work, the mapping exercise will provide them with the goals and a vision of how their changes will impact the system. After that the mapping exercise is finished.
As the authors say, after the mapping is when the rubber meets the road, and while they have some prescriptions on how to approach the execution, they are far from prescriptive, they leave it as an exercise for the readers, and that's the "let down" of the book, because the planning part is "simple", if insightful and practical, but I fear that the execution is the real problem. The authors aren't naive and they are aware of this "limitation", and offer some references throughout the book to guide people to learn how to do the rest, but that's it.
The mapping is a good tool, but it's pretty much it, you could use a lot of other planning tools to achieve similar goals, the upside of the book is that they try to persuade the reader to expand their Lean view towards the rest of the organization instead of stopping at the rituals, but they cannot fix things like stupid org charts, disempowered employees, lots of politics and silos, etc. They don't see it as only a tool, but I cannot in good faith say it's more than that.
Read the book to learn the tool and be inspired, but be prepared to research a lot to actually implement it.
Book notes
Value
Value stream mapping is a discovery activity
Shared understanding of the work, reducing differences in perception, therefore reducing conflicts
Consensus building around problems
High level abstraction of the work makes it easier to understand
High level changes are strategic changes, they more impact than process/tactical ones
It's a visual storyboard of how work actually gets done
Helps to eliminate waste work and minimize value-enabling work, focusing on value-added work
Limitations
Doesn't fix micro-level process problems
Focus on strategic changes, if strategy is set its value is limited to understanding
The implementation part is left as an exercise to the reader
Very few mentions bottlenecks, theory of constraints should be added to the mix
Observations
Lots of references to traditional hierarchical structures
Apparently the focus is to use value stream mapping as a tool for highest ranking executives
How to identifies the value streams? Apparently they assume it's just figuring out what are the requests and move from there, or it's explained on another chapter
They also assume that you already know the value proposition of the product and desires of the consumers, they won't help you figure that out
How to find the right balance between macro and micro level detail? Apparently the "solution" is to get experience
3 types of work:
Value-adding
Value-enabling (necessary non-value-adding)
Waste (unnecessary non-value-adding)
8 different types of waste
Transport – Moving people, products & information
Inventory – Storing parts, pieces, documentation ahead of requirements
Motion – Bending, turning, reaching, lifting
Waiting – For parts, information, instructions, equipment
Over production – Making more than is IMMEDIATELY required
Over processing – Tighter tolerances or higher grade materials than are necessary
Defects – Rework, scrap, incorrect documentation
Skills – Under utilizing capabilities, delegating tasks with inadequate training
Highlighting the systems used in the process and how the information flow across them seems to be a critical part of the mapping process, probably a lot of insights can be gained from this
Extra reading
Lean Thinking (Womack and Jones)
The Toyota Way (Liker)
Learning to see
The machine that changed the world (Womack)
The complete lean enterprise (Beau Keyte and Drew Locher, 2004)
Notes
Introduction
Focus on organizations in information-intensive office, service and knowledge work environments
Issues the authors see in the field
Organizations are unfamiliar with the methodology
Those who try to adopt it are underutilizing it, usually failing to involve leadership, employ cross-functional teams and include relevant metrics
Many organizations are misusing the methodology, for example, using it to map processes disregarding macro-level perspectives
While the authors used iGrafx Flowcharter to create the maps on the book they recommend doing it on paper and post-its before moving them to electronic formats
The book offers more guidelines than hard-and-fast rules
Value stream mapping can be used just as a tool, but more benefits can be gained if used as a broader methodology
1 - Value Stream Management
"In most organizations, no one person can describe the complete series of events required to transform a customer request into a good or service"
Lack of understading of this stream results in the creation of process that don't solve customer problems or improve their experience
Sympthoms: conflicting priorities, interdepartamental tension, infights within leadership
Improvement initiatives without a clear understading of where it fits into the value stream are usually waste
What's a value stream?
The term value stream was coined by James Womack, Daniel Jones and Daniel Roos in the book that lauched the Lean movement, The Machine that Changed the World (1990), and further popularized by James Womack and Daniel Jones in Lean Thinking (1996).
A value stream is the sequence of activities an organization undertakes to deliver on a customer request. More broadly, a value stream is the sequence of activities to design, produce and deliver a good or service to a customer, and it includes the dual flows of information and material. Most value streams are highly cross-functional: the transformation of a customer request to a good or service flows through many functional departments or work teams within the organization.
An extended value stream includes those activities that precede a customer request (e.g., responding to a request for a quote, determining market needs, developing new products, etc) or occur following the delivery of a good or service to a customer (e.g., billing and processing payments or submitting required compliance reports).
While many of a value stream's activities occur sequentially, others may be performed concurrently (in parallel) to other work. The activities in a value stream are not merely those that an organization performs itself: work done by ouside parties and even the customers themselves are part of a value stream.
Types
Customer facing - deliver a good or service to a customer
Value-enabling or support value streams - e.g. recruiting, hiring and onboarding, IT support, annual budgeting
"Wherever there's a request and a deliverable, there is a value stream"
Complex creative work can be viewed as its own value stream
Segment - eg product design to fulfill a specific order
Product lifecycle is a value stream too (looks like example more applicable to manufacturing)
Value streams can extend over long periods of time, defining the scope of a value stream is important and will be discussed on Chapter 2
Small companies usually have few value streams, while big companies have many
Functional departments (finance, marketing, etc) and desired outcomes (security, high quality, compliance, etc) are NOT value streams
Requests that pass through similar processe flow sequences form a single "product family"
Value stream mapping helps visualizing these flows and help us to remove redundancies, fill gaps and reduce waste
What's value stream mapping
Based on TPS "material and information flows"
Womack's work is very important for the Lean movement, unfortunately it doesn't explicitly address things like leadership practices, culture, problem solving and coaching
Most Lean consultants focus on selling lean tools, not people-based transformations
Value stream mapping was properly codified on Learning to See(1999)
It can be seen as just a tool or much more abrangent framework
Value stream maps offer a holistic view of how work flows through entire systems, and they differ from process maps in several significant ways. First, value stream maps provide an effective means to establish a strategic direction for making improvement. The inclination to jump into the weeds and design micro-level improvements before the entire work sytems - the macro picture - is fully understood, is a key contributor to suboptmization.
...work has various degrees of granularity. Value stream mapping, the macro perspective, provides the means for leadership to define strategic improvements to the work flow, whereas process-level mapping enables the people to do the work to design tactical improvements.
Second, value stream maps provide a highly visual, full-cycle view - a storyboard - of how work progresses from a request of some sort to fulfilling that request. This cycle can be described as a request to receipt, order to delvery, ring to ring (phone call to cash register), cradle to grave or quote to cash. A cyclical view places the customer (who is tipically both the requester and recipient) in a central position, which provides a powerful means to view and entire work system as it relates to delivering customer value.
Third, the process of value stream mapping deepens organizational understanding about the work systems that deliver value and support the delivery of value to customer, which aids in better decision making and work design. By distilling complex systems into simpler and higher-level components that can be understood by everyone from senior leaders to front lines, organizations create common ground from which to make decisions. In addition, the mental shaping that's needed to succinctly define complex work sytems is a boon when redesigning work to deliver greater value, faster, at lower cost, and in safer and more fulfilling work environments. There's a logistics advantage as well: value stream mapping enables a team to fully understand how work flows through a complex system in a matter of days, whereas detailed process mapping (which serves a different purpose) can take weeks or months and is too detailed to help in making effective strategic decisions.
Fourth, the quantitative nature of value stream maps provides the foundation for data-driven, strategic decision making....
Last, value stream maps reflect work flow as a customer experiences it versus the internal focus of typical process-level maps...
The benefits of value stream mapping
Visual unification tool - makes "invisible" work (knowledge based stuff) visible. It helps people see the need for improvement and generates aligment, including cross-functional dependencies
Connection to the customer - the customer, be it internal or external, is at the center of the process. Facilitates discussions around expectations, requirements and preferences
Holistic systems-thinking methodology - provides a pragmatic way to realize systems thinking, clearly showing cross-functional dependencies and how they affect customer experience. Provides a fact based, non biased assessment
Simplification tool - simplifies the complexity of business by moving the discussion to a macro-level. Helps to avoid the tendency to feel that your world is more complex than any order by making similiarities across product families more visibile and clarifying complexity around the system
Ïf you can't describe what you're doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing - Deming
Practical means to drive continous improvement - can help PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Adjust) process, (similar to PDCA and friends). It's an iterative tool, value stream maps need to be updated and adjusted as the stream changes
Effective means to orient new hires - helps during onboarding, showing where people fit in the organization and how they connect to the customer
Common failings with value stream mapping
Using the mapping process solely as a work design exercise - without organizational learning, culture shifts, etc, it's potential is wasted
Use the map to make tactical improvements - using it as process maps. A cue to a bad stream is that it has 30+ process steps, when they are formated as swim lanes and/or are missing information flow. Detailed process maps might be needed, but it's a different tool and focus.
People often ask us how to determine when they should use value stream mapping and when they should use process-level mapping. While it's situational, we nearly always begin with a value stream mapping to align leadership and set priorities. We often turn to process mapping for those sections of the value stream that require deeper exploaration and for creating standard work, and improvement requirement that requires more specificity than a value stream maps provides
Creating value stream maps during a Kaizen event
Let us be clear: kaizen events are a specific format for designing, testing and implementing actual improvement, whereas a value stream mapping activity's purpose is to create a plan and alignment for improvement. Value stream mapping activities are strategic; kaizen events are tactical. Kaizen events should be heavily biased with the people that do the work being improved, and value stream mapping activities should be heavily biased with the people who oversees the work being improved.
Creating maps but taking no action - having only a current state map without a future state one, or a future state one without actions to achieve it. An exception can be made when trying to build urgency for improvement or achieving clarity and "thought aligment" across a leadership team.
Mapping with the innapropriate team - or no team at all - people doing the mapping need to have the authority to make the necessary changes to achieve the future state, otherwise they will need to spend time selling the idea to those who have such power.
Creating maps with no metrics - metrics are things like time of tasks percent complete and accurate, etc. Maps without metrics can be used if the goal is just to understand a stream, but improvements without metrics are a bad idea.
Where should you begin?
Hopefully the organization already has a clearly defined purpose, consensus around its strategic direction, clearly defined business goals and aligment around a limited number of improved priorities for the near future.
Assuming it doesn't the author recomends a "strategy deployment", see Pascal Dennis's Getting the Right Things Done (2006), Thomas Jackson's Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise (2006), Karen's The Outstanding organization (2012)
With clear goals, value stream mapping helps finding which streams to improve
Using A3 (see Managing to Learn (2008) and Understanding A3 Thinking (2008)) it's a useful tool gain high-level clarity when working across many functions or work teams
Can also be used to improve overall responsives to customers, designing and rolling out new product lines, forming partnerships and joint ventures, integrating acquired operations, before organization redesign.
Where to start depends on the organization maturity and experience with Lean principles and improvements
2 - Setting the stage and enabling success
Phases and timing
Prepare 4 weeks prior to mapping
Understand current state day 1
Design future state day 2
Develop transformation plan day 3
Execute transformation plan following the plan, repeat
This chapter focuses on the preparation phase only
Using 3 consecutive days for mapping process helps people to concentrate one day on each aspect while remaining focused from begining to end, don't break the 3 days
Deliverables at the end of the mapping: a current state value stream map, a future state value stream map and a stream transformation plan
Laying the groundwork
Organizations usually never study how they deliver goods for their customers and when they do they get tangled into minutia
Mapping team needs to understand the basics of value stream mapping and lean principles
Small improvements can have a reduced team, large ones will usually require the whole leadership
Exposing middle managers to value streams will ease the adoption of the necessary changes
Developing a value stream mapping charter
The charter has 4 purposes: planning, communicating, aligning and building consensus
Value stream (type: customer-facing, segment, value-enabling)
Specific conditions - be clear on what stream you will focus
Demand rate - how many requests like this we get per day/week/year? What's the variation? Is it constant, sporadic or cyclical?
Trigger - what starts the value stream?
First step, last step - "fence posts", the team will only worry about what happens between these 2 steps. These steps might be adjusted during the activity, but try to avoid scope creep
Boundaries and limitations - Include decisions and actions the team is not authorized to take
Improvement time frame - the authors recommend short periods, 3 to 6 months
Current state problems and business needs
Avoid rushing through this section
Identify the top 2 or 5 reasons to improve this value stream
Be clear on the business goals
Measurable target condition
Include hard numbers of targets and add % of improvement that it represents
% of improvement clarifies if the change is significant or not
Benefits to customers and to business
List 2 to 5 direct or indirect benefits to customers and the business
Identify hard to measure benefits, like reduced stress or better relationships
Accountable parties
At least 2 need to be identified: sponsor and facilitator
Make sure the identified people have the power to deliver what is expected from them
Executive sponsor - C-level executive that's ultimately accountable for the results
Value stream champion - accountable for the performance of the value stream
Facilitator - teacher, timekeeper, change agent. Should not participate in the value stream change (Alexis like)
Briefing attendees - people that will be touched by the transformation but aren't involved on the mapping for some reason. A good way to share the knowledge while keeping the mapping team small
Logistics
Dates, times, locations, etc
Authors recommend to do it on site instead of off-site so people can learn to focus on key activities while operating in a normal work environment
Briefings help spread the knowledge and get more support and validation of the map, reinforcing the perception need for change
Briefings also help cut short the "sales cycle" of the proposed changes
The logistics part also include preparations for the "walk the stream" part
Mapping team
List mapping participants
Representants from functions that matter for the stream
keep it small, no more than 10 people, the facilitator doesn't count
Big teams hurt participation and effectiveness
Scope things down if team gets too big
People in the team need to have power to accomplish stuff
Focus on senior leaders so they can understand the big picture, after the value stream mapping a process mapping will probably be needed, but that's too low level
On-call support
Help the team but don't participate actively, participate on briefings
Be careful when adding people to this list only because they don't have the time, perhaps they should be on the mapping team
Agreement
Depends on the company culture
Signed agreement if necessary to enforce compliance
Socializing the values stream mapping charter
"We prefer the term socializing to communicating because it indicates that more is needed than merely e-mailing the charter around the company"
Critical to engage 3 groups
affected leadership
the mapping team members
workers in the areas that will be included in the value stream walk
Socializing the charter is a way to make sure everybody involved buys in the goals and needs of the process before it starts
IMPORTANT: Charter formation is an iterative process
Collecting data
Depends on the target
Standard data requests:
Current and forecasted customer demand for the next one or two years
Quality reports that quantify internal or external issues
Make sure data collection doesn't triggers analysis paralysis
Up-front data should not supplant observations from value stream walks
Pre-walks to have a rough idea of the size and shape of the value stream usually helps
When it isn't possible to walk the stream, data about quantity of work in process (WIP) at each process is used
The mapping process can highlight important info on missing data
Chapter 3 - Understanding the current state
Understanding current state is necessary to improve it
Avoids jumping to conclusions based on incomplete facts, assumptions and incorrect information
A socialized current state value stream map promotes consensus building, generates shared understanding across the organization
Generated map is a visual storyboard of how the work is done today
When asking people to describe how work gets done, there are usually 4 different descriptions:
how managers believe it operates
how it's supposed to operate (i.e. written procedures)
how it really operates
how it could operate
The goal of the current value stream map is to depict how it really operates today
Don't map how it operated yesterday or on a specific bizarre day, focus on today's data
If there's a lot of variation on demand the authors recommend doing the mapping on different days
Activity kickoff
Facilitator prepares the base camp
Recommendation: hang 36-inches wide paper on the walls and use 4x6 post-its
Team introductions, including their functions
Recommended: ask about their concerns/expectations about the mapping process. Make sure they are aligned with the charter
Executive sponsor address the team exposing the business drivers for improving the value stream (the why), and his expectations of the process' results
Executive sponsor or value stream champion review the charter, good to bring everybody in focus and make sure people understands the responsibility is the team's, not the facilitator's
The charter shouldn't be debated at this stage
Facilitator assumes and goes over the agenda and rules of engagement
If needed, facilitator offers a brief overview of lean thinking, PDSA and value stream basics
Sample rules of engagement
Activity begins and ends on time
No interruptions
All wirelless devices off or silent, no vibration
Laptops closed
No e-mail, IMs, etc
Rank has no privilege
Finger point and blaming have no place
Seek the wisdom of ten versus the knowledge of one
Use creativity over captial, mind over money
Think externally. Elimitate siloed and "us versus them" thinking
No silent objectors
Respectful disagreement is encouraged, it's not acceptable to be disagreeable
What's discussed in the room stays in the room until appropriate messaging has been defined
Eliminate "can't" and "no, because.." of the vocabulary, replace with a "yes, if..." mindset
Eliminate "this is the way we've always done it" thinking
Ask "why?", "why not?" and "what if?"
One conversation at a time, avoid talking over each other
Be bold
Value stream walks
Gemba walk
Going to were the work is done instead of asking workers to come to a conference room to explain how they work is less threatening and more effective
Walkers experience the environment where the work is done, providing extra info
Walkers experience the separation and hand-offs across the process
Walkers can overcome "innatentional blindness" suffered by workers, detecting things they got used to
The workers that will be visited need to be prepared in advance, making sure they understand that the walkers want to understand their work, not judge them, they must not be afraid
Walking the gemba forces the leadership to see how the work is done instead of trying to figure out what happens from their offices
Remote work can be brought to the mapping session via teleconference
Try to walk the physical space as much as possible
A second walk on the same day allows for deeper learning
Optional: Walking the stream in reverse order has some advantages
Provides different insights and force people to concentrate
Help focus on the recipients of work back to the supplier
Easier to spot pull opportunities in the process
Mapping team walks the stream together
Documenting the current state
First walk
Figure out how to map the value stream in terms of process blocks
Focus on the macro aspects, not details of each process
Understand the order, the inputs, where work comes from, hand-offs and work stops
Metrics will come later
Recommended: assing a scribe and a separate timekeeper
Discourage discussions around "new ideas" that pop up, add them to an idea list and move on
Mind the tone and language used during the walk
Return to the base camp, compare notes and reach consensus about the process blocks and their sequence
Map layout
Use post-its to map basic blocks, with info such as: what is done, who does it, in what order
Put customer post-it on top center
If stream has customer and suppliers, customer on top right, supplier on top left
Finding balance between too macro vs too micro level blocks takes practice
Recommendation: target to have 5 to 15 blocks. Too little and you aren't going deep enough, too many and your scope is probably to big
Usually a new block is needed when work is stoped, there's a hand-off, when it accumulates or it's processed at a pre-determined interval
Once blocks are defined, write a short description using a verb+noun format and the functions (departments) that execute it
No swim lanes, no decision trees, this isn't a flow chart or sequence diagram
The value stream map should represent the work as it happens 80% of the time, remember Paretto
If there are significant branching in the process without going into very intricate changes, adopt them. If the changes are too big they might require a separate mapping
Stack cards for parallel processes
Once the cards are in place and the order is agreed upon, number them sequentially
Second walk
Gain deeper understanding of the stream
The team need to understand things like the speed of the process, the hand-offs, the quality of the work, etc
There 3 metrics that usually work for these process in office/knowledge work environments: process time (PT), lead time (LT) and percent complete and accurate (%C&A)
Process time
The time it takes for people to complete a process that transform an input into an output for one unit of work. Usually expressed in minutes or hours
AKA: processing time, touch time, work time and task time
Can include "talk time" (eg meetings) and "read and think time"
If equipment is used in a process it's time should be recorded separatedly
It doesn't include wait, time in the queue or delays, it's time it would take to do the work if the process workers could work on one item uninterrupted
If process time varies widely even within a narrow set of conditions, record the median time instead of the mean
Opt for accuracy over precision, no need for detailed time studies. Details might be needed for tactical improvements, not for strategic ones
Process time reflect human effort, consisting of both value-adding and non-value-adding effort
There are two types of non-value-adding work: necessary and unnecessary
Necessary non-value-adding work: organization believes it needs to presently do it, sometimes refered to as value-enabling
Unnecessary non-value-adding work: waste
One of the goals of value stream mapping is to eliminate unnecessary non-value-adding work (waste) and minimize necessary non-value-adding work (value-enabling)
Lean literature has more detailed definitions for various non-value-adding work
Each process block might contain all 3 types of work, it might be useful to spend time labeling them
Lead time
"The elapsed time from the moment work is made available to an individual, work team or department until it has been completed and made available to the next perso or team on the value stream"
AKA: throuhput time, response time, turnaround time
Often expressed in hours, days or even weeks or months
When there's a lead time SLA between process blocks, record the actual lead time, not the SLA
When considering the lead time, take into account the number of work hours in a day/week/month
For 24-hour operations using minutes/hours is usually fine
Percent complete and accurate
Reflects the quality of each process output. Obtained by asking the downstream team what percentage of time the input they receive is "usable as is" versus the time they need to ask for clarification, missing information, etc
This metric is put into the upstream process card, not the downstream one. This reinforces the need to fix the problem at it's source, not with work arounds downstream
Depends on a blame-free environment
Barriers to flow - any action or condition that inhibts the uninterrupted progression of work (high lead time doesn't count)
Batching
System downtime or suboptimal performance
Shared resources or inaccessible staff
Switch-tasking/interruptions
Prioritization rules
Additional information
Don't let the mapping become an exercise in data collection or succumb to analysis paralysis
Work-in-progress (WIP)
In-box, in-process, out-box
Note the oldest in-box
Number of people
How many people are working in a process block? Useful for staffing decisions
In some cases it's useful to note how many are trained/capable
Number of hours worked
Useful to know if people are working extra-time
Note shifts
Process effectiveness
% of how many inputs become downstream work
Work volume or demand rate at each process
Work trigger
How do people know that they have work? Useful to identify lead time issues
Other
Dependent on the context
Map details
Update the post-its
Make sure the metrics have their units
Adjust the %C&A based on the amount of rework reported downstream
Add an in-box for WIP on the left of the process
Mapping information flow
Highlight systems and apps that hold data and drive decisions relevant to the stream
These systems are added around the process blocks and arrows indicate the direction of the information flow
Map summary
"Create a timeline that demonstrates the degree of flow present, the speed at which the organization deliver goods or services to customers, and the amount of work effort involved across the value stream"
Mind the metrics units used. 24 hours of process time in a 8-hour/day environment means 3 work days
In parallel process bring down only the longest lead time
Calculating summary metrics
Total Lead Time = sum lead times
Total Process Time = sum process times
Activity Ratio (AR) = (TPT/TLT)*100 indicates the degree of flow of a value stream
Activity Ratios of 2% to 5% aren't uncommon, they indicate that the system is idle between 98% to 95% of the time for that value stream
Rolled %C&A - (P1%C&A x P2%C&A x PN%C&A)*100 reflects the compounded effects of quality output across the value stream
Indicates how often there's the need for rework in the stream
Total Labor Process Time = sum of all PT in the system, including parallel processes
Total Labor Effort = ((Total Labor Process Time * #Occurences per year)/#avaialble work hours per year) -> #FTE (number of Full Time Equivalents)
Useful to know how many #FTEs the organization needs to fullfil the demands with the current value stream
This metric is useful when considering changed states, how many FTEs would be necessary to fullfil new demand or how much work needs to be reduced to improve fullfilment without adding people
Prepare a table with the summary metrics
Add other important metrics for the company, like revenue, costs, etc
Gaining a deep and collective understanding
Value stream mapping is a discovery activity
Don't be limited to the value stream walk to get information. Surveys, interviews, etc might be useful
Common process findings
Loopbacks
Unnecessary handoffs
Rework due to errors and lack of clarity
Batching
Functions missing or getting involved too early or too late in the process
Redundant activities
High variation in how work is performed
No documented standard owrk
Excessive inspection (review, approval, audits)
Overspecialization of staff
Existing technology not fully leveraged
Underutilization of skills
Compliance overkill
Delays due to juggling multiple responsibilities
Push and overburden
Chapter 4 - Designing the future state
Overview
Determining the "right work"
You should know if the basic product is right or not
Eliminating waste is the exercise of future design
Waste can be eliminated by adding or removing work/steps in the process
Don't remove steps just because you want to remove stuff from the flow
The goal is to optmize the whole stream, sometimes adding work improves the overall stream even if it adds local work
Removing process and process steps
Usual suspects are unecesary work and value-enablig steps
Remove the need for the work, not just the step
Reducing handoffs usually pays off pretty fast
Remember to adage "Creativity before capital" when removing stuff
Remove steps on the macro level, not on the micro level. Workers will figure out what to do on their own PDSA cycles
Freed capacity should be used in a constructive way, not with layoffs
If you need to layoff excess personel, do it before the mapping to avoid causation relations that will make future mapping and improvement process much less popular
Adding process and process steps
Sometimes adding work will save time or improve quality for the whole system
Limited time steps can be useful, like adding a temporary inspection step to fix quality issues, but once the root causes are found and fixed the step can be removed
Be careful about adding stuff to the bottleneck
Making work flow
Ideally a "work item" never stops on the flow, so ask yourself "what's blocking this item's move?"
Sometimes the issue can be seem at a macro level, but sometimes it's hidden on the micro details
Priority list: minimize lead time, minimize process time
Countermeasures are changes that will improve the flow. They aren't called "solutions" because that would be too bold, they are just hypotheses that need to be evaluated by their results. If a countermeasure doesn't work, change the plan
Managing the work
How will you determine if the value stream is perfoming as intended?
Every value stream should have to 2 to 5 KPIs
Some process into the value stream should have their own KPIs
who will monitor and manage the value stream performance?
The value stream manager should be accountable for the KPIs and their improvement
Future state design kickoff
Review the charter
Remind everybody about the scope and goals
Review the current state map
Introduce relevant countermeasures
Do not try complex countermeasures before fixing the basics, like having KPIs, clear and visual metrics, etc
A single mapping cycle won't be sufficient to fix every problem, it's an iterative process
Creating the future state value stream map
Hang a new blank sheet by the current state, make it 30% smaller
Get post-its and start adding the future state process steps
Starting at the begining or at the end is up to the group
Design questions
General questions
What are the business issues (service quality, product quality, speed, capacity, cost, morale, copmetitive landscape, impending regulations, etc) we wish to address?
What does the customer want?
What measureable target conditions are we aiming for?
Which process blocks add value or are value-enabling?
How can we reduce delays between processes?
How can we improve the quality of incoming work at each process?
How can we reduce work effort and other expenses across the value stream?
How can we create a more effective value stream (greater value to customers, better supplier relationships, higher sales convertion rates, better estimates-to-actuals, lower legal and compliance risks, etc)?
How will we monitor value stream performance?
Specific questions
Touch points
Are there redundant or unnecessary processes that can be elimitated (eg: excessive approvals)?
Are there redundant or annecessary handoffs that can be eliminated or combined (eg work that can be done by a single department)?
Are there processes or handoffs that need to be added?
Delays
Is work being processed frequently enough? Can we reduce batch sizes or elminate batching completely?
Do we have adequate coverage and available resources to acommodate existing and expected future workloads?
How can we create more capacity or reduce the load at the bottleneck?
Sequencing and pacing
Is the work sequenced and synchronized properly? Are processes being performed too early or too late in the value stream?
Are key stakeholders being engaged at the proper time?
Can processes be performed concurrently (in parallel?
Would staggered starts improve flow?
How can we balance the workload to achieve greater flow (via combining or diving processes)?
Do we need to consider segmenting the work by work type to achieve greater flow (with rotating but designated resources for defined periods of time)?
Variation management
Is there internally produced variation (eg end-of-quarter sales incentives)?
How can we level incoming workloads along the value stream to reduce variation and achieve greater flow?
Can we reduce variation in customer or internal requirements? How can necessary variation be addressed most effectively?
Are there common prioiritization rules in place throughout the value stream?
Technology
Is redudant or unnecesary technology involved?
Is the available technology fully utilized?
Are the systems interconnedted to optimize data movement?
Quality
How can higher-quality input be received by each process in the value stream (to improve the %C&A metric)?
Is there an opportunity to standardize error proof work?
Labor effort
How can we eliminate unnecessary non-value-adding work?
How can we reduce labor effort in value-enabling work?
How can we optimize value-adding work?
Value stream management
Do policies need to be changed to enable improved performance?
Are there organization/departamental/reporting structures that can be changed to reduce conflicting goals or align resources?
Do existing performance metrics (if any) encourage desired behaviours and discourage dysfunctional ones?
What KPIs will we use to monitor the value stream performance?
Who will monitor de KPIs? How frequently? Who else will results be communicated to?
What visual systems can be created to aid in managing and monitoring the value stream?
Are the key processes within the value stream clearly defined with their own KPIs, standardized properly and measured and improved regularly?
Info to answer these questions can come from the charter
Use your brainstorming technique of choice
Recommend using the PACE (priority, action, consider, eliminate) graph to help prioritize the countermeasures
Laying out the future state value stream map
Walk the gemba if needed
Add post its to the blank page
Create a timeline for the changes
Create the summary of expected changes
Changes are identified on the diagram as "kaizen bursts"
Kaizen bursts describe "what" needs to be done, not "how"
Figuring out "How" is the job of the people executing the processes
Kaizen bursts are hypothesis, not solutions, so they need to be checked against reality to validate them
The facilitator needs to be able to incentivize people to be creative and bold
Chapter 5 - Developing the transformation plan
The value stream transformation plan is a living document that needs to be updated as the countermeasures are executed
It provides a clear view of the goals and their execution status
Elements of the transformation plan
Value stream name, accountable parties and date created
Scheduled review dates
Set them on a regular basis, lead by the value stream manager
Future state value stream map block numbers
Each action should be clearly mapped back to the value stream
Measurable target
The KPI the countermeasure will affect
Be as specific as possible
Proposed countermeasure
The kaizen burst/countermeasure, remembering to focus on "what" and not "how"
Execution method
Just-do-its (JDI)
Quick one day countermeasures that are easy to implement and assess their efficacity
Kaizen events (KE)
2 to 5 day efforts, require more planning and scoping
Projects (PROJ)
Longer term projects involving bigger changes and touching more people
Owner
Each countermeasure needs a clear and accountable owner
Planned timeline for executions
Visual tool to assess execution, like one box for each week in the timeline of the transformation plan
Status
Updated at every review meeting
Agreement
Sign the thing with blood at the end
Final Briefing
Share the plan with support staff and those that will be affected by it
Don't send it by e-mail, present and explain it
Managing the transformation plan
The value stream champion or executive sponsor should be the owner of the whole thing
Chapter 6 - Achieving transformation
Up to the reader
Here are some tips
Socializing the maps and transformation plans
Explain it to the people
Grand rounds: get everybody involved in a countermeasure in room and explain it
Do not replace briefing during the mapping
Executing improvements
Just follow the plan
Consider if the countermeasure results are in line with expectations
If they aren't, change the plan
Avoiding changing the plan unless you have a clear indication that it isn't working as expected
Transformation plan reviews
Review it on regular basis, presented by the countermeasure owners
Common topics to discuss during reviews
Line-item-specific questions
Which countermeasures have been attempted? What's the progress?
Did any countermeasures need to be adjusted or eliminated? If so, why and who participated on that decision?
Have new countermeasures been identified or adopted? If so, what drove the adoption, who was involved, and what's the status?
Have any new conditions surfaced that warrant an adjustment in the transformation plan? (make sure "new conditions" are legitimate and not a habitual lack of focus and shifiting priorities)
how do the metrics look? Were the measurable target conditions achieved? If not, why not? Can further adjustment be made?
If the plan has gotten off schedule, what needs to happen to get back on schedule?
Do the improvements need to be resequenced or start times adjusted?
Have uninteded consequences surfaced? If so, how are they being addressed?
Cultural and leadership questions
Are the line item owner taking (or being given) enough time to focus on the transformation element they are responsible for?
Are those involved with the execution encountering resistance from others? If so, have they been able to address it effectively (through learning and consensus building versus "this is the way it's going to be")?
Are the resrouces that are required to put the coutnermeasures in effect available (eg financial, technical, subject matter expertise, and leadership)?
What additional support is needed from leadership to work through any engagement and resistance issues? (Consider the need to change policies, reprioritize resources, improve communication within or across silos, etc)
Keep in mind that the objective of these reviews is to update progress and surface obstacles, not fix them
Sustaining improvements
Plan properly
Have really accountable and emporwered owners
Continuous improvement
Implementation/tactical improvements are key, they need to happen
Recommended to do value stream mapping at least once a year
The original book about Lean in the western world, written in 1990 it provides an interesting peek into the past, the "japanese industrial invasion" and the world before the height of globalization, all through the lenses of car manufacturing. However, it's pretty outdated, which reduces it impact and direct applicability.
Opinion
Lean was born on the japanese auto industry and it spread the world. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with factories, so my interests lie on the use of Lean ideas to software development, where it has a lot of followers and I'm trying to have a better understanding of its basics.
The book describes the results of a 5-year research program during the 80's where they visited 90 factories around the world, comparing the performance of traditional mass production factories vs lean ones. The result is that lean manufacturers usually had better productivity, better quality, lower inventories and capital requirements, etc, the difference in the results was mostly explained by how "truly lean" a factory was, not everybody that called themselves lean or even where based in Japan, had good results.
One important thing I realized is that they split Lean in many parts (manufacturing, product design, supply chain, customer relations, management) and the one that is probably most applicable for software development is the part about product design, which is pretty close to the ideas around agile development. I'm sure I can find more insights by researching this specific aspect of Lean. The management part, however, was the least sophisticated, which is expected, since they were at the beginning of the process.
Some cool things the books mentions, but are mostly trivia:
Since then they were considering the impacts of electric and self-driving cars
No mention whatsoever to the Internet or the unification of communication, looks like it came as a surprise
They missed the Asian Tiger phase, the fall of Communism, rampant globalization, NAFTA, EURO zone, the Japanese crisis, etc. It seems they were pretty optimistic
The NUMMI factory closing wasn't in the cards back then, now resurrected by Tesla
The authors never hint the possibility of expanding the use of Lean beyond manufacturing, but perhaps they assumed this was obvious
They mention China twice in the book.
Much of the book predictions were dependent on macroeconomic trends and the regulatory situation of the time, I wonder if they would have changed their predictions or recommendations if they knew about the changes in world economics since that time. I guess they would. Also, they expected that Lean manufacturing would replace mass production by the end of the 20th century, I'm not sure how far we are from that on this day.
The productivity benefits of Lean are "obvious" but what should society do with workers that get displaced by the increased productivity and job cuts that these lean transformations entail? They have no suggestions beyond "the government needs to figure it out", which is pretty scary.
All in all, it's a very good historical perspective of manufacturing since Ford and cool insights into the original perspective on lean.
Summary / Notes
Lean manufacturing
"It transfers the maximum number of tasks and responsibilities to those workers actually adding value to the car on the line, and it has in place a system for detecting defects that quickly traces every problem, once discovered, to it's ultimate cause."
Employees divided into small groups
Every member of the group is trained to perform all the tasks
Quality isn't guaranteed at the end of the line, but instead it's built in on every step
Employees have the authority to stop the line to correct problems as they are detected
Problems aren't just fixed, instead the root causes are identified through the "5 whys" method and the fixes are applied to the source, avoiding their recurrence
Rewards are focused on group and system performance instead of individual performance
Employees are not super specialized, instead they are generalists trained to solve problems
They have time to study and work on improvements to the process on regular intervals, Kaizen
Waste elimination is critical, be it inefficient processes or too much inventory
Inventory minimization is a constant effort, to reduce the amount of capital needed to make goods. Just-in-time is a part of it
There are concerns that Lean work is even less fulfilling then regular mass production work, given the pressure for constant improvement and reduction of waste, generating a lot of stress. The counter-point is that they are empowered to control their work and environment
Lean product development
Lean products aren't developed in white rooms by engineers isolated from the rest of the company and the consumers, fighting for support from departments across the company. Instead they are developed by multidisciplinary teams lead by an empowered leader, the shusa, who has the mandate to design the product and all the necessary process changes and tools to guarantee its success, and they have access to a lot of data from consumers, partners and factory workers.
The shusa has authority to do whatever it takes to make the project move, including poaching and overriding other departments
The designers are assembled from talent across the company for the project and then disassembled
Designers' performance is evaluated by the shusa and they have more impact on their careers than their normal managers
The high risk decisions of the project are tackled at the beginning of the project, not at its end, similar to the problem solving on the factory floor
Design is done together with suppliers, tool manufacturers and factory workers, instead of working in isolation and fixing integration problems after the project is done
Lean design projects tend to have a shorter cycle and stabilization times
Lean supply chain
Lean supply chains are a cooperative process with suppliers, where the company has full knowledge of the numbers and capacity of the suppliers and vice-versa, the goal is to optimize the benefits and profits for both parties. Quite different from mass production supply chains, where the company and the suppliers are at odds all the time, hiding information and trying to maximize their profits disregarding the common benefits
Lean suppliers are long term partnerships
Suppliers are active participants on product and production design. Proprietary information is often shared.
Price isn't the only guideline for choosing a partner, quality and overall relationship is more important
Suppliers are expected to start with a high price and lower it as they get more volume, expertise and improve their own process
It's common for company executives to work as "attachés" at the supplier. Equity exchanges are also common
Just-in-time inventory is used to reduce capital costs and space requirements on both sides. This require good integration between company and suppliers
The company usually has a tiered supply chain, they have few suppliers of big components (like chassis, drive train, etc) that in turn have their own supply chain of smaller components. This reduces the amount of direct relationships each company has to manage
Lean customer feedback
Lean companies try to maximize the life time value of customers (they didn't use this specific term, but that's what they meant). To do that they try to create a strong connection between brand and consumer, spending more time and effort building relationships
Dealerships are owned or partly-owned by the company, instead of having multibrand dealers
In the 80's the sales was door-to-door, with the salesperson creating a strong connection with the consumers. In the 90's this moved to a showroom model, but the importance on the relationship remained
On dealerships the salespeople were organized in teams of non-specialists, just like in the factories. Performance bonuses were dependent on the group performance, not individual.
To improve the relationship, the salespeople gathered a lot of data about customers, like the modern CRM systems, and interacted with them not in random intervals, but in moments where the customers might need their products
Lean enterprise management
A lot of the financial power of the Japanese Lean manufactures came from their keiretsu structure, at least from the authors perspective. In a keiretsu money comes from affiliated banks and companies that have equity interests in each other
Careers in Japanese companies are based not on skill but on seniority. Moving between companies means starting from scratch, which enforces the "job for life" employment. The lack of this kind of stability on Western companies have impacts on their ability to actually implement Lean.
Lean is ideal for companies that can produce their goods near their consumer markets, reinforcing supply chain benefits and just-in-time production based on customer demand, for this reason the authors suggest that companies should open independent but connect subsidiaries on their target markets, with constant executive exchange programs to reinforce culture and share lean knowledge.
Interesting look into the role of the Mongol Empire in the world. As the author puts it, they didn't force their culture on others or invented new technologies themselves, but created the communication channels and commerce routes that would spread the knowledge throughout the world. It's a bit long and the rhythm is a bit boring, but the content is worth it.
Opinion
I loved to read about history at school, this is the kind of book that provides a similar experience while going beyond the "official version". The first 6 chapters cover the life of Genghis Khan, a couple more describe his direct descendants up to Kublai Khan and the final 2 chapters focus on the fall of the Mongol Empire and how its role in history was erased by those that came after it.
It's sad to see that a lot of the prejudices that were created after its fall marked the perception of the Mongols as a "barbaric people", while in reality they had an important role in creating the modern world. It's funny that they didn't do it by conquering and forcing their customs, religions or language upon the fallen, but by letting them live "freely" as long as they paid the proper tributes and helped the rest of the empire.
Their achievement was to connect disparate cultures and ideas across the globe, bringing chinese technology to the middle east and vice-versa, using trade and military conquest as a vehicle. Genghis Khan had a relatively small but crucial role in the process, a lot of the advancements happened after his death, but he's responsible for setting the foundations of the empire, a common law and values, including revolutionary things as religious freedom, that allowed this knowledge transfer in few centuries.
Genghis Khan and his descendants weren't saints or pacifists, on the contrary, they killed and conquered people by force, but it's funny that, according to the author's research, they weren't as cruel or "barbaric" as the propaganda of the "civilized" nations painted them, in fact, torture and even spilling the blood on earth was a taboo for them, much better than the "civilized" catholic church, for example.
As any conqueror, they have their share of criticism, but I'm happy to see that they weren't all bad, in fact they seem to be better than their successors in many aspects. Hopefully we'll learn more about them and other marginalized cultures in the future, and we, as a civilization, will avoid making the same mistakes, but that's very unlikely, one just need to watch the evening news to see that we're still barbarians.
Notes on the Audible version
Jonathan Davis' narration is pretty good, he has a nice voice and knows how to pronounce stuff in other languages. My only complaint is that it's too slow, so I sped up from 1.25x to 1.5x and it was perfect for my taste.
Generic spy novel, replacing the cold war with the "war on terror". Mostly flat characters, the deeper ones are inflated all-american-above-moral-qualms-die-hard things. Well researched, competent if not interesting writing. To his credit he tried to show the arguments for both sides, but it feels flat anyway.
Opinion
BEWARE OF SPOILERS. I WARNED YOU.
Spy novels are a guilty pleasure of mine, I read them for the thrill knowing full well they are mostly right wing propaganda disguised as entertainment. When they have an interesting character, an elaborate plot or a cool environment, like Forsyth's Day of the Jackal, it's a very good pastime, but I cannot many points on any of those aspects for Berenson's novel.
The characters are flat, the hero is a delta-force like super soldier that gives his life and morals to be a tool for the CIA. Can you think of bigger cliché? The villains aren't much better, he tries to explain their thought process to justify terrorism, just like he tries to justify the bureaucrats actions. In the end you need to choose between christian torturers or muslin suicide bombers.
The plot is elaborate and even logical, assuming killing people willy nilly can somehow be logical, but he doesn't manage to unveil it in a way that creates enough impact, it's always too obvious. Even the completely unfaithful Richard Gere's movie adaptation of Day of the Jackal had better twists and surprises.
Lastly, the environment is just dull, but that might not be his fault, perhaps the world as it is today is grey, shallow and dirty, and he did a good job reflecting it on his work, or he just couldn't make his depictions interesting enough to make it attractive. People might have thought the same about Forsyth's novel in the 70s.
In the end we get a flat spy novel, perhaps we deserve it, this is the world resulting from endless stupid wars, faceless bureaucrats, people corrupted by power. I want to believe the author wanted to showcase these issues, to make people think about them, but he didn't manage to make it in a convincing way, I felt he tried to be neutral, and he managed it, perhaps too well.
Notes on the Audible version
The narration by Robertson Dean is ok, no more. His best voice is the main character's, a Jack Bauer imitation, everything else is just flat.
An interesting perspective on getting old, death, love and what people really think underneath the masks they use to operate in society. Highly recommended
Opinion
I didn't have any expectations when I got the book, I got it on the daily Audible sale, it was short and the review was a bit interesting, but I've never heard about the author. The book narrates a single day in George's life, a sixty years old English expat that lives in Los Angeles in the 60's and whose partner, Jim, died some time ago. From this plot description the book could go anywhere.
I was positively surprised by a narration that I felt pretty uncommon, moving from a 3rd person to 1st person perspectives in a seamless and dynamic fashion, using modern and direct language. It tackled many subjects, mostly as George's conscience, and it managed to approach mundane subjects like dressing customs down to the meaning of living together in a way that sounded truthful and raw, exposing George's thoughts underneath the persona built to face society.
It made me wonder about how everybody else behaves, made me curious about their inner thoughts, which surely must be often be different or curated in relation to what they expose. Comparing it to MLK's book I read a couple of days ago, I cannot ignore the probable difference. Isherwood's book is fiction, true, but it reveals the inner most, uncensored thinking of the character.
MLK's Stride Toward Freedom is his account of a real life event, but surely it's precisely tailored towards his audience, a way to share the story but also build up his image, even his flaws and doubts chosen to rouse people to action and appreciation towards him and the movement. It doesn't mean that his account or his sentiments are untrue, but is it uncensored thought? I doubt it and I don't blame him, this very text is a curated, organized and "culturally compliant" version of my opinions about the book, why would it be different with other peoples?
It's also an interesting window to life in the 60's, their customs, prejudices and expectations, from a perspective that I don't believe to be common on most books. All in all I'm very pleased to have read it and I'll probably look for other texts by Isherwood.
Notes on the Audible version
The book is read by Simon Prebble, as usual his a competent voice actor, I have other audiobooks narrated by him, but I'm not super fond of his different voices. In any case, if the narration doesn't add a lot to the book, it doesn't reduces its power.
The first book MLK wrote and I believe it's a very good intro to the civil rights movement, segregation and nonviolent resistance. He was a talented writer, I can see why people followed him. Just disregard the religious parts if that's not your thing.
Opinion
I never read anything from MLK, besides watching the "I have a dream" speech many years ago. At the last MLK day Audible offered Stride Toward Freedom on the daily deals and I thought "why not?". If I knew it was so interesting I would have picked it up earlier.
The book is MLK's account of Montgomery's bus boycott, started by Rosa Park's refusal to cede her bus seat to a white man during the segregation after a lifetime of oppression. That "small" incident started the bus boycott by the city's black population that lasted 1 year, until the supreme court affirmed that the bus segregation was unconstitutional.
MLK explains how he got involved in the movement and ended up as its spokesperson, he explains the segregation background, how it affected the life of black people in the city and the country, mentions several other cases of abuse, the tactics of the boycott, the legal challenges that came from it and the push back from white people.
His text is clear and direct, being elegant without unnecessary flourishes, reading it I can see why people would follow such man, he was a very persuasive orator. As an agnostic I disregard his religious experiences and disagree with the reasons of his his christian morals, but not with his values, he comes through as someone really looking to fight "evil" in the world and love humanity, blacks and whites alike, and that's good enough for me.
The best part of the book, at least for me, is chapter 6, where he explains his intellectual path towards nonviolent resistance, citing the philosophers and doctrines he used to build his arguments, pointing the things he agreed upon and the things he didn't, never accepting everything as is, including his rejection of communism. His thought process is fascinating, his arguments very persuasive, his rhetoric mesmerizing, this chapter alone makes the book worthwhile.
Throughout the book one thing that impressed me was the fact that he wasn't sure of himself or completely fearless all the time, in fact he doubted his role and effectiveness for most of the boycott, questioned his actions and beliefs and almost broke down several times. I'm hoping he didn't write this for "impact", I choose to believe that he was trying to be candid, and for that I can admire him.
Lastly, I appreciate the fact that he wasn't looking for a solution only from heavens or from the federal government, he preached that the "negros" (his words) should take action in their own hands, actively resisting the injustices they suffered without violence. He did believe that society's institutions could and should have had an active role in the process, but they didn't because people in those institutions were taught that "segregation was the right way". To fight this he proposed to attack with two weapons: education and legislation.
Education would teach people why segregation was wrong, fighting the internal barriers for an harmonious live between black and white, showing them how the situation was morally unjustifiable. Legislation would control the external expression of segregation, curbing violent action and offering lawful ways to address the injustices.
I believe I learned a lot with this small book, I was unable to close it until I've finished. It doesn't matter that I disagree with his faith, that's a small issue, the core of his fight, that everybody should be treated fairly, no matter the colour of their skin, is the really important thing, and his method to achieve that, nonviolent resistance, is something I admire, even if I have my doubts about its effectiveness and if I would be able to follow it if I suffered the same kind of injustice.
Notes about the Audible version
It was read by JD Jackson and I really liked his work, he crafted a nice accent for MLK and added flavourful southern accents when needed. I speed it up to 1.5x because the regular pace is a bit too preachy for my taste, but that's a personal preference.
The first trilogy ends with a bang, I'm amazed of how interconnected all 3 novels are. The resolution was a bit over the top but it didn't spoil the whole. Read the whole trilogy, don't try to start in the middle of it.
Opinion
POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT: I'm not going into plot details, but I'm going to discuss some of the themes in the trilogy, beware. I recommend reading it AFTER you read the novels.
I'm happy to have found Mistborn, the whole trilogy is an engaging and well planned story, in fact I'm amazed with how interconnect the 3 books are, The Hero of Ages ties up a lot of the loose ends and make seemingly small details become crucial in a very clever way. This was the first time we've got to see more of the empire and it was fun, but, again, the action is there to support the psychological conflicts not the other way around, and I don't think this is a bad thing.
Now that I've finish the trilogy I can see some of its overarching themes and "things I didn't like". Growing up, becoming a "realistic person", trying to understand what is love, figuring out what's good and evil and how to apply this in real life, judging if power corrupts or helps, choosing between democracy and tyranny, the good of the community vs the individuals, having faith or not, believing in destiny or not, finding your worth while accepting your shortcomings, fighting for stability vs coping with change.
So many big themes packed in that I must compliment Sanderson, this is no easy task. We can see that each character have specific themes overtime and they are not at ease with their lot, they are trying to figure out how to deal with their dilemmas while the war rages on. Many of the plot twists are part of this process and they make much more sense at the end.
That said, I do have a lot of problems with his cosmogony, which is the linchpin of the whole trilogy. I do realized this isn't a philosophy book but a fantasy novel, so I'm willing to be open minded and embrace his theories, but by explaining too much he opens the door to paradoxes and shortcomings which wouldn't be raised otherwise.
One of my minor quibbles with his style, or editor, is the constant repetition of previous events, I do understand that he needs some repetition to force readers to pay attention on some stuff or help them make connections, but it's frustrating nonetheless. Thankfully it's less annoying than in the second book.
I did like the book and the trilogy, I was happy to see how interconnected everything was, I cannot imagine how much work he put into planning and organizing a project with so many details, and while the resolution made sense in this context, it left me feeling a bit tricked, it wasn't truly satisfactory.
I won't jump into the next trilogy yet, I need time to recuperate and savor the aftermath, but I'll surely binge on it pretty soon.
Notes on the Audible version
Again, Michael Kramer does a very good job narrating this audiobook, you can find more opinions on his work on my review of The Final Empire.
Good follow up to The Final Empire, Sanderson manages to deliver an interesting story and explore the characters, going deeper on the ones he introduced in the first book without introducing too many new players. I do have some some complaints, but if you liked the first you will like the second too.
Opinion
1st: Don't start to read Mistborn unless you're ok with binge reading.
2nd: I won't spoil the plot
I was worried that Sanderson overplayed his hand on the first book, I was wrong, apparently he spend a good deal of time planning the first trilogy, the first one manages to provide a solid introduction to the world and lure the reader to want more and more, while delivering an exciting narrative.
The second book picks up right after the end of the first. He expands his analysis of the characters he introduced on the first novel, upgrading some of them and giving them more "screen time", exploring their psychological weaknesses and contradictions in an interesting way. He introduces new characters too, spicing the mix a bit without overwhelming the reader. The new characters are interesting and memorable, they aren't there just to add volume.
The main plot is logical, his depictions interesting but he focus much more on the psychological aspects than the action, which isn't bad, in fact it makes the action scenes more interesting. This book focuses on the moral dilemmas and "growing up issues" that he started to talk about before, downplaying world building a bit.
I do have some complaints, but they shouldn't discourage you from reading the book. For one, I find the books a bit long, they are packed with goodies but its length seems to encourage the author to over extend some plots. Another issue, likely connected to the previous, is that it has too many conflicts, it gets a bit exhausting after a while, and it forces the book to have a series of minor climaxes before it reaches the grand finale. Also, some of the twists seemed a bit deus ex machina, even if he tried to set them up before hand.
Another annoyance was the "let me explain the basic of magic and things that happen on the previous books for those starting here", which slows down the narrative and makes binge readers like me want to scream. I would understand this on a 2nd trilogy, but not on the first. Anyway, minor complaint.
I have some issues with his take on political organizations and people's exploitation, but since this is a fantasy novel I cannot complain too much. I'm curious to see how he will wrap things up at the end of the trilogy while leaving enough threads for the 2nd trilogy.
Notes on the Audible version
Again, Michael Kramer does a very good job narrating this audiobook, you can find more opinions on his work on my review of The Final Empire.
If you like fantasy adventures and complicated plots, Mistborn is must read. Characters are interesting and likeable, especially Vin, the main female character, the world building and rhythm are pretty good. I highly recommend it.
Opinion
I like fantasy novels, but I'm not fond of Tolkien like narratives, they have very good ideas and interesting worlds but, more often than not, feel too over the top and have a sluggish pace. Mistborn isn't short, but it has a very good rhythm, you never feel stuck, there's always a new twist or plot just beyond the next corner, and the characters are built in such a way that you always want to know more about them, most of them having very distinct traits and styles that make them likeable.
The magic in the Mistborn world is super cool, it can be flashy or subtle, adding a nice flavor to the action and, while it's central to the plot, it doesn't spoil it, the actions the characters take are more important than their powers in isolation.
I do feel the author tackled a big challenge on the first book, so I'm curious to see what he has in store for the rest of the series, which so far has 6 books in total, I hope he can keep the quality during the whole series.
It reminded me a lot of the Locke Lamora series, not because the worlds or the writing styles are similar, they are very different, but there are similarities in part of the plot: main characters on both cases are thieves, there's a "heist movie" vibe to them and they sound and feel like "modern fantasy". Locke Lamora's dialogs are better, funnier, but Mistborn plot is more tight, it's finale is delivered with a good timing, not in a hurry like Lamora's. I recommend you read both series in any case.
Audible version
I got the Audible version and I highly recommend it, the narrator, Michael Kramer, does a very good job creating distinctive voices for each of the characters and imparting them with believable sentiments and intonations, he's the kind of narrator that adds flavor to the book.
He also narrated Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I didn't like his narration at the time, looks like he improved a lot in the mean time. Just to be clear, I usually listen to my books in 1.25x speed, this usually improves the flow of any book, but it cannot fix narrators that don't know how to create distinct voices.
An interesting depiction of the Terror after the French Revolution, beyond the clean up accounts we see most of the time. If you like Dickens social commentary it's worth reading, but I didn't like it until the last quarter of the book.
Opinion
I have a love and hate relationship with Dickens' books, I read a few and so far I cannot say I like his style, but I do appreciate his social commentary, and that's why I kept reading A Tale of Two Cities even when I wanted to stop. The first 3 quarters of the book are necessary but not enjoyable, the last quarter saves it, I'm happy I finished it.
The characters are ok, but few are really remarkable. I liked Mr Lorry and the final hero (which I'm not going to spoil) was telegraphed but it still surprised me a little. Madame Defarge is the incarnation of the spirit of the Terror in a mostly subtle way, very nicely done.
All in all, if you can power through the dull and melodramatic parts I do believe you'll be recompensed by a very touching narrative about one of the periods which we should not forget for future generations, something that we'll obviously not do, just read the news.
Notes on the Audible version
I listened to the Tantor audiobook version on Audible, they usually have pretty good versions and I particularly liked Simon Vance's narration, he's one of the best.
More interesting from a business theory history perspective than for the techniques. It has some valuable insights, but I question how applicable it is nowadays, at least on information based industries, perhaps it's 100% precise for traditional industries
Opinion
I bumped into this book by accident on the library, attracted by the word "strategy" on the title. Written in 1992 it smells like Glengarry Glen Ross, always be closing and such. He uses manufacturing examples and a lot of references to the might of the Japanese industry, which is kind of funny in retrospective, but he does have some good points.
The things I think don't fit that well:
Probably due to the time it was written there's no concern about system improvement, instead it focus on localized incentives and optimization
The book assumes it's never on the players best interest to share info, cooperation is based on the "old boys" network
All examples fit better commodities and physical goods, I'm not sure services would fit so well
The author acknowledge that focusing only on money incentives might generate "perverse" side effects (lower quality, gaming the system metrics, etc), but he just gloss over the subject
The best recommendation from the book can be lifted straight from it's last chapter, where he lists questions that you should ask yourself when considering a market strategy:
Who are the players?
What options are open to the players?
Understanding their sources of bargaining power is key
What goals are the players pursuing?
What are the sources of gains from trade?
Can any of the players effectively make commitments?
What is the time structure of the game?
What is the information structure of the game?
Chapter Notes (I wish Goodreads supported GitHub's markdown)
Playing games as games
Use standard game theory formulas as methaphors to analyse business transactions
The prisioners' dilemma
Two thieves are caught and are interrogated in separate rooms. Both are offered the same deal:
If both confess they will serve 8 years each
If one confess while the other keeps quiet, he will go free and the other will server 15 years
Both can have serve a 1 year sentence if none of them confess
They are isolated and cannot agree on a common plan
There isn't a single optimal response
People who fail to cooperate for their own mutual benefit are not necessarily foolish or irrational, they may be acting perfectly rationally
They can choose where they want to locate themselves
Customers are spread evenly across the beach
They purchase from the closest vendor
Where will they locate themselves?
Optimal solution: located side by side in the middle of the beach
If starting situation is: -----B-----*-----W-----
It will evolve to: ----------B*W----------
Nash equilibrium: all players are doing the best they can given the other players actions, everybody being rational players
Negotiating with a deadline
Mortimer and Hotspur, copy from the web
Last player has more bargaining power
Example: waiting to bid on the last minute of a auction to for the seller go sell it or loose it
Understanding conflicts and cooperation
Sources of gains from trade
Differences in preferences - buyer values object more than seller
Comparative advantage - seller can product object cheaper than buyer. Economies of scale
Differences in beliefs - seller and buyer have different opinions on the value of object. Information asymmetry
Efficiency on trade doesn't necessarily means win-win
Zero-sum games == pure conflict, players actions only affect the distribution of the pie, not its size
Few games are zero sum
Retaliation and fear of retaliation change the dynamics of a game
Weighing Risks
Method to calculate risks
List all possible eventualities
Attribute probabilities to each
Calculate the expect return of each (expected return = value * % probability)
Calculate the risk premium, how much would you pay to get rid of the risk?
If risk averse, subtract the risk premium from the expected return, that's your risk adjusted expected return (payoff)
Choose the decision that yields the highest risk adjusted expected return
Companies are usually less risk averse than individuals, since specific transactions usually have a low impact on the overall operation
Gaining bargaining power
In fully transparent transactions there's no bargaining
In normal real world situations most transactions don't have a single efficient outcome
Bargaining is deciding which outcome will happen
Each players beliefs and knowledge define how strong is each party bargaining power
Sources of bargaining power
Knowing the other player reserve price is a source of bargaining power
Having alternative players/your opponents has competition is a source of bargaining power
If your opponents has options but they are worse than you, you have more bargaining power
Time is money, those who can wait the longest have more bargaining power
Focal point
Find a method to measure you own and your opponents concessions, even if the measure doesn't really capture the objective value
Commitment as a strategy
It's good to have flexibility before negotiations begin, but be inflexible during negotiations
The commitment must be believable to work
Contracting
If principal and agent interests align there's no conflict
Incentives are a way to shift the alignment between conflicting interest towards a common goal
Incentives can come in many forms such as peer pressure, pride in craftsmanship, work ethic, monetary compensation and others
The book focus on money as a more measurable incentive mechanism
Designing contracts
When the agent has an incentive not to be transparent, create rules that will increase their payoff by sharing the info
When the agent is more risk averse than the principal, it pays off for the principal to shoulder some of the risk to increase incentives
"Incentive problems are essentially informational problems. With perfect information about the agent's actions, the principal could easily design a contract to elicit the desired actions"
Interesting life story of a woman who built her own tiny house before it was "common". Good for insights on simpler lifestyles, not for advice on building a tiny house.
Opinion
I like tiny houses, more than the houses themselves I like the concept of reducing our material belongings to a minimum and simplifying our lifestyle. The book is an interesting story by someone who did it, faced challenges, worked hard and succeeded. The account is interesting and feels natural, it doesn't rely on self-help tropes but instead relies on what I would call "simple, blunt truth".
She does talk about how she built the tiny house, but it cannot be considered a how-to book on the topic, the core of the story is how she was feeling and what was going on inside her mind during the process, and that's valuable, perhaps more so than a how-to book, which would have a short shelf life.
I listened to the audible version, the narrator is pretty good, she manages to transmit the energy I believe the author would have, I was quite pleased.
Simple, direct, practical explanation of Shambhala Buddhism, no supernatural stuff, with emphasis on meditation without being boring. Recommended for those looking for nice quick intro to buddhism.
Review
I'm not a spiritual person, on the contrary, but one of the few "religions" I ever felt attracted to is buddhism, especially because of it's emphasis on practical philosophy of life, at least as far as I can tell. I good this book by chance on an Audible daily sale, it's short enough that the investment to figure out if it was useless or not would be small and it's narrated by the author, who does an awesome job, so I thought to give it a try.
He explains this buddhist tradition in a very simple way, using what they call "the 4 dignities", illustrated by 4 mythical beings: tiger (not mythical), snow lion, garuda and dragon. Each being is a kind of "level", each having specific meditation techniques and "skills" that need to be developed. Once you "master" a level you upgrade to the next and start over, but it doesn't sound scary or crazy, just a sensible way to introduce normal people to the path of "enlightenment".
I didn't write down notes for each level, if I decide to try the tiger level I'll go back and write down the bullet points, but the explanation as a whole is quite interesting. I would give it 5 stars if it had more info on "buddhism in general", providing an overview of the different schools and things like that, but that would dilute the message.
All in all I think I finally found a good "intro to buddhism" book. If you like it I would recommend reading Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", it's a pretty interesting allegory of the philosophy. If you like the basic principles of buddhism but is skeptical due to religious influences and the meditation part, I recommend giving William B. Irvine's "A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy", quite interesting take on how to apply stoic philosophy in our daily lives.
Good as a "history lesson" and general literature education, but pretty boring, skip most of it. Good narration.
Summary
It's interesting to have access to a translation of the first edition from the tales of the Brothers Grimm, it's amazing to see that the classical tales mass produced by Disney and lovely enacted on the Faerie Tale Theatre are kind of accurate, if you remove some blood, gore and christian moralism. They aren't as dark as people claim, but aren't PG by modern prudish standards.
The first chapter gives and overview of the brother's life and career but they say that "they didn't want to change anything", keep what they called "natural poetry" in their original form, but they succumbed to "feedback from the readers" and diluted the stories.
The translator/editor doesn't really provide a forceful explanation on why they changed their minds, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was due to greed or just desire to be more famous and popular. In any case, they did a good job keeping oral tales alive for the next generations, and for that they should be praised.
The book has way too many tales, 150+, and they get repetitive and boring pretty fast, they share too many tropes and formulas. I recommend you hunt down your favorite classics (Cinderela, Rapunzel, Snow White, Puss in boots, etc) and go around reading some at random. Some that I found interesting are The Summer and Winter Garden, The pear refused to fall, Sesame mountain, The castle of murder, Princess mouseskin and The juniper tree.
Regarding the audibook version, which is the one I have, I can say that the narration by Joel Richards and Cassandra Campbell is pretty good, they alternate chapters and make the repetitive stories less of a chore. It's also funny that most stories are pretty short, 5 minutes in average, maxing around 15 min. This shows that you don't need a ton of text to create a lasting story, but I wouldn't be surprised if I had kids, it explains why children's books are so short.
Interesting story, I dislike "Shakespearian" verses, so a novel is more interesting, but as the author remarks, it isn't a faithful novelization, but an original work based on the play.
The narrative style isn't super captivating and the narration, if competent, don't provide truly distinct voices for each character, which for me is a must for audiobooks.
Notes
The best sound bite from the play, from the book and the 2015 movie is the famous:
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
In passages like this I understand why Shakespeare is considered a master.
The thing that stuck with me was the fact that everything spun out of control for Macbeth once he started to go against his character and killed Duncan, living with an act he cannot face, out of his depth. Food for thought.
Go read/listen to it right now, it's very useful, enjoyable and, to make it even better, short. It isn't perfect, but worth the time.
By accident I've been exposed to most of the ideas on the book, but it managed to structure and explain them in such a brief and clear way that I couldn't accomplish on my own, I just wish I read it before.
I was pointed to this book by another one I like a lot, The Phoenix Project, also worth reading, even if they kind of dramatize the "vulnerability exercise" in a way that seems different from the suggestion on this one.
Summary
Trust
Defined as "truly assuming that your peers intentions are good, even if they fail"
People need to feel comfortable being vulnerable among peers, they can act without worrying about covering their asses all the time
Without trust it isn't possible to have constructive conflicts
Lack of trust breeds politics
Takes time to build
Tools: personal stories (sample questions: how many siblings, hometown, unique challenges of childhood, hobbies, first job, worst job), team effectiveness (each shares their single best contribution and worse limitation), personality test (I would skip it), 360 degrees program completely divorced from compensation or career advancement, outdoor team exercises (the author doesn't really recommends them)
Role of the leader: be the first expose true vulnerabilities, creates an environment that doesn't punish vulnerabilities
Politics is when people choose their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than based on what they really think.
Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they're doing it because they care about the team.
Conflict (the productive kind)
Hard to manage but necessary, taboo in most work situations
Without debate and conflict it's hard to have buy in
Conflict never ends and is never agreeable
Absence of conflict is a sign that people aren't truly involved
Avoiding conflicts leads to backstabbing/politics, which hurts trust and makes things even worse
Suggesting to take conflicts off-line just postpone the inevitable
Tools: acknowledge it's important, mining (force conflicts in meetings on purpose), time-off (remind people that conflict is important when debates get too hot), Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (see criticism)
Leader role: incentivize construct conflict
Commitment
A function of 2 things: clarity and buy-in. Blocked by:
Desire for consensus
Everybody should be able to voice their opinions
Leaders are trusted by the teams to make the call in case the team doesn't reach a consensus
Need for certainty
A decision is better than no decision
People should be aware that things might go wrong but the group supports the failure
In case of failure just change the direction (sailing saying: you can't direct the wind but you can adjust your sails)
Hedging bets can cause analysis paralysis, better to commit to a single, well reasoned and debated approach
Without buy in subordinates will clash when trying to execute
Tools: cascading messaging (review key decisions made and clarify what needs to be communicated after meetings/off-sites, etc), deadlines, contingency plans (to reduce fear of failure, need to avoid becoming excessive hedging), force commitments on low risk situations (get people used to the idea).
Role of the leader: ultimate responsible, keep people accountable
Avoidance of accountability
Accountability definition: the willingness to call out behaviours that jeopardizes the goals of the team
Needs to overcome fear of conflict and hard discussions, fear of hurting relationships
Maintaining high standards of performance through peer pressure
Tools: publication of goals and standards (enemy of accountability is ambiguity), structured feedback cycles (don't expect people to do it on their own), team rewards (team will pressure lack-lusters to make sure goals are met)
Role of the leader: ultimate arbiter of accountability but needs to make the team work out the accountability checks on their own
Inattention to results
Prioritizing something else instead of the collective goals of the group
Focus on outcome based performance
Pitfalls
** Team status - participate on the group is enough and participants slack
** Individual status - focus on personal career and status instead of the team goals
Tools: public declaration of goals, results based rewards (bonus just for trying hard isn't a good idea)
Role of the leader: selfless, first to target team goals instead of personal goals
Suggested meeting structure
Annual team meeting - 3 days off-site
Quarterly team meeting - 2 days off-site
Weekly team meeting - 2 hours on-site
Weekly one on one with direct reports
Issues
I do have some minor quibbles, they do not invalidate the book by any means:
I don't like the suggestion to use the Meyers-Briggs type indicator test isn't super hot. See the criticism section.
The book lacks a good explanation on how the theory trickles down to teams. For example, the directors debate and agree on goal X, cool, but this goal will in turn be shoved down the hierarchy, where there isn't buy in or debate. In theory the directors should be able to provide views and opinions that will be in line with their subordinates, but in practice this is pretty rare, most directors are usually very distant from the realities and knowledge from their subordinates. There's a brief mention on the summary, regarding how the a lack of buy in and clear goals will hurt their subordinates effort when working across departments/silos, but that's it.
Deadlines can be an issue, related to the note above. The author does mention the creation of intermediate deadlines to allow for changes before it's too late, but I know some people will read this as "having unmoving deadlines no matter the consequences"
There are several failure scenarios for the problems above and the author seems to leave most of the solutions as an exercise for the reader, which is fair but...
I get his reliance on peer pressure as motivation, but it's too extrinsic, seems that his solution for people without intrinsic motivation is just fire them. Needs more research.
All examples smell like a top down approach, might be just because the intended audience for the book is just for executives, I don't know
The audiobook narration is competent but far from stellar, 3 stars
Lessons learned
A clear structure for dealing with team dynamics
Provided a point of view that clarifies my own issues with conflict. Escaping or minimizing them just to keep people happy or avoiding hurting their feelings isn't constructive, as was pointed to me by Nick. Something to study more and work harder to come to terms with
On the format
I happen to like "business novels", they tend to grab my attention much more than the generic "book of anecdotes" or "powerpoint in prose" versions. After some decades on the market I can empathize with the stories and characters, I've been through similar meetings and off-sites and met people that fit the stereotypes used in the book, and I can say they are eerily accurate. As long as you keep in mind that the format is limited to a "single artificial happy ending anecdote" but understand that it's a way to keep people on the message, you should be satisfied.
cool