Deliver Better Results: How to Unlock Your Organization's Potential | Gil Broza
Plus, the danger of "what's next," how to keep up with tech trends, and how Slack does great code reviews.
This week host Dan Lines is joined by Gil Broza, author of 'Deliver Better Results' to discuss how you and your organization can achieve better results by focusing on processes. Gil shares his 20-year journey in the Agile field, focusing on product development, system thinking, prioritizing people, and mindful mindset adjustments.
The conversation covers the book’s target audience, the concept of the value delivery systems, and the roadmap for holistic improvement beyond traditional Agile methodologies. Gil also highlights common pitfalls leaders encounter, such as treating people as resources and the importance of a unified organizational mindset.
As a thank you to our listeners, we’re giving away the first chapter of ‘Deliver Better Results’ for free, check it out here.
“Look beyond your immediate scope. If you just try to improve engineering or just try to improve product, or you let teams do their own retros and continuous improvement, you run the risk of things not really sticking. The changes don't stick, or you get unintended consequences, or you just get too much business risk.
You want to understand the boundaries, you want to have this coalition of leaders who care about the system and want to improve it.”
Episode Highlights:
00:58 What led Gil to write ‘Deliver Better Results’, and who should be reading it?
06:20 What type of teams would benefit from the book?
12:08 How can you identify the current state of your team?
17:01 How can engineering and product work better together?
20:49 What do leaders get wrong about people?
34:14 How can managers avoid finding someone to blame?
40:10 How can you avoid returning to old habits after making changes?
The Download
The Download is engineering leadership content we’re reading, watching, and attending that we think you might find valuable.
1. The danger of “what’s next”
The current zeitgeist puts a lot of pressure on “what’s next” and can lead to feelings of never being satisfied with your career or future trajectory. Ancestry CEO
shared some tips on how you can be more tapped in with the present by asking questions like:What do I find joy in right now?
What can I do to find more meaning in where I am?
What have I missed because I am looking too far ahead?
2. How to keep up with tech trends and upskill sustainably
The amount of new tools, processes, and frameworks continues to grow exponentially. It can feel like an insurmountable task to keep up, let alone upskill on what’s going to be most beneficial for your career right now.
’s recent LeadDev article offers a constructive way to think about navigating the sea of new tech and upskilling, including how to make daily progress through sustainable habits and participating in social learning.Read: How to keep up with tech trends and upskill sustainably
Complimentary Gartner Guide to Software Engineering Intelligence Platforms (Sponsor)
Engineering teams are rapidly adopting Software Engineering Intelligence (SEI) Platforms to improve engineering team productivity and value delivery. According to Gartner’s recent Market Guide, the use of SEI platforms by engineering organizations will rise to 50% by 2027, compared to 5% in 2024.
Get ahead of the curve, and learn how you can unlock the transformative potential of SEI platforms by leveraging key features like:
Extensive data from DevOps tools for critical metrics and insights.
Customizable dashboards that highlight pivotal trends and inform strategic decisions.
Insights into key performance indicators that showcase your team's achievements.
3. How Slack does great code reviews
In an organization as big as Slack, having a refined PR process is imperative to getting code shipped quickly and safely.
’s featured Slack’s Staff Software Engineering Roojuta Lalani where she discussed the 3 factors that determine the quality of a code review.Roojuta’s sentiments echo some of our past takeaways on episodes about code reviews, such as keeping PRs small, the value of automation, and more.
4. Connecting Devs' Work to the Business Bottom Line
As our Substack continues to grow, we want to highlight past episodes that are Dev Interrupted canon for our new subscribers.
Almost a year and a half ago, Dan Lines sat down with three of the biggest names in engineering leadership:
- , Director of Engineering at Shopify
Rukmini Reddy, SVP of Engineering at Slack
Smruti Patel, VP of Engineering at Apollo GraphQL
Together they discuss aligning engineering with business priorities, and the conversation is even more relevant in today’s ecosystem.
Upcoming Events
June 10th - June 14th | Online
Highlights: Join this year’s PlatformCon to see the top DevOps and platform engineering leaders on one virtual stage, including sessions from Dev Interrupted alumni like Manuel Pais and Bryan Finster.
How to Drive Developer Productivity and Profitability with Software Engineering Intelligence
June 20th or 27th | Online
Highlights: How can you drive developer productivity, lower costs and deliver better products? On June 20th and 27th, LinearB is hosting a workshop that explores the software engineering intelligence category.
Thanks for mentioning Roojuta's article!