CoLab Book Club - October 2026
Our October #CoLabBookClub pick was hot off the press. Paul Salmon brought us Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery by Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi. Elisabeth’s work has been on our radar and in our toolkits for years, so we were keen to have a read. Gene Kim, whose Wiring the Winning Organisation we read back in 2024, writes in the foreword that he expects it to become the definitive entry point to systems thinking in software.
Overview
The book opens with a 1968 NATO conference where experts were already wrestling with software that took too long, cost too much and was hard to measure. Nearly sixty years on, that list sounded disappointingly familiar and had us wondering how far we’ve really come! As Jerry Weinberg put it, it may look like a crisis, but it’s only the end of an illusion.
A fictional leadership team, stuck in patterns they can’t see, carries the story. The theory then steps in to explain what’s really happening. Signals are anything observable about the system, from dashboards to the silence after an awkward question. Levers are the choices that shift it, through policy or culture. Along the way come causal loop diagrams, U-curves and “Better in 30 Minutes” exercises to try straight away.
Our Key Takeaways
✔️ Spot the three illusions. Predictability, progress and control. Finished stories aren’t the same as progress, and long-range plans can offer more comfort than reality.
✔️ Design, not production. Alfred reminded us that software is design engineering, so chasing predictive certainty is challenging. Watch the signals and experiment with levers instead.
✔️ Mix your signals. Dashboards only tell part of the story. People are great sensing mechanisms too.
✔️ Map the problem, not the universe. Causal loop diagrams work best on a specific issue, staying within your sphere of influence.
✔️ You’ll pull the wrong lever. That’s OK, just don’t hang onto it too long. Expect a dip before things improve, and watch for the snap back to old habits.
✔️ Aim for the sweet spot. U-curves show there’s rarely one perfect number, just a sensible range at the bottom of the curve.
Who is it For?
Coaches, leaders and anyone who’s watched a “nearly done” release slip yet again.
Thank you!
Thank you Elisabeth Hendrickson and Joel Tosi for a short, sharp read that turns systems thinking into practical tools. We’ll be borrowing the signals and levers metaphor for a while.
Thanks to this month’s #CoLabBookClub crew: Alfred Enslin, Ceedee Doyle, Daniel Gauld, Elisabeth Stiller, Paul Salmon (host), Pete Tansey (agilePete) and Toni Wilson. Another great conversation full of real-world stories, plus a bonus e-reader debate!
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