Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery
Elisabeth Hendrickson (Curious Duck) & Joel Tosi (Dojo & Co.)
In Signals & Levers, Elisabeth Hendrickson—former VP R&D at Pivotal and author of the enduring Explore It!—and Joel Tosi—who has spent 25+ years delivering software and a decade helping teams stop “change theater”—teach you to see through the illusions that plague every software organization. Using tools from statistical process control, systems thinking, and economic theory, they show you how to identify real problems and find the levers that create lasting change.
Each chapter delivers practical techniques. Learn to spot critical illusions that derail delivery, build causal diagrams that reveal system dynamics, and uncover hidden connections that make obvious solutions backfire. See how to separate signal from noise, frame problems as testable hypotheses, visualize trade-offs as continuums, build cultures that learn instead of repeating mistakes, and ultimately choose the right path forward given your context. Plus, “Better in 30 Minutes” exercises let you practice immediately.
Along the way, you’ll meet Theresa, an engineering director. She learned that her teams are late delivering the next release. Again. Frustrated, she digs into the data only to discover that she’s been suffering from illusions that readers will find all too familiar. You’ll follow Theresa's journey as she learns to read signals and find the right levers to fix systemic issues.
Whether you're a developer tired of death marches, a CTO struggling with predictability, or a PM wondering why everything takes longer than planned, this book provides the systems thinking skills that transform software organizations.
Pages
15
Publication Date
May 18, 2026
Topics
Leadership · Workplace Culture
Formats
epub · pdf
License
Creative Commons BY-NC-SA
About the authors
2 authors
Elisabeth HendricksonCurious Duck (at publication)▼▲
Elisabeth Hendrickson is a technology leader with over thirty years of experience in the tech industry, having led geographically distributed teams of engineers, product managers, and designers as VP R&D at a publicly traded company and VP Engineering at a Series B startup. She is the author of Explore It! and There's Always a Duck , and currently works with technology leaders to improve collaboration, decision making, and execution. Her philosophy centers on putting people first, focusing on incremental delivery and learning, and recognizing that there are many right ways to achieve outcomes depending on context, making her methodology-agnostic while emphasizing the importance of tight feedback loops and collaborative partnerships.
Joel Tosi has been delivering software products for over 25 years. Along the way, he has felt frustrated that he couldn’t express himself effectively; managed teams where he could see the problems they were experiencing but couldn’t get his peers to see them the same way; and seen far too many good intentions end in less-than-desirable results. Joel has stories. For the past decade, Joel has focused on helping make it easier for teams to enjoy their work and innovate. This has led him to seek new ways to express what is holding teams back so everyone can see the same reality. Frequently, what is holding teams back is the network effect inside of an organization—the system reacting. Blindly following processes never solves this. Joel started leveraging the techniques in this book to help teams tell their story, then to educate managers and executives on them so they could make better decisions together. Ultimately, it is about stopping change theater. Joel has been presenting the concepts in this book internationally for over five years and continues to explore new ways to leverage these techniques to help make work more enjoyable. The joy when people say, “Now others can see what I have been feeling,” is a wonderful feeling.
