Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge
Welcome to Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge with Dave Anderson, Mark McCann and Mike O'Reilly. We want to share our tools and techniques so that you can use them to communicate your Technical Strategy with your C-Suite and business owners. We want to help you to build a serverless first organisation. We will show you how to use Wardley Mapping to gain situational awareness of where your cloud applications and business are. And then how to develop your technical capability in away that builds engineering standards to set your organisation up for sustainable success.Sounds like the tools and techniques that you need - then hit the subscribe!-ABOUT- Dave, Mark and Mike are senior technical architects/leaders passionate about driving technical strategy. They have led transformation journeys, technical excellence, cloud adoption and tech strategies in many industries.Active in various technologies including ML/AI, Public Cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), Engineering, Product, Cyber and UX.
Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge
Serverless Craic Ep79 — Reflecting on The Value Flywheel Effect (5 Years On)
In the first Serverless Craic episode of 2026, Dave Anderson, Mark McCann, and Michael O’Reilly reflect on a five-year journey that began in early 2021 with the idea for The Value Flywheel Effect.
This episode closes out the book series by looking back—warts and all—at what it really took to write, publish, promote, and apply the ideas in practice. The conversation spans writing fatigue, editing realities, imposter syndrome, enterprise adoption, and why the flywheel is arguably more relevant than ever in an AI-first world.
If you care about modern software delivery, cloud strategy, serverless-first thinking, and leading technology change, this one is for you.
⏱️ Chapters
00:00 – Welcome & context
Episode 79, first show of 2026, and closing out the book series
01:20 – How the book started (2021 → 2026)
From an idea to a five-year journey
01:35 – Did we enjoy writing the book?
Ideation, Guinness-fuelled drafts, and the reality of writing
02:30 – Shaping the narrative
Why writing is harder than it looks, and why shared context doesn’t scale
04:10 – Atomic essays & capturing thinking early
GitHub, short-form writing, and building habits
05:00 – Would this book have helped us 15 years ago?
Modernisation gaps, agile limits, and why the flywheel mattered
06:00 – The editing process (and thick skin)
What professional editors really do to your manuscript
07:40 – Feedback, criticism, and author psychology
Why the one negative comment sticks
09:15 – Has the book made an impact?
Enterprises, conferences, and unexpected adoption stories
12:40 – Applying the flywheel in real organisations
North Stars, Team Topologies, serverless-first in practice
14:30 – The hardest part of the whole journey
Finishing, introductions, and the truth about selling a book
17:30 – Promotion, modesty, and imposter syndrome
Why marketing a book is a full-time job
19:00 – Influences & supporters
Kent Beck, Adrian Cockcroft, Simon Wardley, and standing on shoulders
21:45 – Is the book still relevant in the age of GenAI?
Why the flywheel + AI is a force multiplier
23:00 – AI, context engineering, and agentic systems
Using codified principles to guide AI effectively
25:30 – Lowering the barrier to good practice
How AI helps teams apply architecture, security, and governance
29:00 – Business strategy vs technical strategy
Is the divide finally disappearing?
31:45 – The emerging “builder” persona
Shifting left, shifting right, and new SDLC realities
34:50 – Closing thoughts & what’s next
AISDLCs, Brownfield challenges, and future episodes
📚 Resources & Links
📘 The Value Flywheel Effect — principles for modern cloud and serverless transformation
🌐 The Serverless Edge: https://theserverlessedge.com
🎥 Subscribe on YouTube for weekly Serverless Crack episodes
💬 Follow the conversation on LinkedIn
💡 Key Takeaways
Writing a book is much harder than most engineers expect
The flywheel was never about tech or business—it’s about both
AI makes codified principles (North Stars, well-architected practices) more valuable, not less
Serverless Craic from The Serverless Edge
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