the book · companion workbook
Putting the Book to Work
A facilitator workbook for The Bottleneck Is Never the Stack
The book makes the argument. This room makes the decisions.
Free, printable, and built to run in five working modes, from a thirty-minute diagnostic to a one-day workshop.
No email required. Print it, mark it up, run the workshop.
about the workbook
What it is
Putting the Book to Work turns the second edition's operating model into working sessions a leadership team can actually run: which team, which work, what to fund, and what evidence earns the next step.
It's not a summary of the book. It assumes you've read it, or at least Part IV and the Operating Kit appendix. It picks up exactly where those chapters leave off, at the moment someone has to run the exercise for real.
what’s inside
Five pieces, one working session
- 01
Five working modes, from a 30-minute diagnostic to a one-day workshop and the monthly phase gate.
- 02
Two linked charters: Platform Pilot Zero, the platform team's own dry run, and a bounded 90-day product pilot.
- 03
All twenty-four Operating Kit artifacts in full: blank forms with real handwriting space and facilitation prompts.
- 04
Completed examples from Harborline, an illustrative composite enterprise, wherever an example earns its keep.
- 05
Every session ends in a named decision with an owner, a threshold, and a stop path.
who it’s for
Who should run it
Engineering and platform leaders running the sequence from Part IV: readiness, work redesign, the operating model, roles, governance, metrics, and the roadmap. Smaller teams can run the same worksheets with fewer people wearing more hats.
Haven’t read the book yet?
Start with The Bottleneck Is Never the Stack. The workbook makes a lot more sense once you have.