The Systemic CTO in Action
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The Systemic CTO in Action

The Practical Science of Leading Complex Technology Ecosystems

About the Book

Stop suffering from complexity. Orchestrate it. Every morning, thousands of CTOs wake up to the same nightmare: despite brilliant teams and cutting-edge technology, their organization is getting bogged down. The harder they push, the more quality suffers. The more they optimize locally, the more the global system degrades. This isn't a leadership failure—it's a systemic problem.

From 15 to 1000+ developers: A CTO's odyssey Follow Alex, a CTO navigating the growth crises you're experiencing:

  • Year 1 (15→50 devs): Surviving technical debt accumulating at 67% per year
  • Year 2 (50→200 devs): Scaling without breaking, ending the Product-Tech war
  • Year 3 (200→500 devs): Absorbing acquisitions, becoming antifragile
  • Year 5 (1000+ devs): Orchestrating hypergrowth while preparing for IPO

Your systemic transformation arsenal: ✓ MAMOS Framework: Diagnose where your system really loses velocity (Methods, Architecture, Management, Organization, Skills) ✓ 3A Cycles: Act-Learn-Adapt in 30 days. No more "big bangs", only incremental transformations that work ✓ MVM (Minimum Viable Move): Test your change hypotheses with maximum learning and minimum risk ✓ Metrics that matter: DCR, Lead Time, Sustainable Velocity, Team NPS—the only KPIs that predict success

12 critical challenges solved with real cases:

  1. Systemic framework: See your organization as a living system, not a machine
  2. Technical debt: Transform DCR from 67% to under 10%
  3. Production excellence: From vanity monitoring to life-saving metrics
  4. Product-Tech symbiosis: End the trench warfare, co-create value
  5. Human scaling: Multiply without diluting (OCR from 60% to 20%)
  6. Antifragility: Stronger after each failure, cultural chaos engineering
  7. Tech M&A: Digest without destroying (90% post-acquisition retention)
  8. Evolutionary architecture: Boring is beautiful, automated fitness functions
  9. Managing 1000 people: 5 metrics suffice, 24h decision velocity
  10. 10x hypergrowth: Revenue/dev from €500k to €2M
  11. Strategic CTO: From builder to board member
  12. Systemic AI: 50% generated code without losing control

Documented results from organizations applying this approach:

  • Lead time: 3 weeks → 3 days → 3 hours
  • Technical debt (DCR): 67% → 20% → 5%
  • Team NPS: -30 → +60 → +80
  • Sustainable velocity: 0.3 → 2.0 → 10.0

This book is not theoretical. Each chapter contains:

  • A lived crisis moment as trigger
  • Real (anonymized) evolving characters
  • Field-tested MVMs
  • Verifiable before/after metrics
  • Immediately applicable templates

For whom?

  • CTOs managing 10 to 1000+ developers
  • VPs Engineering facing the complexity wall
  • Ambitious Tech Leads preparing their evolution
  • Technical founders in scaling-up phase

Your transformation starts now. The first 3A cycle takes only 30 days. In 90 days, your organization will be unrecognizable—in a good way.

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    • Enterprise Management
    • Business and IT Alignment
    • Organizational Psychology
    • Agile Enterprise
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Translations

About the Author

Antoine Craske
Antoine Craske

Entrepreneur • Systemic CTO • Transformation

An entrepreneur and technology leader with over 15 years of experience, Antoine Craske has built and transformed tech organizations from startups to international scale-ups. Founder of several B2B technology and SaaS services companies, he has navigated the entire entrepreneurial spectrum: from product creation to organizational scaling, from fundraising to international expansion.

An Entrepreneurial and Technology Journey

Antoine has held strategic positions as CTO, Chief Architect, VP Engineering, and Technical Director in various sectors: marketplace, retail, wholesale, transportation, HR, e-commerce, B2B SaaS, professional services, manufacturing, and energy. This diversity has allowed him to develop a unique cross-functional vision of technological and business challenges.

What sets him apart? A systemic approach proven in the field. Faced with the limitations of traditional solutions in hypergrowth contexts, he spent 10 years developing and perfecting a pragmatic, concrete transformation methodology that generates measurable results: a 40% reduction in time-to-market, a 50% increase in EBITDA, a 40x increase in team velocity, 30% cost optimization, and a 50% improvement in tech talent retention.

Recognized expert and committed practitioner

Transformation, strategic consulting & coaching

Antoine currently supports CTOs and executive committees in their digital and systemic transformation. His approach combines strategic vision and operational execution, enabling organizations to move from perpetual reactivity to strategic anticipation. Training & Teaching

  • 300+ articles published on personal and third-party websites
  • 200+ transformations documented and analyzed
  • 50+ presentations at international tech conferences
  • 8+ expert communities created, ranging from 0 to 1,000+ members
  • Exclusive training for CTOs and tech leaders
  • Active community of systemic practitioners

Continuous Innovation

Convinced that the future belongs to leaders capable of thinking and acting in a systemic way, Antoine continues to innovate by collecting field data, refining his methodologies, and developing new tools to address the emerging challenges of technology leadership. His contributions:

  • ML/AI research to optimize the software development process
  • MAMOS systemic framework, AAA/3A, MVM, Quality at Speed
  • Author of On Defining Quality Engineering, The Systemic CTO
  • Co-founder of the open-source automation platform Cerberus Testing and Automate©
  • Co-creator of Automate Score©

His mission

Transform the way CTOs think and act by giving them the keys to:

  • See beyond symptoms and act on root causes
  • Align technology and business systemically
  • Create resilient and high-performing tech organizations
  • Generate a measurable and sustainable impact

Reach out through Linkedin as the preffered channel.

Table of Contents

    • Introduction
      • Foreword and Acknowledgments
      • Why an Action Book for the Systemic CTO?
      • Target Audience and How to Use This Guide
      • The Book’s Architecture: A Transformation Journey
      • The Systemic Tools
      • How to Use This Book According to Your Context
      • What Makes This Book Different
      • The Urgency of Systemic Transformation
      • Your First Action
    PART I: FOUNDATIONS - Survive and Stabilize
    • Chapter 1: The Systemic CTO Framework
      • 3:47 AM
      • The Microservices War
      • The Diagnostic for Perspective
      • The Birth of AAA
      • The Art of the Minimum Viable Move
      • Emerging Patterns
      • The Silent Transformation
      • The MAMOS Framework Revealed
      • The Five Principles of the Systemic CTO
      • The Hour of Truth
      • The New Beginning
      • Visual References: Frameworks in Action
      • Epilogue: Your Transformation Starts Now
    • Chapter 2: Sustainable Velocity: The True Measure of Performance
      • The Black Friday That Almost Destroyed Everything
      • The Brutal Revelation of Systemic Problems
      • The Three Death Spirals That Were Killing Us
      • The Discovery of the Equation and DCR: Measuring the Invisible
      • The Transformation: Attack the Causes, Not the Symptoms
      • The Fundamental Insight: MAMOS + DCR + Principles
      • The Final Equation
      • Action Kit with DCR and MAMOS
    • Chapter 3: Production Excellence - Beyond Monitoring
      • The Thursday When Everything Was Green
      • The Illusion of Total Surveillance
      • The Three Deadly Systemic Loops
      • The Hidden Cost of Anti-Excellence
      • MAMOS Diagnosis: The Fatal Methods × Architecture Intersection
      • The J-Curve: Slow Down to Speed Up
      • The Transformation: From Metric Theater to Real Observability
      • Breaking the Systemic Loops
      • ML/AI Observability: Same Intersections, New Challenges
      • The Results: Emergent Excellence
      • Excellence as an Emergent Property
      • Action Kit for Operational Excellence
    PART II: GROWTH - Scaling Without Breaking
    • Chapter 4: Product-Tech Symbiosis - Ending the Trench Warfare
      • The Monday I Realized We Were Building Cathedrals in the Desert
      • The Data Revelation
      • The MAMOS Diagnosis of the Product-Tech Divide
      • The PAR Invention and the Awakening
      • The Transformation: From Functional Apartheid to Symbiosis
      • The New Rituals That Anchored the Change
      • The Final Equation and Results That Convinced Everyone
      • The Secret of Symbiosis
      • Action Kit: Product-Tech Symbiosis Diagnosis and Intervention
    • Chapter 5: Human Scaling - Multiplying Without Diluting
      • The Graph That Changed Everything
      • The Cost of Inaction: The Death Spiral
      • The Three Spirals That Were Killing Us
      • The False Solutions: 6 Months Wasted
      • The Revealing MAMOS Diagnosis
      • Daniel’s Insight and the Multipliers
      • The Moment of Truth: Viktor or Collapse
      • The Transformation: From Chaos to Multiplication
      • Culture as an Exponent: Permanent Change
      • Action Kit: Human Scaling
    • Chapter 6: Antifragile - Getting Stronger from Every Failure
      • The incident that changed everything
      • Yuki’s arrival and intentional chaos
      • The diagnosis that revealed our true weakness
      • The transformation: 6 months to become robust, 18 months to antifragility
      • 6-month assessment: From fragile to robust
      • The real test: Black Friday, 6 months later
      • The antifragility equation
      • Action kit: Developing your antifragility
    PART III: EXPANSION - Absorbing and evolving
    • Chapter 7: Tech M&A: Digesting Without Destroying
      • The Tuesday I Realized We Weren’t Ready
      • Meeting Dimitri: The Mirror of Our Limitations
      • The Diagnosis That Revealed Our True Weaknesses
      • The Transformation: Adaptive Architecture and Fluid Organization
      • The Real Results at 90 Days: Learning Through Pain
      • The Real Transformation: 6-18 Months of Building
      • The Transformative Learning: The Wisdom of Tech M&A
      • The Revelation: They Made Us Modular
      • The Final Learning: Preparing for Adaptability
      • Action Kit: Securing a Tech M&A
    • Chapter 8: The Architecture That Enables Delivery
      • The Monday When Our Architecture Became Our Enemy
      • The Exponential Complexity That Was Killing Us
      • The MAMOS Diagnosis That Revealed the Systemic Spiral
      • The Transformation: Six Months of Systemic Reconstruction
      • Results at 6 Months: Realistic but Transformative
      • The 12-18 Month Trajectory: Progressive Maturity
      • Final Results at 18 Months: The ROI of Patience
      • The Epilogue: Invisible but Indispensable Architecture
      • Action Kit: Build Your Architecture Practice
    • Chapter 9: The CTO’s Cockpit - Steering 1000 People
      • The Question That Triggered Everything
      • The Moment I Realized I Was Steering Wrong
      • The MAMOS Diagnosis That Revealed Toxic Loops
      • The Hidden Cost of Over-Governance
      • The Transformation: 18 Months of Reconstruction
      • Results: ROI and Transformation
      • Evolution to 800
      • Governance Action Kit - The CTO’s 5 Metrics
    PART IV: TRANSFORMATION - Orchestrating the Future
    • Chapter 10: 10x Without Breaking: The Final Orchestration
      • The Day Excellence Was No Longer Enough
      • Discovering the Invisible Glass Ceiling
      • The Final Diagnosis: The Multiplier Effect
      • The MAMOS Diagnosis Revealing Toxic Loops
      • The 3 Principles to Break the Loops
      • The Transformation: Breaking the Loops One by One
      • Dialogue with Doubt: Answers to Objections
      • The Final Lesson
      • Economic Orchestration Action Kit
    • Chapter 11: Rising to the Board - The Strategic CTO
      • The Tuesday I discovered our true fragility
      • The diagnosis that changed our trajectory
      • The revelation of the invisible competitive moat
      • The first six months: learning to think in moats
      • Months 7-12: The strategic acquisition battle
      • Months 13-18: Strategic orchestration
      • The validation: Beyond the IPO
      • Action kit to evolve as strategic CTO
    • Chapter 12: AI Everywhere - The Continuous Transformation
      • The Tuesday everything changed
      • The cost of inaction: €45M and obsolescence
      • The revealing diagnosis: Systemic paradoxes
      • The transformation: From craftsmanship to orchestration
      • Results after 6 months: The truth in numbers
      • Organizational evolution
      • The strategic conversation with the board
      • Final reflection: MAMOS in the AI era
      • Systemic AI action kit
    • Conclusion
      • The Journey Completed: From Survival to Orchestration
      • Your New Identity: Proof of Change
      • Your Roadmap: The Critical First 90 Days
      • Success Patterns I’ve Observed
      • The Domino Effect You’ll Create
      • Your First Action: The Next 24 Hours
      • Maintain the Systemic Vision
      • Final Message: Your Tipping Point
    • Supplementary Appendices
      • Chapter 1 Appendices: Systemic Framework
      • Chapter 2 Appendices: Sustainable Velocity
      • Chapter 3 Appendices: Production Excellence
      • Chapter 4 Appendices: Product & Tech
      • Chapter 5 Appendices: Human Scaling
      • Chapter 6 Appendices: Antifragility
      • Chapter 7 Appendices: M&A
      • Chapter 8 Appendices: Architecture
      • Chapter 9 Appendices: Cockpit
      • Chapter 10 Appendices: Scale x10
      • Chapter 11 Appendices: Strategic CTO
      • Chapter 12 Appendices: Systemic AI
    • Bibliographic References
      • Fundamental Works on Systems Thinking
      • Systemic Management and Leadership
      • Architecture and Technology Transformation
      • Antifragility and Organizational Resilience
      • Innovation and Experimentation
      • Quality and Continuous Improvement
      • Industry Reports and Studies
      • Academic Articles and Research
    • Acknowledgments
      • Partner Organizations
      • Professional Community
      • Researchers and Thinkers
    • About the Author
      • Antoine Craske
      • An Entrepreneurial and Technological Journey
      • Recognized Expert and Engaged Practitioner
      • His Mission
      • This Book: Your Transformation Accelerator

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