“The Phoenix Project” was one of these books that were on my to-read pile for years and years and years. It was recommended to me from quite a few people and got praised wherever I looked, but I somehow never got around actually reading it. If you haven’t heard of this book before, it is basically a novel from the point of view of a mid-level IT manager in an industrial company. Due to its structure and applied processes the department is struggling with getting projects finished, organizing their workforce, and in general not being a productive part of the whole enterprise.
While this may sound dry and boring to you, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford tell the story in a way that is thrilling and fast-paced. If you’ve ever been part of an IT project that has gone wrong, you will right away feel at home at “Parts Unlimited”! I wrote above that this is a novel but its main goal is to convey the advantages of the DevOps method. As such, it sometimes feels quite edutainment-like. There is even a guru-like character similar to the Maestro in One upon a time… man, trying to convey to the IT staff the three ways:
- Optimizing left-to-right flow with small work packages and never passing known defects down
- Creating a feedback loop so that defects are detected and fixed quickly
- Culture of experimentation & learning
Fortunately, this doesn’t break the reading flow! It’s just a very enjoyable read and while the book was published in 2013, its message is still relevant. I literally plowed through this book, only stopping when some of the topics hit home slightly too much 😀 I just wish I had read “The Phoenix Project” sooner!
Over the years I've written quite a few reviews 🙂 You can find them at /reviews/.
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