DevOps
The Phoenix Project
A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr & George Spafford
Published January 10, 2013
Pages 432
ISBN 978-0988262591
Rating 5/5 stars
Summary
A novel that follows Bill Palmer, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, as he works to save his company from a failing IT transformation project while learning the principles of DevOps and lean manufacturing.
Key Takeaways
- The Three Ways of DevOps: Flow, Feedback, and Continual Learning
- Theory of Constraints applied to IT operations
- The importance of work visibility and limiting work in progress
- How unplanned work destroys productivity
- The relationship between IT performance and business outcomes
Why We Recommend It
While presented as a novel, this book brilliantly illustrates the core principles that underpin modern platform engineering. The transformation journey mirrors what many organizations experience when building internal developer platforms.
Notable Quotes
"Any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion."
"Until code is in production, no value is actually being generated."
Best For
- IT leaders new to DevOps concepts
- Anyone who prefers learning through stories
- Teams struggling with operational chaos
- Business leaders who need to understand IT transformation