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George Spafford

Gene Kim

The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win Hardcover – January 10, 2013

by Gene Kim (Author), Kevin Behr (Author), George Spafford (Author)

(4.6) 19,461 ratings

Part of: The Phoenix Project (2 books)

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Bill is an IT manager at Parts Unlimited. It's Tuesday morning and on his drive into the office, Bill gets a call from the CEO.

The company's new IT initiative, code named Phoenix Project, is critical to the future of Parts Unlimited, but the project is massively over budget and very late. The CEO wants Bill to report directly to him and fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill's entire department will be outsourced.

With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.

In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they'll never view IT the same way again.

Part of series

The Phoenix Project
Print length

345 pages
Language

English
Publisher

IT Revolution Press
Publication date

January 10, 2013
Dimensions

7 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches
ISBN-10

0988262592
ISBN-13

978-0988262591
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Popular Highlights in this book

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“Your job as vp of it Operations is to ensure the fast, predictable, and uninterrupted flow of planned work that delivers value to the business while minimizing the impact and disruption of unplanned work, so you can provide stable, predictable, and secure it service.”
Highlighted by 6,325 Kindle readers
“every work center is made up of four things: the machine, the man, the method, and the measures.
Highlighted by 5,483 Kindle readers
Any improvement made after the bottleneck is useless, because it will always remain starved, waiting for work from the bottleneck. And any improvements made before the bottleneck merely results in more inventory piling up at the bottleneck.”
Highlighted by 5,142 Kindle readers
“Remember, outcomes are what matter—not the process, not controls, or, for that matter, what work you complete.”
Highlighted by 4,312 Kindle readers
Situations like this only reinforce my deep suspicion of developers: They’re often carelessly breaking things and then disappearing, leaving Operations to clean up the mess.
Highlighted by 2,293 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A must-read for anyone wanting to transform their IT to enable the business to win. Told through an absorbing story that is impossible to put down, the authors teach the essential lessons in an accessible way. Every business leader and IT professional should read this book!" -- Mike Orzen, co-author of the the Shingo Prize winning book Lean IT - Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation

"This book is a gripping read that captures brilliantly the dilemmas that face companies which depend on IT, and offers real-world solutions. As Deming reminds us, 'It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.' The Phoenix Project will have a profound effect on IT, just as Dr. Goldratt's book The Goal did for manufacturing." -- Jez Humble, co-author of the Jolt award-winning book Continuous Delivery and Principal at ThoughtWorks Studios

"This book is the modern day version of The Goal. Today, our constraints aren't robots inside our factories, but it's how we manage technologies like Tomcat and Java that power our most critical projects and applications. This book continues the journey that began with Shewhart, Deming, Ohno and Dr. Goldratt, and shows us how to diminish our modern constraints to help the business win." -- John Willis, VP Client Services and Enablement, enStratus, Host of "DevOps Cafe"

"This is the IT swamp draining manual for anyone who is neck deep in alligators." -- Adrian Cockcroft, Cloud Architect at Netflix
"This is the most amazing IT book I have ever read. Though it follows a fictitious company, the events are so real life that anyone in industry is going to relate to the story. Buy this book, read this book and then hand it to a senior manager in your organization." -- Stephen Northcutt, Fellow and President, SANS Technology Institute

"This insightful walk through the pain and success of business will trigger deja vu for anyone who has ever run afoul of their complete reliance in their IT organization. I see my own experiences in every stage of the story." -- Dr. Thomas Longstaff, Program Chair, Computer Science, Engineering for Professionals, The Johns Hopkins University

About the Author

Gene Kim is a multi-award winning CTO, researcher, and author. He is the founder of Tripwire and served as CTO for thirteen years. His books include The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, The Visible Ops Handbook, and Visible Ops Security.

Kevin Behr is the founder of the Information Technology Process Institute (ITPI) and the general manager and chief science officer of Praxis Flow LLC. Kevin has 25 years of IT management experience and is a mentor and advisor to CEOs and CIOs. He is the co-author of The Phoenix Projectand The Visible Ops Handbook.

George Spafford is a research director for Gartner, covering DevOps, technical change, and release management, in addition to the use of bimodal IT and the pace-layered application strategy. His publications include hundreds of articles and numerous books on IT service improvement, as well as co-authorship of The Phoenix Project, The Visible Ops Handbook, and Visible Ops Security.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ IT Revolution Press; First Edition (January 10, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 345 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0988262592
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0988262591
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.38 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 1.25 x 9.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #89,554 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #50 in Production & Operations
- #106 in Computers & Technology Industry
- #989 in Business Management (Books)

Customer Reviews:
(4.6) 19,461 ratings

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George Spafford
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George is a Research Director for Gartner covering process improvement in IT operations that leverage best practice references such as ITIL, COBIT, ISO/IEC 20000 and so forth. He is a prolific author and speaker, and has consulted and conducted training on strategy, IT management, information security and overall service improvement in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and China. His publications include co-authorship of “The Phoenix Project”, “The Visible Ops Handbook", “Visible Ops Security” and the IIA Information Security Governance guidance. His current areas of research include service design, complexity and operational processes.
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Gene Kim
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Gene Kim is a multiple award-winning CTO, researcher and author, and has been studying high-performing technology organizations since 1999. He was founder and CTO of Tripwire for 13 years. He has written six books, including The Unicorn Project (2019), The Phoenix Project (2013), The DevOps Handbook (2016), the Shingo Publication Award winning Accelerate (2018), and The Visible Ops Handbook (2004-2006) series. Since 2014, he has been the founder and organizer of the DevOps Enterprise Summit, studying the technology transformations of large, complex organizations.
In 2007, ComputerWorld added Gene to the “40 Innovative IT People to Watch Under the Age of 40” list, and he was named a Computer Science Outstanding Alumnus by Purdue University for achievement and leadership in the profession.
He lives in Portland, OR, with his wife and family.
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Kevin Behr
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Kevin Behr is the founder of the Information Technology Process Institute (ITPI) and the Chief Strategist for the CIO and Board Advisory Practice at Assemblage Pointe, where Kevin has built a unique consulting practice that mentors and coaches IT organizations to increase their business effectiveness and competitive advantage now and over the long term through the application of improvement sciences..
As a trusted mentor and advisor to chief executive officers and chief information officers around the world, Kevin blends his 25 years of IT management experience with his skills as a communicator, collaborator and synthesist to deliver powerful solutions to everyday business problems. He has held the post of CTO and CIO at companies ranging from public corporations to nimble technology start-ups. He is the author of several IT management books, including the exciting new business novel The Phoenix Project in tandem with the same author team as the bestselling Visible Ops Handbook, which he also coauthored with Gene Kim and George Spafford, and The Definitive Guide to IT Management, published by Hewlett Packard.
Kevin is a very popular keynote speaker and is frequently called on to address a broad range of technology and management topics by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, Hewlett-Packard, the SANS Institute, AFCOM and The IT Service Management Forum.
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4.6 out of 5

19,461 global ratings

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Matt

This is a must read!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 17, 2023

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I purchased this a recommended reading for work. I ended up actually enjoying the story and learning quite a bit along the way. This has helped me to identify several things I personally needed to work on and things to help my team and organization. I highly recommend this book for everyone in the workforce.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 1, 2023

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It is rare to read a business book that you cannot put down. Read this in two sessions while traveling. The analogy of Manufacturing Operations to IT Operations is spot on. Just-in-Time manufacturing and lean principles have a direct correlation to Agile DevOps (when done well). Having experience in manufacturing and IT helps to understand concepts in the book, but it is not required. I would highly recommend this to all my IT colleagues. Should have read this book years ago.

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KenHui

Karate Kid Meets DevOps

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 28, 2013

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First of all, I loved the book! With The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford has written one of the most thought-provoking IT books I've read in recent years.

The Phoenix Project is actually a novelization of DevOps principles rather than a strict how-to book on transforming IT Operations. It is written in the tradition of IT Novels such as the Stealing The Network series, which I read voraciously when I was learning about Information Security. I find the idea of using the genre of fiction to teach IT theory to be extremely effective, especially the concepts of DevOps, which are foreign to so many who are in the "traditional" IT space. The Phoenix Project provides a vivid use case that describes the dysfunctional relationship which exists, not only between traditional IT and the Lines of Business, but between different groups within IT itself. But not only does the book describe the problem, it offer a path to follow in order to transform IT into a true partner to the Business.

The protagonist in The Phoenix Project is Bill Palmer, newly promoted to VP of IT Operations for Parts Unlimited, a leading automotive parts manufacturer and retailer. The problem is that Palmer has been promoted because his managers were fired due to the failures of the IT department, particularly in completing a software initiative, called The Phoenix Project. This Phoenix Project is a software suite, developed in-house, designed to integrate manufacturing and retail while allowing Parts Unlimited to be more agile and nimble in accommodating to changes in market conditions. The project is intended to save the company, which has missed earning consistently and has fallen behind its main competitor; unfortunately, the project is millions of dollars over-budget and years late in delivery. Palmer is thrown on to the proverbial sinking ship and quickly caught up in one emergency after another and soon realizes that unless something quickly changes, The Phoenix Project is doomed to failure and along with it, Parts Unlimited. However, Palmer finds himself ill-equipped to understand and to implement the necessary changes to right the ship, especially when there is so much distrust and infighting within the IT organization and with the Lines of Business.

Then Palmer meets the enigmatic Erik Reid, a potential board member with some very unusual ideas for how to run IT Operations. Palmer is understandably skeptical but is soon drawn in as Reid takes him down the rabbit hole; through a series of encounters and events, Reid enlightens Palmer as to what is the true mission of IT and what must be done to make IT work as a partner to the Business. The truths that are discovered not only change Palmer but the entire culture of IT at Parts Unlimited.

I had two different reactions as I was reading The Phoenix Project. The first half of the book often made me reflexively reach for the Maalox as I found myself standing in Palmer's shoes, reliving outages caused by buggy code and miscommunication between IT departments. The second half of the book reads like the script from The Karate Kid, as we see Erik Reid, Aka. Mr. Miyagi, guide Bill Palmer, Aka. young Daniel, down the path to enlightenment about not only the methodology of DevOps but the cultural shift that is required for change. Sometimes the lessons involve seeing tasks that seem to have little value to sound IT Operations, but Reid is able to masterfully walk Palmer through the process until he sees the proper connections between Manufacturing Plant operations and IT Operations.

That relationship between Manufacturing Plants and IT was, for me, the key insight provided by the book. As Erik Reid succinctly states to Bill Palmer, "If you think IT Operations has nothing to learn from Plant Operations, you're wrong. Dead wrong. Your job as VP of IT Operations is to ensure the fast, predictable, and uninterrupted flow of planned work that delivers value to the business while minimizing the impact and disruption of unplanned work, so you can provide stable, predictable, and secure IT service." This is one of the best definition of IT Operations and also one of the most insightful statements on resource management that I've read to date. After all, what can be more basic to resource management, rather it be a data center, software development team, Cloud, or people, than ensuring they deliver value through the completion of planned work? Yet I would argue that because this is not the ultimate goal of many IT shops, they are easily sidetracked by the urgent and prevented from doing what is important.

The rest of the book shows how Palmer, with help from Reid, is able to inculcate a new culture in the IT department at Parts Unlimited so they can focus on the mission of saving the company by enabling the business of the company. Along the way, they learn about the four categories of work (business projects, internal IT projects, changes, and unplanned work), the Three ways, and the importance of Kanban. Each new discovery by Palmer and team is a call to action for IT departments that know they cannot maintain the status quo and must transform themselves to meet the demands of the current business environment.

I look forward to learning more and applying the principles from books such as the Phoenix Project. Now if only I could find a portable version of a Kanban Board!

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

A Compelling Novel about IT

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 8, 2013

Verified Purchase

I have to admit something, I love case studies. When a software development book starts throwing out "examples" of the methodologies being discussed, I tend to get interested in the story. I start paying closer attention. If they're well-written, I get very interested. Generally, I find myself wanting more. Naturally, I don't get this - the book is a dry technical reference on software development practices and not a novel. The fiction interspersed within is meant to keep you interested.

The Phoenix Project takes this idea to the somewhat strange conclusion. Instead of being an exploration of IT topics with fiction within it, this is a piece of fiction that is an exploration of IT topics. A particular IT topic, in this case - lean development and DevOps. For those not in the know - lean software development is an evolution of agile software development that attempts to take lessons learned from the factory line (especially Toyota and just-in-time management) and apply them to IT and development. Its been around a whilso; I recall attending a session at a conference about it at least five or seven years ago. DevOps is a much more recent concept that, I think, emphasizes a focus on all pieces of an application - not just the code, but its exeuting environment, its network, its process for being changed. Its a really new concept, and one st ill being explored (note that "The Visible Ops Handbook" is not actually a book, at this point).

The book follows the "adventures" of Bill, a newly promoted head of IT for an ailing automotive parts/retail corporation. The company's IT department has a history of failing to meeting obligations and having a revolving door management. This is particularly problematic given that it is also responsible for delivering "Project Phoenix", a massive undertaking to revolutionize the company. It is not going well, and it is made clear to Bill that delivering Phoenix is vital to the future of his career. Bill himself seems like a nice guy, and is definitely the "reluctant hero" of this tale; he had no particular interest in advancing in his career and had to be cajoled by the CEO of the company.

He quickly regrets this - the IT organization is an underfunded disaster, with failing infrastructure, absolutely no process or change management, and a single employee (Brent) who knows everything about everything. Bill's first day is spent running into a crisis involving the company's payroll, caused by the company's over-zealous head of IT security and leaving the company unable to print paychecks. It does not get better; Phoenix is quickly and clearly failing to meet a deadline pushed by a politicing SVP, whom has the power to push the CEO to demand its release on the unreasonable schedule of one week. No one working in the IT field will be surprised when this deadline proves a disaster, though in this case one of rather excessive scope. I will say at this point that it is clear the authors have been in one or more combinations of these disasters before - they write them vividly enough that I think anyone who has worked for a large IT organization will find themselves sympathizing with their plight and remembering past IT disasters of their own.

Bill is mentored in his "quest" by Erik. A quirky potential board member with a history in the technology industry. Erik completely serves as the sagely master in this novel. Most of his lessons take place at a local factory, where he illustrates his points about the four kinds of work and how to deal with constraints and how to move work through the system. His quirky personality works extremely well - picturing him as the Yoda of the novel wouldn't be entirely far off.

The book winds down to its conclusion through very interesting portrayals of corporate betrayals, triumphs, and even a character whom entirely changes their conception of their job and life. The end is, inevitably, triumphant - this probably wouldn't be an effective illustration of the principles the author wants to get across otherwise.

As a piece of fiction, I'm a fan of this novel. It manages to make a dramatic, interesting story about a bunch of employees in a corporation learning about a new IT methodology. It, mostly, avoids stereotypes - the characters are well-defined and have actual motivations. Even the aforementioned Brent is presented reasonably, as a helpful person who has simply been around forever. He's a problem, but more in the way his job has developed than any particular maliciousness. The weakest characters here are probably John, the head of IT security, and Sarah, the villain of the piece. I get the impression that the authors have no particular respect for the way IT security runs at most orgs, and Sarah is mostly here to be a pushy, political executive. It works, for the story, mostly because the actual villain is the IT process - Sarah is simply there show the failings and stomp on them until they break. The other flaw is that the characters, especially Erik, are prone to exposition - this is probably unavoidable given the goals of the novel.

In terms of this book's value as a work illustrating a new IT process, this is more mixed. They definitely explain all the points; I can't say I don't have an understanding of the four kinds of work at this point. The problem is that the book has limited value as the kind of reference guide that would be needed to put these thoughts into actual practice. This is one of the few novels I've ever read that could strongly benefit from an index. It could also strongly benefit from a companion volume that goes through all this in the more traditional manner. I suspect the "IT Ops Handbook" was meant to be that, but its impossible to say since that book does not yet exist.

Overall, I recommend this book. Its both a good read with an interesting, if unusual, story to tell, and certainly capable of getting one to think about the right ways to approach IT management.

12 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

The Pheonix Project is an IT Fable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

The Pheonix Project is an IT Management Fable, the characters are for the most part extreme representations of concepts and people you interact with in business. The scenarios though are all too realistic, failing companies due to poor ability to respond to the voice of the customer, overrunning major projects with no end in sight, heroics all around, a failure to understand the voice of the business with security demands, audit requirements and processes that add hours, days and months to lead times, despair and frustration from all quarters and open hostility not just between IT and the rest of the business but an IT civil war too. Yes Bill is almost magical at seeing the problems, Steve changes from antagonist to mentor too easily, I've never seen a change manager as willing to adapt as Patty, so on and so forth, but a story bogged down in meetings wouldn't be of much interest. Oh and Eric. You'll never work with Eric, if you do, follow him everywhere.

With these realistic problems that no doubt face most of us the Pheonix Project lays out a number of tools and approaches that will lead the reader to think "damn, that's a good idea" or "that's an amazing way of looking at it". There's a moment in the book (I got it on kindle first, but now I have a physical copy that's getting the highlighter treatment) where one of the executives more or less goes "well dur well done you've figured it out" to which another goes, "well why didn't you think to explain this to everyone?" we often assume that the obvious is obvious to everyone, it's like a person watching poker on TV who can see everyone's cards going "well that outcome was obvious" clearly it wasn't to the people playing who couldn't see the cards.

All in all this book should be a must-read for everyone in IT or work with IT, it sets out the groundwork for implementing lean principles in IT and I wish I'd read it years ago. To be honest I think anyone with aspirations to help improve workflow through an organisation should read this, and the Goal and then sit down and think about the lessons presented within.

42 people found this helpful

Omur

The book is pretty much about my daily life

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 21, 2018

Verified Purchase

I'm a Linux sysadm in an operations team. The book is pretty much about my daily life, all the struggles and problems. Half way through the book, I started considering leaving my job and open a kebab shop instead. Characters in the book are so real, I can see all of them Mon-Fri 9am-6pm!

I'm not depressed at all, no I'm fine. Really. Thanks. *inaudible weeping*

35 people found this helpful

Paul Mercer

Somewhat simplified view of Devops delivered as a novel, still a bloody good read though!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

The story takes place in a company besieged by the problems anyone in IT will be familiar with... Mismanaged projects, time and budget overruns, meddling managers with an inflated sense of self importance, arbitrary and un-achievable deadlines etc.

The story follows the life of the newly promoted IT Manager who is tasked with solving these problems and while tackling the issues he learns about DevOps. I found the book itself to be a very entertaining read and the concepts introduced both made sense withing the context of the story and reflect the real world issues a lot of us face as well.

The book does have a somewhat "accelerated" rate of adoption within the company, most real world scenarios would probably take considerably longer and be much more of a struggle with considerable more meeting - however I doubt many people who be enthralled by that. The story pacing certainly benefits from this approach.

The comparisons between IT and a typical manufacturing plant makes understanding the concepts underlying DevOps easier than speaking about them in the usual IT language.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who works in an IT / DevOps environment and wants an enjoyable read that also helps with the daily job.

13 people found this helpful

AnOldGoat

If you work in IT, read this.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

The really scary thing about this book is that I can recognise many of the characters, and probably name a few, from where I am!

From the frantic mess of the SAN upgrade (apparently) fighting the Payroll run in the opening section (we've all been there, done that, got the tee shirt <that is, if we are to be really honest with ourselves, folks, eh?>), to Brent and his knowledge of everything, with nothing documented.......

I grimaced at the developer who'd had to do a rushed change that broke, gone on holiday, and no-one knew. We all know that one.....

Its a gripping read, though understanding the mindset of Erik the guru is hard at times, and I'd have liked a little more domestic background.

6 people found this helpful

Amaz77919

Nothing new

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 9, 2022

Verified Purchase

The book explains concepts that are not new anymore and that many companies have adopted successfully through experimenting.
The story is boring and takes a big effort to finish it

3 people found this helpful

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The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win Hardcover – January 10, 2013

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