This book is timely and helping to drive a movement in Business IT operations. I witnessed it once and am doing so again. In 1986 I started out work in one of the production plants of a global consumer goods business. Being an engineer but new to production control I had to learn through APICS MRP (Material Requirements Planning) and MRP 2 (Manufacturing Resource Planning). I got first hand exposure to the then horrid current state. We had over 20 000 hours of WIP and it took an average of 20 weeks lead time to get jobs through the shop. Urgency and fire fighting missed deadlines was the way of working. It was untenable as we were killing ourselves. I was fortunate to be assigned to start work on an improvement initiative. I came across and read a book that was just staring to sweep the manufacturing world at the time - called the Goal. We implemented these principles on Theory of Constraints over a period of months and eventually we reduced the WIP to 3000 hours and throughput to less than 4 weeks. It was mostly practices and understanding, advanced software sophistication like automatic schedule optimisation came only as we cleaned house and wanted further optimisation.
Capitalising on this early success and riding the evolving ERP wave, I went on to eventually run global business and technology transformations. Getting to grips with building mission critical systems and delivering them for operations then updating them I always innovated and used what principles from this early learning I could to improve success and results in what limited way I could and it always worked. The issue was always a means to get broader understanding and buy in, as its "not the way it's done". I witnessed and helped the rise of the Waterfall Method with ERP and helped to necessarily transform it with hybrid agile on EPM/EDW transformation programs. I embraced the lean movement in software as an evolution to agile, and again the ground swell from the movement really helps delivering transformation program's.
But still up to today broadly speaking we are missing the big picture. Seeing at least 3 distinct functions and phases from Business need, a big slow transformation delivery team - then weak hand off to operations having consumed all time and budget - to either put in lock down and eventually redo again, there has to be a better way. Business never stops, as survival depends on it, and waits for nothing. Like water, business will find a way round every obstacle and in the process the business will succeed or not. We saw the start of this block and circumvention a few years back to current time with earlier and continued adoption by business bypassing IT ops and governance with business procured Cloud solutions like CRM as corporate IT is in lock down. Often for very good and valid reasons from IT perspective. But at a real overall cost and risk to business in the big picture this is no longer an option.
With the necessary formation of new organisation structures to enable fast competitive advantage, the growth of new data types and innovation everywhere - and the possibilities enabled by new technologies, it's truly necessary time to bring corporate - Enterprise IT and Business back together. Its imperative to create a true collaborative value added partnership - together. Business does need IT as everything is becoming digitised and IT must support and enable business to achieve its objectives. You don't and cannot outsource or lock down your means to innovation and you need technology to succeed. It's that simple.
As with the Goal and OPT movement almost 30 years ago this book is a clever pointer to the way forwards - starting from where at least many firms would recognise today they are at. Manufacturing firms would never go back to the days of MRP and push schedules and neither would Firms already reaping advantage of this path. The book points to the future orientation of the only way strategic IT and Business will function, actionable today. The book will stimulate thought and conversation with small teams sharing a common problem of finding a way forward, and start to introduce a common language and ideas in principle that can understood discussed aligned met and experimented with small focussed steps. We now implement many of these things into our programmes and operations and seek continuously to improve further. The process works. The quicker firms and teams and new transformation programmes wake up to this, surely the better off they will be.
If you are from the business or IT side of the equation, feeling stuck, pressed to do something, or just wondering what you could do or should do, and want to bring a team along with you by starting a conversation, you could do worse than circulating a copy of this book around the team and leaders - and scheduling a follow up meeting for a gentle brainstorm. You may be pleasantly surprised where you end up!
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Popular Highlights in this book
“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 7,174 Kindle readers- “every work center is made up of four things: the machine, the man, the method, and the measures.Highlighted by 6,164 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 5,899 Kindle readers
- “Remember, outcomes are what matter—not the process, not controls, or, for that matter, what work you complete.”Highlighted by 4,944 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 2,625 Kindle readers
From the Publisher
The Three Ways of DevOps
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The First Way of DevOps emphasizes the performance of the entire system, not a specific silo or department. The focus is placed on all business value streams that are enabled by IT. It begins when requirements are identified (the business or IT), are built (Development), and then transitioned into production (Operations). |
The Second Way of DevOps creates right-to-left feedback loops. The goal is to shorten and amplify feedback loops so that necessary corrections can be continually made. The Second Way facilitates understanding and responding to all customers, internal and external, and embedding knowledge where it is needed. |
The Third Way of DevOps encourages the creation of a culture that fosters continual experimentation (taking risks and learning from failure) and understanding that repetition and practice is the prerequisite to mastery. Practicing the Third Way of DevOps allocates time for the improvement of daily work, creates rituals that reward the team for taking risks, and introduces faults into the system to increase resilience. |
Gene Kim: Looking Into the Future
The problems that DevOps solves are at the center of what every modern organization is facing. When The Phoenix Project was first published in 2013, DevOps was primarily used in internet companies. Now, it has been amazing to see these principles and practices in large, complex organizations across every industry vertical. Now more than ever, technology is not just the nervous system of an organization—it actually composes the majority of the muscle mass. Without a doubt, the best times for technology are ahead of us, not behind us. There’s never been a better time to be in the technology field and to be a lifelong learner.
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cesar monroy perez
Interesante lectura
Reviewed in Mexico on June 12, 2023
cesar monroy perez
Reviewed in Mexico on June 12, 2023
Images in this review
Gabriel Medina Braga
An easy read and a must for every person involved with IT companies!
Reviewed in Brazil on December 27, 2022
Mariana Rossi Campos
Brilliant and entertaining book
Reviewed in Germany on January 27, 2024
jack
Phoenix Project: A Novel About It, Devops, And Helping Your Business Win
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 27, 2023