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The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win Paperback – Illustrated, February 27, 2018
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“Every person involved in a failed IT project should be forced to read this book.”―TIM O'REILLY, Founder & CEO of O'Reilly Media
“The Phoenix Project is a must read for business and IT executives who are struggling with the growing complexity of IT.”―JIM WHITEHURST, President and CEO, Red Hat, Inc.
Five years after this sleeper hit took on the world of IT and flipped it on it's head, the 5th Anniversary Edition of The Phoenix Project continues to guide IT in the DevOps revolution.
In this newly updated and expanded edition of the bestselling The Phoenix Project, co-author Gene Kim includes a new afterword and a deeper delve into the Three Ways as described in The DevOps Handbook.
Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must 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 a 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.
“This book is a gripping read that captures brilliantly the dilemmas that face companies which depend on IT, and offers real-world solutions.”―JEZ HUMBLE, Co-author of Continuous Delivery, Lean Enterprise, Accelerate, and The DevOps Handbook
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.
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherIT Revolution Press
- Publication dateFebruary 27, 2018
- Dimensions6.05 x 1.17 x 8.99 inches
- ISBN-101942788290
- ISBN-13978-1942788294
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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 6,912 Kindle readers
“every work center is made up of four things: the machine, the man, the method, and the measures.Highlighted by 5,954 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 5,655 Kindle readers
“Remember, outcomes are what matter—not the process, not controls, or, for that matter, what work you complete.”Highlighted by 4,756 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 2,520 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.
Product details
- Publisher : IT Revolution Press; Third edition (February 27, 2018)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1942788290
- ISBN-13 : 978-1942788294
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.05 x 1.17 x 8.99 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,541 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in Production & Operations
- #10 in Computers & Technology Industry
- #73 in Business Management (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the authors

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.

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.

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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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!
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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Reviewed in Mexico on June 12, 2023
Addicting to read in its romance format, no matter in which area of IT you work on, frontend, backend, or something more "scientific" as developing AI models, you will absolutely learn something new and important!
Apresenta histórias e lições muito familiares para quem trabalha com TI, tanto em empresas grandes quanto pequenas ou de médio porte.
Viciante de ler em seu formato de "romance", independente da área de TI que você trabalha, seja no front, no back, ou até mesmo com atividades "mais científicas", como desenvolver modelos de IA, você irá aprender algo novo e importante com certeza!
The fact that well-meaning people keep breaking things for perfectly valid reasons is shown really well there. If only getting an organization to buy into this type of management/stucture/process was this easy though. I've been part of intiatives where we bashed out heads against the wall for months (Even with executive sponsorship) without moving the needle. With that in mind though, the impacts of implementing this type of tracking and rigor to your organization/group/initiative is critically important.
While this book was clearly written with IT leaders in mind, I would make this required reading for anyone that's involved in any aspect of IT projects and delivery. Heck, I'm primarily in sales, and this made me aware of ways that I could improve my cycles and how to discuss and help deliver projects to my clients.
Even if you don't believe in the methodology as outlined in the book, there's still a lot of good you can pull out of it.
The one downside of this book is that the way interpersonal relationships among the various characters are handled is just bad. All of these characters need to take some leadership and interpersonal dynamics courses...I could see how people in a real-world shop with similar dynamics would consider the environment toxic. It makes the quick buy-in and adoption of these programs all the more difficult, letting people slag each other openly in meetings with the VP not standing up for members of his team is just not a good way to get things going in business.
That's a minor nitpick in what is otherwise a great book with some truly great ideas as to how to identify, manage and resolve issues with IT teams and processes.



















