Resuming The Phoenix Project

If you’ve never read The Phoenix Project, and you give a hoot about DevOps, you’re missing out. It’s a perfect blend of academic information about systems thinking, a lot of Lean methodology information, blended with a narrative that resonates so well with people going through a DevOps change, it almost doesn’t seem like fiction. It’s by Gene Kim et al., the creator of the DevOps Enterprise Summit. I have not attended, but I hope to this year. I’ve spent many an hour on their youtube channel though, also can’t recommend highly enough. If you have read it, it is worth re-reading. The first pass, as I was learning about The Three Ways, it was hard to plot my current team on that axis.

I’m half-way thru, and it never ceases to amaze me how the internal thoughts of the main character mimic my own. The hostility he feels from some people in his orbits, when he’s making significant changes that show real results in a short time, creates a rise in me while I’m reading the book. But I can relate, and it also helps, soothes, to know that I’m not alone, and that changes like this often cause friction from people you’d hope would be early adopters. I’ve read it in fits and starts, always wanting to learn more about the meat of the solutions offered, and get back to the book later. It always surprises me how when I pick it up, I can relate with the scenario the character is facing that chapter.