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The short version: The Phoenix Project is to IT what the best of the Harvard Business Review cases are to a business. It’s fictionalized, it’s realistic, and it provides the best set of lessons on...

Book Review - The Phoenix Project | Taos Blog FollowFollowFollow Cloud Services The Taos Difference Taos Platform Engineering Service Cloud Advisory Services Application Modernization Cloud Cost Advisory Cloud Security Assessment Consulting Services Cloud Platform Foundation Cloud Migration Services Security & Compliance Managed Services DevOps Now™ DevSecOps Now DataOps Now Hybrid Cloud Managed Services Remote Workspace Management Cloud Expense Management Industries Aerospace Defense Industrial Computer & Electronics Insurance Consumers Life Sciences Education Media & Entertainment Energy and Utilities Oil & Gas Federal Government Retail Financial State & Local Government Healthcare Telecom High tech Travel and Transportation Hospitality Partners AWS Google Microsoft Resources Case Studies Press Releases Newsletter Blog Ebooks Videos Webinars & Podcasts Glossary About Us Careers Executive Leadership Cloud Services The Taos Difference Taos Platform Engineering Service Cloud Advisory Services Application Modernization Cloud Cost Advisory Cloud Security Assessment Consulting Services Cloud Platform Foundation Cloud Migration Services Security & Compliance Managed Services DevOps Now™ DevSecOps Now DataOps Now Hybrid Cloud Managed Services Remote Workspace Management Cloud Expense Management Industries Aerospace Defense Industrial Computer & Electronics Insurance Consumers Life Sciences Education Media & Entertainment Energy and Utilities Oil & Gas Federal Government Retail Financial State & Local Government Healthcare Telecom High tech Travel and Transportation Hospitality Partners AWS Google Microsoft Resources Case Studies Press Releases Newsletter Blog Ebooks Videos Webinars & Podcasts Glossary About Us Careers Executive Leadership Contact Us Book Review – The Phoenix Project Jan 27, 2021 | Blog | 0 comments By Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford The short version: The Phoenix Project is to IT what the best of the Harvard Business Review cases are to a business. It’s fictionalized, it’s realistic, and it provides the best set of lessons on running a complex IT operations environment that I have seen anywhere. This should be required reading for senior-level IT leadership everywhere. If you’re prone to TL;DR, you can stop here! For Parts Unlimited, the Phoenix Project is a make-or-break IT project for the company. It’s of course way behind schedule, over budget, and going live in two weeks no matter what. BIll, our protagonist, has just been promoted from Director of Midrange Technology to VP of IT Operations. He inherits a department that’s behind on many projects (ranging from make-or-break-the-company to irrelevant), an over-stretched team, broken or nonexistent processes, and some real bottlenecks. With help from his mentor Erik (a potential board member and/or investor), Bill slowly starts to bring order to the chaos. There’s a painful initial triage to get Phoenix out the door, followed by a strong push towards process (starting with change management). Erik helps Bill learn what work is, how to manage work, and how to move IT from an impediment to the business to a key stakeholder and strategic partner. Erik uses a well-run factory to help Bill understand workflow — bottlenecks, the harm that re-work causes, Kanban, Kaizen, and the similarities between custom manufacturing and information technology. Some of the crucial changes include: Truly understanding the four kinds of work that an IT organization doesA simple, clear change management process, with regular CAB meetingsA focus on removing the crucial bottleneck — in this case, a very talented system/network admin named Brent who has a great deal of knowledge but has written down very littlePrioritization of projects — business-critical and preventative maintenance, and removing projects that don’t add valueLimited work in progress, to ensure team effectivenessCleaning up and standardizing processes, using what’s effectively a Kaizen Blitz on key bottlenecksCultural and technological adoption of DevOps processed and toolsA move from quarterly deploys to multiple deployments per day The book itself is very accessible (you do NOT need a deep technical background to appreciate the lessons!), the characters have depth, and the story is coherent and flows well. Most readers will see pieces of themselves in the characters’ roles, personalities, and challenges. Kanban is called out by name and explained well; Kaizen is embedded deep into the story but is not mentioned by name. The tools and techniques discussed do require some real leadership and willingness to be an agent of change, but they do not require expensive or complex tools, long ramp-ups, or enterprise software. All you need for a Kanban board is a wall and a pack of post-it notes, good change management is really about process, and brainstorming and bottleneck analysis really just need everybody in a room, talking around a whiteboard. Clear the non-critical items from your book backlog, move the Phoenix project’s card to the “Reading” column on your literary Kanban board, and start thinking about actually managing work instead of having work manage your team, department, or business unit. Have More Questions? Contact our team at Taos. We’d be happy to help. Links: http://www.methodsandtools.com/archive/archive.php?id=104 — An excellent description of Kanban http://itrevolution.com/books/phoenix-project-devops-novel/ — The Phoenix Project Search Search for: Most Recents Posts The value of platform security, compliance, and automation December 20, 2022 Taos awarded Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Company of the Year December 6, 2022 Avoid Cybercrime and Safely Shop Online with These 5 Tips November 23, 2022 Principles and Benefits of Platform Engineering November 10, 2022 Accelerate and Protect Business Outcomes with Kubernetes and Containers November 10, 2022 What’s Limiting Security’s Business Potential? October 26, 2022 Explore TaosServices Industries Partners Resources About Privacy policy ConnectLinkedIn Twitter YouTube [email protected] | 888-826-7686 Taos, an IBM Company, helps today’s enterprises and rapidly growing businesses harness the power of the cloud and DevOps with digital transformation and optimization solutions. 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