THE PHOENIX PROJECT: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
In our digital era, Information Technology (IT) is crucial to any organization. Yet, many companies fail to leverage IT effectively to create a real competitive advantage. They treat IT as a separate department, resulting in silos and conflicts between IT and other business functions. Using a novel, this book shows the complex relationship between IT and other business functions. It also shows how intangible IT processes can be managed like a well-oiled factory. More importantly, when IT is properly integrated into the business, you’ll avoid costly disruptions and be able to use IT to improve all aspects of your business. This is a must-read for (i) IT professionals who wish to broaden their business perspectives and improve their results, and (ii) any business manager or leader who wants to use IT more effectively in their organizations.
In this summary, you’ll learn:
• The common problems and challenges that lead to IT outages, late projects and budget overruns. See how various factors (including politics, communication gaps, conflicting goals/priorities, lack of discipline/rigor, lack of resources) add up to create a vicious cycle.
• The roles of key IT functions (e.g. Development, Operations, Quality Assurance, and Information Security) and how they affect other business functions (e.g. Finance, Marketing, Sales, Retail Ops). Understand the common dilemmas and challenges faced by various business managers and leaders.
• How proven manufacturing principles and frameworks can be applied to improve your IT processes and outputs. Specifically, understand the 4 types of IT work, learn how to visualize your DevOps value flow, and how to apply the Theory of Constraints to multiply the speed and quality of your IT projects.
• The Three Ways to leverage IT to win in business.
Who should read this:
• IT professionals, including developers, engineers, people in QA, Dev, IT Ops and IS functions
• Business owners, managers, and leaders, especially those in large organizations
