Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps

Unlike most books discussing DevOps, this book had a great storyline while still injecting the principles of DevOps. I would recommend this to anyone who is Learning about DevOps. I was not able to put this book down, many times I thought the authors were in my office or had it wired because the situations that the team faced, the arguments, the finger-pointing, and the one person willing to risk it all is what happens in my office.

A great lessons learned written in the style of The Goal Don't be the bottleneck or constraint

Listened during my commute.

Excellent book. I recommend it.

Nice informative background on the origins and evolution of DevOps.

Whether you've read The Phoenix Project or not (if you haven't you really should), this title provides some great insights into the important philosophies and practices that are essential to the DevOps movement. The Phoenix Project tells a great story and Beyond The Phoenix Project helps us understand the "why". Sticking to the valuable communication method of the story, Gene and John exchange some stories in a compelling dialog that not only shines the light on the concepts and their authors, but also gives you an appreciation for the thought journeys they have taken. It helped me understand that absorbing and applying some of these important elements is a process. If you're hungry to learn more about the people and practices that are shaping and maturing the IT world, this is for you. It's filled with lots of pointers to works that will allow you to dig deeper into the topics that interest you. For example, it inspired me to listen to Goldratt's "Beyond the Goal" and I came away from that with several valuable insights. Personally, my favorite modules were on Safety Culture and Learning Organizations. I think these two are absolutely critical in high performing organizations and Gene and John do a swell job of relaying the important aspects and giving pointers to additional resources. On that topic, I'll happily plug Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations and The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations as they also provide some great information on these topics. This is an easy title to sneak in 15-30 minutes of listening a day and I really think you'll come away with some thoughts that will serve to make you a better leader and that will help your IT organization.

It’s well written, but skipped over what I really wanted to hear - like *how* you got continuous deployment or how everyone focused on fixing bugs (no grumbling mentioned). The change was led by the acting department head, which helps a lot to get buy-in. A lower ranking employee would not get that luxury. It still gives great main concepts & is thoroughly researched. Fun to read/to listen to. The accompanying book, beyond the Phoenix project is also worth a read/listen. Plug for Making Work Visible. I’ve read that 4 times now. All their books are good. :)

" The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win " was required reading along my journey to understand the principles and practices of Lean Thinking and how they might be applied to software development. I had read Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results , The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement , and This is Lean: Resolving the Efficiency Paradox , but I really hadn't connected all of the dots until I immersed myself in "Beyond The Phoenix Project" on a cross-country flight. Gene's and John's tale of their journey from traditional software development, through Lean Thinking, to their current destination, DevOps, is both informative and highly enjoyable. I describe it as a "DevOps Master Class" that begins with historical context from Deming and Lean Manufacturing and arrives at contemporary topics such as Learning Organizations and Continuous Delivery. Along the way, they share a bevy of stories from their own experiences and those of other thought leaders in software technology. Simply put, DevOps represents how software is developed and deployed in the age of cloud computing and software as a service. Anyone who wants to rapidly deliver valuable functionality to their users ought to understand the DevOps principles, practices, and tools that enable nimble and agile software delivery. Anyone (especially software engineers and the people who support them) who wants to understand WHY those principles, practices, and tools lead to success should immerse themselves in "Beyond the Phoenix Project".