Last week when traveling to China I finally had the time to read a book which I had on my “to read” list for a long time: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win.
I just posted a review up on Amazon.com and figured I would share it with my readers as well as I felt this book is worth promoting, although many of my fellow bloggers/tweeps have done this already. Let me copy the review for your convenience:
Reading the book one thing stands out is that it is all very recognizable if you have ever worked for a company which is moving in to new spaces and has a business relying on IT. I have been there and many of the situations sounded / felt very familiar to me. I found it a very enjoyable read and educational at the same time to a certain degree. Now here is he caveat, although it is a book about IT and DevOps it is very much written as a novel. This is something you need to take in to consideration when you buy is and when you read it, and ultimately review it. I felt that when you read it as a novel it is an excellent light and easy read with the right amount of details needed to help you learn about what DevOps can bring to your business. After reading the book I am actually left wondering if DevOps is the right term, as it is more BizDevOps then anything else. All of IT enabling the development of business through operational efficiency / simplicity.
The book was written by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford and the book revolves around an IT Manager (Bill) who is struggling to align IT agility / flexibility with business needs for the Phoenix Project. As I mentioned in the review many of the situations actually sounded very familiar to what I have experienced in previous roles before joining VMware, so I could relate to a lot of the challenges described in the book, and I think that is why is was also very entertaining. At the same time, it is humorous but also fairly light reading so before you know it you are a couple of chapters in.
In my Amazon review I mentioned that after reading the book I was left wondering whether “DevOps” was the right term as to many sys admins the connotation of DevOps seems to be a negative one. When reading the book, and looking back at my own experience the goal is allowing the development of business for your company and whether that is new business, increase of volume, or a full transformation is besides the point even. Key is that you will only get there when all of IT is aligned and working towards that common goal.
I don’t read too many IT books as typically they are dry and I struggle to get through them. Phoenix Project was the opposite, if you are like me then definitely give this a try. Although it is not a deep technical book, as I stated it is more a novel, I am sure everyone gets something out of it. I read the Kindle version, it was definitely worth the 9.99, but if you prefer a paper copy then you can find it on Amazon for less then 16 dollars which is still a great buy! Recommended read for sure!
Terry Jones (@quasijones) says
I finished reading this book on Saturday after it was recommended by a colleague. It is an interesting approach to use the form of a novel to communicate a complex topic such as this and applaud the effort. I agree with you that it does make the material more digestible but was often left wondering if as a consequence of choosing this vehicle a significant amount of detail had to be left our. I think the book would benefit from some footnotes and when I reached the end I was disappointed that there was no bibliography. (I now regret taking notes of the terms and techniques uncovered during the story, I’ll probably skim back through it with pen and paper in hand.)
What will you be reading as a follow-up?
Duncan Epping says
Don’t know yet what a great follow up is, I am going to read the devops cookbook next from the same authors, will let you know if it is any good. I agree that some more level of depth would have been nice in a way.
Wu says
Which city you visited in China? I’m in Xi’an. My blog is http://www.zhengwu.org 🙂
Duncan Epping says
Shanghai and Beijing!
Wu says
Thanks for replying. It looks like your blog is running on WordPress.com. If so, it’s blocked by China government, But somehow I still can access your blog by China network. May I know how you did it? Do you have something like CDN or ? 🙂
Duncan Epping says
It is using the wordpress engine, but not running on wordpress.com. I use a local provider where I have my own instance setup. Hence it works in China.