The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

by Gene Kim

Everyone thinks that the real way to get work done is to just do it. That makes my job nearly impossible.

“Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, who created the Theory of Constraints, showed us how any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion.

“Your job as vp of it Operations is to ensure the fast, predictable, and uninterrupted flow of planned work that delivers value to the business while minimizing the impact and disruption of unplanned work, so you can provide stable, predictable, and secure it service.”

They’re telling analysts about the Phoenix roadmap? With so many features being delayed to the next release, I question the wisdom of making insufficiently informed promises to the market.

a term circuit designers use. The saying goes, “If you turn the circuit board on and no smoke comes out, it’ll probably work.”

Being able to take needless work out of the system is more important than being able to put more work into the system.

I’m pretty sure we don’t do any sort of analysis of capacity and demand before we accept work.

When you spend all your time firefighting, there’s little time or energy left for planning.

“It was a nightmare everyday. They had inventory piled up to the ceiling. And was there a systematic way to get wip through the plant? Hell, no! What got worked on was based on who yelled the loudest or most often, who could engineer the best side deals with the expediters, or who could get the ear of the highest ranking executive.”

“Let’s be honest,” Patty says. “Priority 1 is whoever is yelling the loudest, with the tie-breaker being who can escalate to the most senior executive.

Are we competitive? Understanding customer needs and wants: Do we know what to build? Product portfolio: Do we have the right products? r&d effectiveness: Can we build it effectively? Time to market: Can we ship it soon enough to matter? Sales pipeline: Can we convert products to interested prospects? Are we effective? Customer on-time delivery: Are customers getting what we promised them? Customer retention: Are we gaining or losing customers? Sales forecast accuracy: Can we factor this into our sales planning process?

“If you can’t out-experiment and beat your competitors in time to market and agility, you are sunk.

People everywhere in the business are using technology, so it’s like the Wild West again—for better or for worse.