The Phoenix Project

by Gene Kim

When they both give me a blank look, I say with some exasperation, “You have a magic wand. Use it!” “How big is the magic wand?” William asks. I repeat what I said to Maggie. “It’s a very powerful magic wand. It can do anything.” William walks to the whiteboard and points at a box called “code commit.” “If I could wave this magic wand, I would change this step. Instead of getting source code or compiled code from Dev through source control, I want packaged code that’s ready to be deployed.” “And you know,” he continues, “I want this so much, I’d happily volunteer to take over responsibility for package creation. I know exactly the person I’d assign, too. She would be responsible for the Dev handoff. When code is labeled ‘ready to test,’ we would then generate and commit the packaged code, which would trigger an automated deployment into the qa environment. And later, maybe even the Production environment, too.”