I never thought that I won’t be able to put down a book related to DevOps and it will end up being one of the most riveting stories I’ve ever read. Alas! I was wrong.
The book, as the name suggests, is about major initiative, named Project Phoenix, at a struggling auto parts company Parts Unlimited. It primarily revolves around Bill who suddenly finds himself as acting VP of IT in charge of delivering this project.
We follow Bill in a rollercoaster journey of constant firefighting, as he navigates the minefield of interfacing with development, marketing and compliance to bring sanity in the IT department. There is of course a backdrop of internal company politics. However, the book is not solely about DevOps or even IT. I would characterize it as a book on how to work in a team.
It brings up the key points in an organic fashion and in the context of the story, which helps you answer questions like - Why Kanban? Why deployment pipelines? Why packaging? Although most developers already rely on these, it is nice to see how we got here.
Learnings and Takeaways
- The Three Ways: First way - Systems thinking. Don’t think in silos, think about the whole systems. Second way - Amplify feedback loops. Third way - Culture of continual experimentation and learning
- Delivering content: This book could easily have been about presenting “The Three Ways” in an academic format - theory, proof and examples. But the way these concepts were etched into a beautifully crafted story made me appreciate the reasoning and motivation behind them. Moreover, I think this book is a perfect example of how content can be presented to have maximum impact.
- Looking outside the tech bubble: Throughout the book, there is constant reference to the manufacturing industry and drawing parallels with how a factory works. While these are very interesting parallels, it reminds me that problems (and solutions) may not necessarily be unique to your field. If you look outside, maybe you can draw some inspiration from other fields.
- Trust: We know how important trust is in any sort of team. However, I have never seen it conveyed in such an elegant form (some parts might bring a lump in your throat). I think the book does a great job of underlining a crucial component building trust - vulnerability.