I just recently finished listening to, The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford. It was both a confirmation of the day to day struggles for those of us working in Information Technology and an enlightening book. I’m currently working in the retail vertical so the fictional Parts Unlimited story had many similarities to my current day responsibilities and struggles. In my personal career I’m currently challenged with making the leap from being a “Brent” type resource to trying to figure out how to best manage a large infrastructure and a medium sized team all while trying to be a force multiplier for the organization as a whole. It’s not enough that you can quickly identify a problem and correct it, you really need to disseminate that skillset to your entire team thereby being a force multiplier.

Almost every aspect of the book matched some experience I’ve had over the past 20+ years working in IT. All too often IT is viewed as just a cost center or a road block when IT should be an integral part of the business. In the end of the book everything worked out for Bill and his team, unfortunately the real world isn’t all that easy, in some cases there’s no convincing the captain that he/she should change course until the ship literally hits the rocks and sinks, and then you can say “I told you so”.

If you’ve read the book let me know what you thought? If you haven’t read or listened to the book I would highly recommend it.

Cheers!