Having devoured the Unicorn Project first, I took my time and savoured the Phoenix Project. There is so much clever detail hidden in the conversations between particularly Bill and Patty. It pays dividends to analyse it closely.
What it shows us clearly is how easy it is to get overwhelmed by work in progress (WIP). Reading ‘The Phoenix Project’ won’t change any of that by itself; the lessons are there, clearly written on the pages. You will have to unpick your specific situation, learn to recognise your particular IT constraints, and find your own effective ways to protect and elevate them.
The continuous application of rigorous thinking to IT operations and development delivery can have a significant impact on your business and internal product portfolio, while reducing tech debt and MTTR. That’s what we are told. But what is the reality? When is the last time anyone in IT applied rigorous thinking to delivery outside of a few seminars or training sessions?
Worm Hole Alert
This is one of the principles of systems thinking: elevating yourself above the mechanics of everyday activity to see whether your activity is actually providing value to the customer. In The Goal, Eli Goldratt talks about looking in detail at what you’re actually doing. This is no different to W. Edward Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge. Both of these ways of understanding are core to what Erik Reid (the ultimate guru character in the book) says to the book’s protagonist:
“Until you gain a better understanding of what work is, any conversation we have about controlling work will be totally lost on you. It would be like talking about acrobatics to someone who doesn’t believe in gravity yet.”
Erik Reid, The Phoenix Project
This is totally valid. But I’ve been in enough situations where asking the basic questions about what we’re all doing here will not only get you funny looks, but also get you the sack.
While it is true that we are often so busy doing the things that make us feel comfortable, we don’t take the time to question why we do them. It’s also important to acknowledge how our work can subtly improve things with the right individual mindset.
Reading ‘The Phoenix Project’ may open your eyes to one way of doing things, but the lessons can only be applied if we’re able to give ourselves the time and space (and rigour) to not only attempt to apply them, but also find a natural way for them to come up in the conversation.
A Pinch of Salt to Enjoy
Fundamentally, you must answer what type of business you are, how IT both constrains and elevates your ambitions and what types of work you’re doing – and what results you want to achieve. But also, you need to think about the kind of role you have in your organisation, and if reading something like this and then preaching its values is actually going to make a difference to your approach in the context of your work.
Be careful. There are some interesting ideas in here, but applying them isn’t as simple as they make it sound in this novel.
I was so taken with the format; however, I wanted to add my voice to the canon. So I wrote Human Software as almost an antidote to The Phoenix Project’s preaching.