In The Phoenix Project, we introduced the Three Ways underpinning DevOps. In my follow-up book, The Unicorn Project, I revisit Parts Unlimited and describe my learnings through the Five Ideals. The First Ideal: Locality and Simplicity The Second Ideal: Focus, Flow, and Joy The Third Ideal: Improvement of Daily Work The Fourth Ideal: Psychological Safety The Fifth Ideal: Customer Focus These are five topics that I’ve constantly gravitated toward over the last decade, and I continually seek to … [Read more...]
DevOps Enterprise Summit London – Virtual: What to Expect, And Why I’m So Excited About It
Our first virtual DevOps Enterprise Summit is coming up in four weeks — and despite it being virtual, we are putting on a conference that is more than just a bunch of talks, and our goal is to keep you excited and engaged, just like we would at our physical events. INTRODUCTION Great physical conferences are magical. You learn from incredible talks, you’re exhilarated by being surrounded by the best in the game, you find fellow travelers who share similar goals and experience similar struggles … [Read more...]
Love Letter to Conferences (And What Makes Some Truly Amazing)
TL;DR: I share everything I’ve learned about what makes my favorite conference experiences so great and meaningful, and try to understand which elements are universal, applying to both physical and virtual events, and which ones can be changed. I share the experiences of having run an incredible three-day virtual event for 50 people, and share why I’m now incredibly confident that we’ll be able to replicate the magic of the best conferences at the upcoming Virtual DevOps Enterprise Summit—our … [Read more...]
Announcing my new podcast, The Idealcast with Gene Kim
Hello, everyone — I’m so pleased to announce the launch of my podcast, The Idealcast! On The Idealcast, I interview people I admire and have learned the most from, on topics I’m most passionate about — and you can learn with me. Each episode is typically around 90 minutes, where I ask some of the best experts in our community things I’ve wondered about for years. I am currently on a quest to understand the relationship between leadership, how organizations work, and how they can either create … [Read more...]
DevOps Enterprise Summit London is going virtual: A Letter from Gene
Hello, Everyone, Okay, at long last, we can finally announce our plans for DevOps Enterprise Summit London! Because of COVID-19, we will be conducting DevOps Enterprise Summit London as a virtual conference, held during the same dates (June 23-25, 2020), in the London timezone, closely matching the schedule of previous conferences. Speaking on behalf of the programming committee, our goal remains to create the best learning event for technology leaders, which includes bringing in the best … [Read more...]
Getting Your DevOps Enterprise Summit Presentation Submission Accepted (2020 Edition)
In 2017, I wrote this post (Getting Your Presentation Submission Accepted For DevOps Enterprise Summit In 2017) with some tips on getting your DevOps Enterprise Summit presentation proposal accepted. In that video, there is a link to a fantastic one-hour video that I did with fellow programming committee member Damon Edwards (co-founder of Rundeck), and Margo Cronin, whose submission we had accepted in 2016 when she was Head of Technology Architecture at Zurich Insurance (and now at AWS!). In … [Read more...]
Resource Guide To The Unicorn Project (Part 1)
First off, I want to thank everyone so much for all your support, encouragement, teachings, stories, and enthusiasm for The Unicorn Project. I am so delighted that we hit #2 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list for hardcover business books on the week ending November 30, 2019! I hope that having The Unicorn Project show up alongside other business books shows that the technology challenges we face today are genuine business challenges that cannot be delegated away to “those … [Read more...]
Announcing The First Audio Excerpt of The UnicornProject! (…it’s when I finally stopped worrying, because it’s when I learned that I really love this book!!)
To my surprise, among the top questions I’ve been asked about The Unicorn Project is, “When will the audiobook be available?” I've been so excited that the audiobook version of The Unicorn Project will be launched at the same time as the hardcover and ebook—and it’s been soooo difficult to not tell everyone about something cool that we were planning, just because there were sooooo many things that could go wrong… But, thanks to the hard work of the amazing IT Revolution publishing team, I can … [Read more...]
The Fourth Excerpt from The Unicorn Project is Now Available!
Hello! The fourth excerpt from The Unicorn Project is now available, in which Maxine succumbs to what has plagued the rest of the organization, starts to suspect where a massive investment in speed is needed to achieve the goals and aspirations of the organization, brings the Data Hub technical practices into the current century… ...and meets Maggie, the brilliant and formidable mind who wants to reimagine how Parts Unlimited engages with their customers… Here’s the link where you’ll find … [Read more...]
Love Letter To Clojure (Part 1)
In this blog post, I will explain how learning the Clojure programming language three years ago changed my life. It led to a series of revelations about all the invisible structures that are required to enable developers to be productive. These concepts show up all over The Unicorn Project, but most prominently in the First Ideal of Locality and Simplicity, and how it can lead to the Second Ideal of Focus, Flow, and Joy. Without doubt, Clojure was one of the most difficult things I’ve … [Read more...]
