Skip to content

The Phoenix Project

By Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

Purchase
Bulk Purchase

Book Available Now On:

EBook Available Now On:

Audiobook Available Now On:

In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they’ll never view IT the same way again.

  • Original Publication Date January 10, 2013
  • 4th Edition Publication Date September 3, 2024
  • 5th Anniversary Edition Pages 352
  • Paperback Dimensions 6 x 9 inches, black and white
  • 4th Edition Paperback ISBN 9781950508945
  • 4th Edition eBook ISBN 9781950508969
  • Audiobook ISBN 9781942788348

Features

  • Start Here

    Industry thought leaders Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford have created an effective, entertaining allegory as an accessible introduction to DevOps and the principles behind it.

  • Three Ways

    Learn the Three Ways and the Theory of Constraints, the underpinning principles of DevOps.

  • Work Types

    Discover the four types of work and why they matter to a successful organization.

  • All Levels

    This bestselling fictionalized example of a company struggling with the growing complexity of technology and business is for all readers trying to help their company succeed.

About the Book

Bill, an IT manager at Parts Unlimited, has been tasked with taking on a project critical to the future of the business, code named Phoenix Project. But the project is massively over budget and behind schedule. The CEO demands Bill must fix the mess in ninety days or else Bill’s entire department will be outsourced.

With the help of a prospective board member and his mysterious philosophy of The Three Ways, Bill starts to see that IT work has more in common with a manufacturing plant work than he ever imagined. With the clock ticking, Bill must organize work flow streamline interdepartmental communications, and effectively serve the other business functions at Parts Unlimited.

In a fast-paced and entertaining style, three luminaries of the DevOps movement deliver a story that anyone who works in IT will recognize. Readers will not only learn how to improve their own IT organizations, they’ll never view IT the same way again.

Gene Kim
Kevin Behr
George Spafford
1 3
Gene Kim

Gene Kim

Gene Kim has been studying high-performing technology organizations since 1999. He was the founder and CTO of Tripwire, Inc., an enterprise security software company, where he served for 13 years. His books have sold over 1 million copies—he is the WSJ bestselling author of Wiring the Winning Organization, The Unicorn Project, and co-author of The Phoenix Project, The DevOps Handbook, and the Shingo Publication Award-winning Accelerate. Since 2014, he has been the organizer of DevOps Enterprise Summit (now Enterprise Technology Leadership Summit), studying the technology transformations of large, complex organizations.

To Author Archive
Kevin Behr

Kevin Behr

Kevin Behr is the founder of the Information Technology Process Institute (ITPI) and the Chief Strategist for the CIO and Board Advisory Practice at Assemblage Pointe, where Kevin has built a unique consulting practice that mentors and coaches IT organizations to increase their business effectiveness and competitive advantage now and over the long term through the application of improvement sciences. As a trusted mentor and advisor to chief executive officers and chief information officers around the world, Kevin blends his 25 years of IT management experience with his skills as a communicator, collaborator and synthesist to deliver powerful solutions to everyday business problems. He has held the post of CTO and CIO at companies ranging from public corporations to nimble technology start-ups. He is the author of several IT management books, including the exciting new business novel The Phoenix Project in tandem with the same author team as the bestselling Visible Ops Handbook, which he also coauthored with Gene Kim and George Spafford, and The Definitive Guide to IT Management, published by Hewlett Packard. Kevin is a very popular keynote speaker and is frequently called on to address a broad range of technology and management topics by organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences, Hewlett-Packard, the SANS Institute, AFCOM and The IT Service Management Forum.

To Author Archive
George Spafford

George Spafford

George Spafford is a research director for Gartner, covering DevOps, technical change, and release management, in addition to the use of bimodal IT and the pace-layered application strategy. His publications include hundreds of articles and numerous books on IT service improvement, as well as co-authorship of The Phoenix Project, The Visible Ops Handbook, and Visible Ops Security.

To Author Archive

"The Phoenix Project is a must read for business and IT executives who are struggling with the growing complexity of IT."

Jim Whitehurst

President and CEO, RedHat, Inc.

"Every person involved in a failed IT project should be forced to read this book."

Tim O'Reilly

Founder & CEO of O'Reilly Media

"This book is a gripping read that captures brilliantly the dilemmas that face companies which depend on IT, and offers real-world solutions."

Jez Humble

Co-author of Continuous Delivery, Lean Enterprise, Accelerate, and The DevOps Handbook

"A must-read for anyone wanting to transform their IT to enable the business to win. Told through an absorbing story that is impossible to put down, the authors teach the essential lessons in an accessible way. Every business leader and IT professional should read this book!"

Mike Orzen

co-author of the the Shingo Prize winning book Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation

"This book is the modern day version of The Goal. Today, our constraints aren't robots inside our factories, but it's how we manage technologies like Tomcat and Java that power our most critical projects and applications. This book continues the journey that began with Shewhart, Deming, Ohno and Dr. Goldratt, and shows us how to diminish our modern constraints to help the business win."

John Willis

Senior Director Global Transformation Office, Red Hat

Similar Resources