The Phoenix Project is a fiction novel about an IT department for a large car company that experiences management dysfunction and battles frequent technical debt, but ultimately overcomes it by adopting the best practices of DevOps.
I first read its non-fiction companion book, the DevOps Handbook, which got me drinking the Kool-Aid, but this is also a wonderful, breezy read (no small feat for such a technical topic) that is an even more gentle introduction.
Not only did these two books make me come to appreciate DevOps, they also taught me about Kaizen and Toyota Production Model, which DevOps began as a software translation of. Subsequently, I have also applied these principles to the field of screenwriting.
I am a little torn on The Phoenix Project. My first (and later) impression was that it was in some way really cheesy and 'show by example', but in the end it's a quick read and I actually liked it.
I think I wouldn't unequivocally recommend it because it could be hit or miss, so a bad choice for "one book only", but overall: yes, worth reading.
It's not the best technical book and it's definitely not the best fiction book, but I absolutely love that a hybrid of the two exists and wish there was more in the genre.
The reason I recommend it is because of how accessible it is. If I tell my friends to read a DevOps book, their eyes will glaze over a few sentences into my pitch. But when I tell them about this crazy idea for a book, they're usually interested enough to give it a shot.
I first read its non-fiction companion book, the DevOps Handbook, which got me drinking the Kool-Aid, but this is also a wonderful, breezy read (no small feat for such a technical topic) that is an even more gentle introduction.
Not only did these two books make me come to appreciate DevOps, they also taught me about Kaizen and Toyota Production Model, which DevOps began as a software translation of. Subsequently, I have also applied these principles to the field of screenwriting.