People actually write novels about DevOps – and an author spoke about his take at Dynatrace's Perform event

DevOps writer Gene Kim spoke at the Dynatrace Perform event last week, saying not a word about Dynatrace but focusing on technical debt and developer productivity. Kim is the author of "novels" The Phoenix Project (2018) and The Unicorn Project (2019), which describe DevOps principles as seen through the story of a fictional …

[Blackjack]

Rushing things at the last minute due to a deadline is bad but so is pushing people to work too much. Since it has been proven that lack of sleep and time to relax leads to more mistakes, sometimes to mistakes so evident they would catch them in seconds if they weren't deadly tired. When you push people to work overtime they just want the torture to end, they don't care about future consequences. Their brain is screaming at them to go to sleep and soon "good enough" becomes "does it run? If yes then say is finished."

[matthewdjb]

Nah. Does it syntax check?

[Anonymous Coward]

DevOps is a load of fiction

so writing novels is not a bad outcome.

This POV won't be agreeable to everyone but the comments by Blackjack should be compulsory reading for every manager in IT especially those who practice the dark arts of Agile, Scrum and especially DevOps.

I wonder what the next fad will be eh?

Let the downvoting begin...

[JWLong]

Re: DevOps is a load of fiction

Agile, what a styfilling concept.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: DevOps is a load of fiction

The next fad?

DevOps porn. You know it's coming.

[St33v]

It's actually quite good

I read the Phoenix Project when it came out. It is actually quite a fun read. Yes, it is a 'novel' in the same way as 'Who Moved My Cheese?', but it deals with important problems of organisational management.

Anything done badly will stink. But don't blame the idea. Maybe even try reading the book.

[optimist23]

Re: It's actually quite good

My only beef with Phoenix is that it's very similar to Eli Goldratt's classic The Goal. Unicorn takes a more original trajectory, and IMO is much better written.

[pardo_bsso]

Porn and Busses

Somedays, like today, my bus factor is steadily running towards zero or below.

About the devops porn: write me if you are interested in doing a performance related to that (still in draft stage)

[optimist23]

Televising the IT Revolution

Great to see Mr. Kim getting the recognition he deserves. In the shops I work in, these novels have inspired some of our most hardened cybersecurity enforcers to begin to see that things don't have to be done the old way, and that a lot of compliance can be baked in. It's also helped persuade dev teams to clue security in a bit earlier so they can capture the requirements in the design stages. There's still a long way to go, especially in government, but it's great to see the winds of change are finally making it into the ossified government sector. Every article like this will help raise awareness that it is possible to get to a state of superior security and compliance more effectively - and maybe even have a little fun getting there.

Thanks for the article, and thanks Gene for televising the IT Revolution.

[EnviableOne]

Bus Factors of one

Everyone has them, its just slight more sexy than talking about SPOFs