I did software configuration management for most of my career. I did builds and deployments and managed source code trees. I built out and maintained development, test and staging environments. My friends and family never really understood what I did for a living. But they knew from experience that if a release was happening that weekend, they might not see me until Monday morning.

If The Phoenix Project had been around then, I could have just given them the book.  It’s a novel about IT, DevOps and Business that demonstrates the pain (and success) of being in IT.

The story triggered a heap of memories for me:

• Thinking that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, but they do.
• Being angry with the marketing department for celebrating a release when we were still fighting sev 1 production errors.
• Hearing someone expound on theoretical concepts and having no clue what it meant.
• Using Kanban to dig us out from under the train wreck.
• Seeing things finally turn around for the better.
• Getting home in time for dinner after a zero hotfix release!

It feels good to read a story that so closely describes the dilemmas I experienced.  Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford have created a truly entertaining read that people in IT will instantly recognize.  And now I have something to hand over to friends and family and say, “Here – this is what my job was like!”