Just finished reading this IT novel by Gene Kim (Author), Kevin Behr (Author), and George Spafford (Author). If you are in Technology Operations management (the Big TOE – Technology Operations Executive) or just an individual contributor in this space, you will find it entertaining and hopefully informative and/or validating the problems, challenges or solutions you currently face or have tackled. Though I had a challenge with the rapidity of how they were able to turn around and transform their IT organization and subsequently turnaround the fictional company Parts Unlimited, the concepts and various solution sets were valid and effective approaches.

Without giving away the entire plot, Parts Unlimited faced almost every single problem I had to address and solve in my career. For me, it was hard to put the e-book down and I read the entire book in two sessions. It deals with the large issues of business / IT alignment, project prioritization, resource constraints, technical debt, Development and Operations collaboration, IT Delivery as well as the fairly basic Operations blocking and tackling like security issues, constant outages, change management, process optimization, and automation. It was familiar territory and like watching a movie you’ve seen before and know all the scary parts.

The novel follows Bill Palmer, an infrastructure manager who is thrust into the position of leadership across a broader aspect of IT. He finds systemic problems across the entire IT ecosystem and the business alignment and expectations of IT. With the help of a board member who functions as Yoda dropping hints, clues, and puzzles, Bill become an IT Jedi Knight and master. Erik, the board member assists, using a Jedi Mind trick, to insure Bill doesn’t get distracted by molehills as he has the department climb the seemingly unpassable mountain to IT and company salvation. The book carries as a premise, the metaphor of IT to manufacturing with customer requirements and expectations, due dates, raw materials and work centers.

For the existing aspiring or current operations executive, it is a reminder to elevate your thinking about what IT should be doing, how IT should and can work. Remember, only part of your job is getting things done. The other critical components are working on the right things and figuring out how to make your delivery process and organization more agile, business aligned, responsive, leading, and scalable while fixing cost structure, quality and improving IT time to value. Hint: what is the work of IT and what are your resources truly working on versus what should be worked on? Oh yeah, DevOps is only part of the solution set.

If you have a cross country roundtrip flight in your future schedule, downloading and reading this book is a wise investment. Just remember, it is a novel and nothing will be solved as quite as easily nor as quickly and perhaps not with the people or management / leadership you have. But it is fun, entertaining and makes you re-evaluate if you are working on the right things or doing things right…