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I stopped reading The Phoenix Project about halfway through... just read The Goal - it's better written and was the original source for the core ideas. Or, said another way, if you've already read any of Goldratt's books, you know the core ideas of the Phoenix Project. Are there other books that could more directly speak to implementation details, sure, probably.



I didn't read The Goal but one of the key point of the Phoenix Project is that the same principles that make a factory efficient (or inefficient) are exactly the same for software and IT.


That is general hand-wavy-way to say that things can be improved, in general.

The Goal actually specifies which misconceptions we have in many cases that leads to solutions that seem reasonable but are completely wrong! Without spoiling the whole book, but do look for the explanation in there for "statistical fluctuations" and "dependant events".

And then the Goal make you the reader come up with a solution that fits the factory environment (with the stat.fluctuations and dependant events) like a glove. A solution that creates a sort of a miracle for that time and place.

Other Goldratt books give more example, and more teachings, on how to look at practices everyone is doing wrong and appraising those using common sense. A favorite saying by Goldratt is that "common sense is not very common".

So just "solving problems" in an IT environment in most cases will lead to the wrong solutions, just because many people assume that solution X is the best solution without even looking at the problem THEY have. (GitFlow I am looking at you!)




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