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Comment by bakenator | Hacker News Reader

When managing people in tech, I think it is equally as important to know how to organize as it is to know how to lead. I would recommend "The Phoenix Project" and "The Unicorn Project" and "The Goal" to all tech managers.

No matter how good your communication/leadership skills are, your team will be severely handicapped if they are working in an inefficient/limiting environment.

Coming at the same lessons from a different perspective, I have also found "Turn The Ship Around!" to be a very good resource.

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"Turn the Ship Around!" has been awesome resource for our team, most definitely recommend

> I would recommend "The Phoenix Project" and "The Unicorn Project" and "The Goal" to all tech managers.

Goldratt's "The Goal" and its sequels are interesting reading, but please, please internalize the principles he was arguing from for the theory of constraints before trying to apply it to software. Otherwise you end up with "The Pheonix Project" (whose author is apparently making a nice living as a snake oil process consultant, according to friends who have dealt with his appearance in companies) which is the "software factory" mess of the 1980's rewarmed and shoved out the door again. Rather, go read Deming's "The New Economy" (just ignore the section on intrinsic/extrinsic motivation).

I'm not really following your criticisms on The Phoenix Project... Can you elaborate?

I didn't attempt to make a detailed criticism. Basically, it's the naive application of Goldratt's "The Goal" to IT. People have been trying to model IT processes on manufacturing for decades. Still doesn't work. The opinion of several engineers that I respect very highly who suffered from the author's consulting services makes me discount his work entirely.

If you read farther in Goldratt, the sequels to "The Goal", he refines the notion of constraints in very interesting ways that leave the factory floor. I don't think the author of the Phoenix Project ever got that.

Goldratt is excellent for optimising processes with well defined goals.

This is ofen true in business software.

If you want to optimise a learning process, The Principles of Product Development Flow is more relevant.

The two books (The Goal vs The Principles of Product Development Flow) give very different, seemingly opposite advice.

Would you mind expanding on how your friends suffered? What went wrong etc. Sounds interesting.

I haven't done a detailed debrief with them, so I can pass on an opinion and experience that I respect, but I can't expand without conjecturing.

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