Management Archives

The Phoenix Project: Book Overview and Lessons

Is the book The Phoenix Project worth reading? What can IT departments learn from the business parable? In The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford present a fictional case study of a business that’s failing because it doesn’t align the work of IT services with the company’s goals. The authors then show how an IT department can turn itself around and get back in the game. Keep reading for a The Phoenix Project book overview, as well as the lessons you can learn from the authors.

The Three Ways From The Phoenix Project—Explained

What are The Three Ways from the book The Phoenix Project? How can you make your IT development teams run more smoothly? None of the problems of IT are insurmountable, but authors Kim, Behr, and Spafford argue that addressing them requires completely rethinking how IT work is done. The Three Ways from The Phoenix Project can be summed up as fast workflow, quick feedback, and continual improvement. Continue reading for a detailed overview of The Three Ways.

The First Way: Create a Fast Workflow (The Phoenix Project)

What is the first of the Three Ways from The Phoenix Project? How can you create a faster, more efficient workflow among your IT team? In their book The Phoenix Project, authors Kim, Behr, and Spafford lay out the three ways to improve your IT department. The First Way involves improving the department’s workflow, which isn’t always an easy task. Here’s a look at The First Way and how you can increase the speed of your IT department.

The 2nd Way: Create Feedback Cycles (The Phoenix Project)

What is The Second Way from The Phoenix Project? Why is a quick feedback cycle essential to IT departments? In The Phoenix Project, Kim, Behr, and Spafford demonstrate how work management principles developed on factory production lines can be applied in an IT environment. The three foundational pillars of production can be summed up as 1) fast workflow, 2) quick feedback, and 3) continual improvement. Continue reading for an overview of The Second Way and how to implement it.

Productivity Paranoia: Experts Explain the Challenges

What is productivity paranoia? What problems does it cause? How can we overcome it? While 87% of employees in hybrid jobs feel they’re working productively, only 12% of leaders agree. Experts claim that productivity paranoia is driving this discrepancy, causing employers to rely more heavily on tracking software to monitor workers’ every move. Read on to learn more about productivity paranoia and the challenges it presents, according to experts.

Why a Continuous Improvement Culture Is Necessary in Business

5 Steps to Practicing Empathy in the Workplace

What is a continuous improvement culture? Why should IT departments deliberately introduce faults and design flaws into the production line? In their book The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford stress the importance of continuous growth in a company. Without growth and the ability to make mistakes, the workplace becomes toxic and stagnant. Here’s how and why you should create a culture of continuous improvement in your company, IT or not.

The 2 Most Common Workflow Problems & How to Fix Them

What are the most common workflow problems? How can these problems lead to a complete standstill of work? How can they be overcome? According to the book The Phoenix Project, the two biggest workflow problems when it comes to IT departments are unexpected work and bottlenecks. Unexpected work often results in bandaid solutions and bottlenecks limit the speed of production. Here’s a deeper look at why these two workflow challenges are so problematic.

How to Navigate Innovation Project Management

What’s the biggest challenge when coming up with a creative idea for a product? What are the best innovation project management strategies? Innovation projects present unique challenges when it comes to project management. After all, innovation involves overturning conventions and doing things that have never been done before. To make your product a reality, you must believe that you can successfully manage an innovative project. Below we’ll discuss how different authors recommend managing innovation projects.

3 Reasons Why We’re Addicted to Reactive Problem-Solving

Are you more likely to reach for an ambiguous solution or a clear one? How does a problem’s urgency affect your approach to solving it? Dan Heath argues that people should always strive for upstream solutions because they tend to have longer-lasting benefits and provide opportunities to reduce human suffering. But, we typically gravitate toward reactive problem-solving instead. Keep reading to learn three reasons why we’re biased in this direction.

Why Your Company Needs a Corporate Story & How to Craft One

Do you talk about your company’s timeline, only to have people tune out? How well do people know the journey that your organization is on? In his book Unleash the Power of Storytelling, Rob Biesenbach contends that you can make any message much more compelling by simply telling a story. He shares his practical template for a narrative that explains your company’s history, mission, and values in an engaging way. Read on to learn the importance of a corporate story and how to create one for your organization.