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Phoenix Project discussion questions
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phoenixStudy.adoc

Phoenix Project discussion questions

Trying gist as the channel here, rather than a full repo which seems too heavyweight (but I don’t want to roll these into an existing repo).

Will be updated as the semester progresses.

Note on syllabus. Phoenix Project works well as a semester long read, with 3 chapters per week, assuming 12 active class weeks (semesters are typically 14 weeks, including intro & final).

For full context, the primary text for this class (SEIS664, IT Delivery, Graduate Programs in Software at University of St. Thomas, Minnesota) is the Digital Practitioner Body of Knowledge (https://pubs.opengroup.org/dpbok/standard/DPBoK.html). The class is "flipped" and class sessions are primarily lab (not lecture), with a strong hands-on emphasis (Linux, containers, cloud, infracode, etc).

Week 1 Intro & Ch 1-3

Week 2 Ch 4-6

Week 3 Ch 7-9

Week 4 Ch 10-12

Week 5 Ch 13-15

Week 6 Ch 16-18

Week 7 Ch 19-21

Week 8 Ch 22-24

Week 9 Ch 25-27

Week 10 Ch 28-30

Week 11 Ch 31-33

Week 12 Ch 34-35

Week 1 Intro & Ch 1-3

These questions in particular are dependent on the DPBoK, CA 1 (https://pubs.opengroup.org/dpbok/standard/DPBoK.html#KLP-digital-xform). The rest are more directly focused on the book.

  • What identifiable IT outcomes are desired by Parts Unlimited?

  • What parts of the IT lifecycle are mentioned?

  • Who are the consumers, sponsors, and customers at Parts Unlimited?

Week 2 Ch 4-6

  • At the beginning of Chapter 4, we start to hear about conflicts between Development and Operations. Have you had any life experiences where two groups did not get along (work, school, community).

  • Chapter 5: the audit findings. Discuss with your team and determine how much you understand as a group. We will discuss as a class.

  • Chapter 6: Change management. They can’t agree on what a change is. What do you think of their definition?

Week 3 Ch 7-9

  • In chapter 7, Bill suggests “we need more rigor and discipline in the way we work.” What does this mean to you? What examples from your experience can you relate?

  • The Three Ways of DevOps are "Fast flow, Feedback, Learning." You may spend a long time understanding these concepts, but what do they mean to you today?

  • Chapter 8: Have you ever had too much work in your backlog? How have you dealt with it?

  • Chapter 9: Discuss “business” versus “internal IT” projects. Think of examples.

Week 4 Ch 10-12

  • Chapter 10. Have you ever met a Brent? (In any area of life, not just tech.) Or found yourself being one?

  • Chapter 11. Have you ever been in a situation where work in process was out of control? Explain or describe. How did you address it?

  • Chapter 12. Consider the statement “Look, it’s running on my laptop.” Discuss the situation they are in, versus what you are learning about containers and infrastructure as code.

Week 5 Ch 13-15

  • Chapter 13. Have you ever been a part of an ongoing crisis or intense work effort where you were asked to be active for extended periods? What happened? How did it affect you?

  • Chapter 14. Outsourcing IT. What do you think of this as a strategy, given what they have just gone through with the Phoenix launch?

  • Chapter 15. Think about “unplanned work.” What in your life can you relate this to?

Week 6 Ch 16-18

  • Chapter 16. Discuss the word "blameless" as used in this chapter. Do you think any discussion of a high severity incident can ever be truly "blameless"? Why or why not? Review https://pubs.opengroup.org/dpbok/standard/DPBoK.html#KLP-ops-response.

  • Chapter 16. Under what circumstances would you quit employment abruptly?

  • Chapter 17. Have you ever had to admit you were wrong to someone who had less power than you, and make amends? Discuss.

  • Chapter 18. IT outsourcing was discussed in chapter 14. How are Steve’s views changing? What do you think of his evolving view of IT within the company?

Week 7 Ch 19-21

  • What do you think of the sharing session? Does something like this have a place in a work environment? How much do you trust your co-workers?

  • Steve observes, "I’m pretty sure we don’t do any sort of analysis of capacity and demand before we accept work." What does this mean to you? Could they adopt something like the plant floor process?

  • Consider the statement, ‘Improving daily work is even more important than doing daily work.’ Do you agree? Disagree? Any examples?

  • Discuss the audit review. What happened? Explain to each other as best you can and develop a summary.

Week 8 Ch 22-24

  • Consider the project prioritization problem. Describe in your own words the principle that Bill proposes to help solve the problem.

  • Review in detail the queuing discusson in chapter 23. Where have you encountered chained or dependent queues, and have you encountered issues of delay or too much work in process? Have you ever experienced an oversaturated queue?

  • Have you, or anyone you’ve known, ever "hit bottom" like John in his personal crisis? What coping strategies do you have or have you seen people use?

Week 9 Ch 25-27

  • (Chapter 25) "Finance can hit all our goals and the company can still fail." Discuss. What systems are you part of?

  • Think of the most powerful executive you know, or deal with on any basis. What seem to be their concerns? Can you draw any parallels to the discussions in Chapter 26?

  • (Chapter 27) Discuss the table of various IT services relied on by the executives they visit (CFO, Sales, Marketing) and the consequences for when they fail. Note any where you do not understand the service or why it presents risk and discuss in class.

Week 10 Ch 28-30

  • (Chapter 28) From a governance, risk, and compliance standpoint discuss the issues with Sarah’s use of external vendors. If you are also reading in the DPBoK, discuss in terms of Competency Area 10 (https://pubs.opengroup.org/dpbok/standard/DPBoK.html#gov-chap).

  • (Chapter 29) Consider the statement: "An inevitable consequence of long release cycles is that you’ll never hit the internal rate of return targets, once you factor in the cost of labor." What do you think of the strategic decision to separate out a smaller team to focus on high value features? Consider especially from a governance perspective. Optionally, review discussion in the DPBoK on Cost of Delay and consider also from that perspective.

  • (Chapter 30) It’s been 10 years since the legendary "10 Deploys a Day" presentation (a true event) mentioned in this chapter. Are increasingly frequent deployments less risky? More risky? Discuss.

Week 11 Ch 31-33

Week 12 Ch 34-35

  • (Chapter 34) The mainframe MRP application — boring, not strategic, and so outsourced — turned out to be business critical. Have you ever seen a company (or a person, or a family) take something for granted and ignore the implications of doing so?

  • (Chapter 35) In many companies, IT reports to the Chief Financial Officer. This usually means the organization thinks of IT only as a cost center. However, Steve’s proposal to Bill is that he become the Chief Operations Officer. Discuss. What has Steve now realized? Feel free to look up online descriptions of these two roles.

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