This week our book club talked about chapter 19 and the final parts of the book.
Chapter 19
- Parts Unlimited is fully bought into sharing quarterly innovations. Jameson said the challenge in practical implementations is motivating people to participate in it, especially if it’s voluntary (i.e., in addition to their regular work). Also, how would you inspire people to participate given that things in the company have been rough up to this point? Houston said it’s worth remembering that there have been wins along the way to provide hope to others.
- Geoff played Devil’s advocate and posited whether Sarah, as much as she’s disliked, was the push Project Phoenix needed. That is, if she hadn’t mandated that the project was going live in two weeks instead of when the developers said they were ready, would the Unicorn Project and the Rebellion exist?
- Dennis said the series of town halls in this chapter reminded him of Steve Ballmer’s chants.
- Houston enjoyed the new mandate from Steve that everyone takes 2 hours each week to teach or learn. Houston’s current team has this same setup (called saw sharpening).
- We discussed the real-time emoji poll Steve used and that some people polled negatively. He asked for those individuals to email him directly so there could be resolution. Jameson says this is a fine line, as some people, especially introverts, may be less inclined to speak up unless the feedback is anonymous.
- Adult learners often hide the fact that they’re trying to acquire a new skill because they don’t want to look bad.
- We had a collective eye-roll on how Maxine hacked into the engine sensor to have it contact Parts Unlimited instead of the manufacturer. They even admitted this was likely illegal. But it’s fun, so on we go — haha!
- Having a failure-positive culture is profound. Identify, admit to, and learn from failures.
- We had to look up Wardley maps.
- Granted, Maxine’s character is blown out of proportion. Given the context of her functional programming chops bringing 23 API calls down to one, thereby saving the company over $1 million each year… How common is it to just waltz in to various parts of the company and bippity-boppity-boop million-dollar savings? Maybe the developers knew there was an opportunity, but it never got high enough priority.
Epilogue
- The TEP-LARB has been disbanded. Geoff wondered why they couldn’t have fixed it instead of destroying it. Jameson agreed, sarcastically adding, “Hooray! No more process!” People make bad choices sometimes; there needs to be some form of accountability.
- Houston called BS on customers buying the engine sensors because they loved the Parts Unlimited mobile app so much.
- The QA department has been disbanded, and the testers are now distributed among the teams. We all agreed this was a poor choice. You can have cross-functional teams, but you still need departmental advocates for training, management, and defending people in those roles.
- The book gets heavy-handed claiming that this auto parts company transformed IT (mind you, by following a process that other companies had figured out) thereby “creating prosperity for all segments of society.”
Distinguished Engineer Job Description
- This position should be available at any tech company. You need a technical track and a management track.
- Geoff found it interesting that one of the requirements of the role is about governance and architectural review. This sounds just like the TEB-LARB the company just threw away. Hmmm.
Overall Thoughts
- Our group had much to say, albeit most of that was complaining.
- Some of our thoughts may have been influenced by us having read The Phoenix Project.
- The narrative is heavy-handed and clumsy. There were also many typos and grammar issues that could have been caught by another read-through before publishing.
- Houston said the Five Ideals were a solid takeaway for him.
- Dennis, who had read most of the book in audiobook format before joining the book club, stated he thought he liked the book until we started discussing it and digging deeper.
- The audiobook format has a monotone narrator.
- Jameson was hoping the book would have been more practical instead of a fairy tale where everything works out.
- We agreed: 3 out of 5.