Must-read books / articles

Hi all,

After seeing this topic, I’m curious about what books and/or articles are must reads regarding software, DevOps, flows, scrum, kanban etc.

I haven’t read books about these subjects, but I know that a lot of people in this business learn lots from reading those books. So I’m looking for books / articles that’ve inspired you or where you’ve learned a lot from. Right now I want to learn more about working agile with kanban for example.

All tips are very welcome!

@bversluijs one of my colleagues actually pinged me about your thread because he knew I had a great experience reading The Phoenix Project. :slight_smile:

I came from a job completely unrelated to DevOps, but someone recommended this to me to help explain agile development and the problems it helps solve. It turned out to be one of the best books I’ve ever read about solving business / IT needs. It explains everything in a narrative format, it almost feels like you’re reading someone’s blog (the good ones), which makes it very relatable and just brings home the value of these sorts of dev processes and ways of thinking.

Anyway, I’m glad you asked so I could share that book with someone other than my co-workers who are probably tired of hearing about it by now. Happy reading, and feel free to share if you find something else valuable as well!

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Hi Kenna,

Thanks for your response! I’ve seen it a couple of times browsing for the right books, but it sounds like I can learn a lot from this! It’ll be delivered in a couple of days, and I’ll definitely share my findings about the book!

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Wow, long time since I’ve ordered the book!
I’ve started reading the book once I got it. It’s been a while since I’ve read books, so after a few chapters, I stopped for some reason.

Picked up the book again about a week or 2 ago, and finished it today! Once I started again, I couldn’t stop reading. I’m currently not working at a big firm, but some things were very relatable. Some things were new for me, but learned a lot. And it’s nice to read in a novel-like way, so you understand what the problem is and how they solved it. Can recommend this book to anyone, whether they’re in IT or not.

I’ve ordered “The DevOps Handbook” as well as “The Unicorn Project”, which are all from the same main writer. So I think it’s save to say I liked it and can’t wait to continue reading!

Thanks for the awesome tip @the-real-kenna!

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@bversluijs, oh wow, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!

You seem to have had an experience similar to mine… it took me a bit to pick it up after a long time of not reading for enjoyment (DevOps is “enjoyment” now; boy my life has changed, lol). But once I started it, I couldn’t put it down and just read straight through to the end. Tech books can often be so dry, which is usually fine enough, but the narrative format really gave me the context I needed to put it all together so much faster than I would have reading anything else.

Anyway, let me know how the other two books go! I’ve considered picking them up but never actually done it… if you like them it might convince me to pull the trigger, haha. Thanks so much for remembering this convo and letting me know how the book went!

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