The Phoenix Project: A Novel About It, Devops, And Helping Your Business Win Essay Examples

Introduction

Most of the suffering organizations think that by integrating advanced technology into their businesses is going to solve their issues overnight because the managers will fall into the flawed paradigm that gives them the reason to believe into the operational ability of IT department to solve strategic issues. The character of Bill Palmer did not have a team in his department, and everybody was calling him for assistance and with the passage of time, he had to run ragged in order to solve the widespread crashes that the technological equipment and infrastructure had across the whole organization. The strategic leadership change at the top of the company occurred recently. However, the change could not make a huge difference because the issues those faced by the organization were operational in nature, and therefore, they needed a quick resolution. However, each departmental head was treating Bill as a key towards solving their issues for good. The employees and managers faced challenges while performing their jobs because they failed in terms of building collaborative culture and mindset to say the least, and all of them were stonewalling each other so that their inefficiencies cannot resurface in the top of a pond filled with organizational rubbish.
Q.1
The organization had structural and cultural problems those surrounded the minds of the participants as a fog. The efforts of poor Bill were going to waste because he was trying to make things right, but every day the corporate ship was falling apart. According to organizational scientific theory, the organizations have to create synergies within themselves so that each depart can help all others in the conquest of realizing strategic outcomes of the company. The competitors were gaining ground because they were able to integrate teamwork within the well divided organizational setups. The Parts Unlimited did not have a culture of departmentalization, and the leaders in this regard did not foresee the futuristic development that the company has to embrace in order to sustain in the long term perspective. The organization had to learn to seed a trend of collaboration between marketing and production departments because ni manufacturing industry, one department has to report the changing needs of the customers and other has to modify production technology in order to cater those client requirements respectively (Kim, Behr, & Spafford, 2013, p.28).
Q.2
The strategic thinkers were talking about the change, and they were not actually making their ingenious planning to work that will create a viable and notable difference in the destiny of a dying out. The leaders were fans of status quo, and they gave the nefarious trend the falsified name of stability that did not allow the company to reach its inherent and true potentials to say the least. The former CEO was brought into the company, and the existing one had to step down. The new leadership was having a challenge of bringing a disastrous change in the organizations within next six months, and Bob Strauss, the new chairman of the company was panicking because the project was going down and they did not have any cure insight. The skills of Bob were clumsy because he was unaware of doing business in the technologically mediated era of the 21st century, and he was breaking down. Steve on the other hand had worked in the refreshed organizational system, and he had quite an innovative idea developing in the back of his head. However, the individual did not have the courage to articulate his plans because they were too ambitious and the senior management may not have approved of those sketchy routes that the company could not see clearly. Steve was brave enough to inspire Bill into taking a lead role in the process of implementing Phoenix that was late regarding deliverance of its promised outcomes. They needed a war room in order to manage the climatic result that was hovering over their heads. The development of war room symbolizes the presence of confusion and disorientation in the organization.
The Phoenix was an information technology solution that would have integrated company’s major systems into a unified networking blueprint. However, lacking departmentalization caused underlying problems appear as if they were gigantic issues. The managers were not working effectively, and Bill was running around aimlessly within the whole organization.
Q.3
Steve saw potential in him and therefore, he was willing to take the risk of entrusting the poor man with extraordinary responsibility to lead the shockwave of change that will have came in the shape of successful implement of the Phoenix project. The character of Brent was a central one as far as the working of IT was concerned, but he was with a technical mind, and therefore, he did not understand the problem of managerial nature. The leading role of Steve made the company experience revival once again.
Steve bestowed Bill with empowerment and he in turn used the unhinged skills of Brent to construct an effective networking system, and the organization as a result of these changes became strategically alive, and it started to balance its internalities with environmental externalities. The sales went skyrocketing after all. Brent’s character was introduced in the opening page of the novel as lead engineer, but his role remained domant in terms of visibility because the employees did not receive empowerment from the managers, and therefore, when they did then, the ticket to front row was for no one, but Brent. He managed the higher ordered technical issues those hindered the integrative ability of information technology in the organizational context. The changes in the organizational psychological climate occurred because Steve empowered Bill to take the lead with reference to the implementation of the Phoenix Project, and it jolted creativity and teamwork in the organization as well. The element of teamwork in turn created the power to support unconventional thinking and problem soling in the Parts Unlimited.
Q.4
The theory of constraints helps the management in identifying the most critical factors those are posing hindrance in the implementation of a particular project. In the case of Phoenix, the technical side of the company could not receive modifications if the psychological one is not operating at peak efficiency, and Steve was able to crack the organizational riddle. He firstly divided the company into various departments, and requested head of each one to present the technical needs of his or her department those Bill fulfilled proficiently. Additionally, the development of departments cleared the minds of managers and employees. The realized their specific technical needs and therefore, they gave Bill specific instructions in this regard as well. Steve gave Bill a specific task to accomplish, and he was not to it in a flash, and therefore, he marked the significant problems those were behaving as major obstacles towards the success of the planned technological change. Bill was not alone in this regard because he had Steve to provide managerial support and Brent for technical help, and the rest of the company just adjusted accordingly around these three persons who no doubt made an effective team.

Conclusion (Q.5)

This paper analyzed a novel that discussed the case of an organization moving towards an untimely death. However, it was saved from the demise with the help of teamwork and collaborative management. I have personally learn that teamwork matters in terms of sustaining operational and strategic future of the companies in all industries. The flatter organizations with free communicational culture are the methods of doing business in the modern era.

References

Kim, G., Behr, K., & Spafford, G. (2013). The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win. New York: IT Revolution Press.