Summary Gene Kim's The Unicorn Project

By IRB Media

Get the Summary Gene Kim's The Unicorn Project in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: In The Unicorn Project, we follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect, as she is exiled to the Phoenix Project, to the horror of her friends and colleagues, as punishment for contributing to a payroll outage. She tries to survive in what feels like a heartless and uncaring bureaucracy and to work within a system where no one can get anything done without endless committees, paperwork, and approvals.

One day, she is approached by a ragtag bunch of misfits who say they want to overthrow the existing order, to liberate developers, to bring joy back to technology work, and to enable the business to win in a time of digital disruption. To her surprise, she finds herself drawn ever further into this movement, eventually becoming one of the leaders of the Rebellion, which puts her in the crosshairs of some familiar and very dangerous enemies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Dec 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669344506

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Gene Kim's The Unicorn Project

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Maxine was sent to the Phoenix Project. Chris, the VP of RD at a parts manufacturer, was unable to defend himself, as Maxine pointed her finger right into his face and yelled this was bullshit.

#2

Maxine, the company’s head of software, is blamed for the parts shortage that is affecting the entire company. She is sent to the cafeteria to serve customers, an act that humiliates her.

#3

The author had a two-week vacation in Kuala Lumpur ruined by her boss, Chris, who gave her a tour of the facilities and told her about the company’s current issues.

#4

Maxine is so excited to be going to parts headquarters that she doesn't even care that she is being sent away. Her new manager, Glenn, gives her a quick hug and pats her back, wishing her the best of luck.

#5

Maxine is a systems engineer at Parts Unlimited, a large auto parts manufacturer. She is driving to the company's headquarters to meet with her boss. Along the way, she remembers all the good and bad things about working for the company.

#6

The author was assigned to work in the Phoenix Project building. The author was appalled to see how bad the reputation of the building was, when in reality, it was much worse.

#7

Maxine was horrified to discover that the company she was supposed to be helping with their documentation was instead paying contractors to just sit around. The contractors were developers, and Maxine was offended by the notion that they would be prevented from contributing.

#8

The author met with one of the developers, Randy, who gave her a tour of the office. She was surprised to learn that the Phoenix Project used caveman technical practices. The author also learned that without constant feedback forced a centralized build, integration, and test system, the developers have no idea what will happen when their work is merged with everyone else’s.

#9

Chris had a difficult time finding any source code from the Phoenix Project, since it was all written in-house.

#10

The author was working for a company that was migrating to Phoenix. She was given the role of Data Wrangler, which meant she was in charge of managing the data of the entire company.

#11

The author has